This was an all-night session, and a very busy night indeed... maybe there is something worth posting.
Starting at 21:30, just after I've set up outside, the NLC arrived in north. See report in
NLC topic.
Next the Stratocumulus rolled in from west, hiding the NLC display from me and soon covering 50% of the sky. So there was a short break near 22:30-23:00 EEST. But shortly the sky cleared and I continued.
As the twilight faded out (closer to 23:30) I began just to wonder with the sky because I was nearly shocked with its quality. The transparency was great, some noticeable light pollution only in E, S & SW. The zenith was brilliant, I don't know exactly, but the NELM was somewhere between 5.5-6.0m which is great for my location.
I could see the Milky Way from Cassiopeia to Aquila and it was enough distinct, not like usually very faint (or invisible), and there was some structure visible within Cygnus. That night was the case when I can estimate my sky as 5 by Bortle, and not 5.5 either not 6.
I dreamed to test my new 20x90 bino. on a good clear night - and here is the moment! I was just gazing at the stars for an hour or so!
- hundreds of stars in the FOV is impessive indeed.
Here is an effort to make the most of a single frame...
23:53 EEST, 15sec @ ISO5000 f/2.8.
As result, the ML is 8.0+
The constellations are situated approx. like this:
It was already 00:00 and I thought to make a short meteor observation (mainly for JLY) for a hour or a bit more but next I realised that I have no time to do that!
That is the only bad thing which can happen on a summer night.
Next I set up to compare the view both from 76mm Newton and 90mm bino at some DSO's.
I have printed a few maps before... but I had a look only at M101, no time left for other objects...
(00:55 EEST)
M101 (in UMa) looked like a large elliptic (~16'x10') glow in binoculars. It was relatively faint with no details but visible good. ML was 11.6...12.0m
In telescope the ML was closely the same (~11.5m), but the galaxy was extremely hard to see, I shouldn't notice it if I didn't know the exact location.
I will post the sketches here a bit later.
At 01:30 I have quickly spotted a comet C/2006 W3 (Christensen) in binoculars - for the first time. This is my 6th comet and 2nd one this year. I will post a report in the following
topic.
A rare conjunction is going on now in the southern sky. Jupiter (-2.5m) & Neptune (+7.9m) were at their closest on May.27, next time on Jul.10.
Today they were 47' apart - within one telescopic FOV (@35x). I observed it at 02:25 EEST.
They looked brilliant in binos, actually there were
6 planets visible in the same FOV
(counting Jupiter's sats)I observed a lunar occultation of TYC 1231-903-1 (7.4m) which occured at 02:55:32.6 EEST (+/- 0.3sec)
And another photogenic conjunction this morning...
Mars (+1.1m) and Venus (-4.2m) in 2.0
o apart (visible in one binoculars FOV), and the Moon (phase 0.11-) in 8
o apart.
03:13
NLC also arrived at dawn, here is a shot with Moon, Venus, Mars & NLC together
03:07
