Small scopes on an alt-az mount are fun

45.7667 N
Sept 3

According to accuweather, scheduled to have showers at 7pm, which means there was not a cloud in the sky.

(amateur astronomers look at the forecast differently to "normal" folks  - post for another day)

Set up.

Sat by the fire about 50 or so metres away to keep warm and chat to Fred while it got dark.

Venus was the first beacon, shining like a plane light coming towards me fairly low in the west.  Would start with the objects about to set.  At about 40 X magnification could see the gibbous disc.

The not-quite-white-yellowish naked eye glow of Saturn, which came next.

“Hello beautiful”.  I’ll never get sick of looking at, well, any of the planets.

But Saturn, is so identifiable.  The colour, the shape, the grand swoop of the rings around the planet.

What I thought was one of its moons Titan (along the ring plane, about 5 “Saturns” away) was (I later found out) just a star in the field of view.   Titan was the smaller dot “above” the planet, about 2 Saturn discs away.  I didn't have my laptop with me - a Twitter friend in the UK looked it up in Stellarium for me (thanks Mark).

I looked around me.  The Milky way was starting to become visible.  A couple of mozzie bites, a slight breeze keeping the dew down for now.  No dew heather on tonight, mostly to save my battery pack for Algonquin.

On to Scorpius, where I could easily see M4 through my 9X finderscope.  Good seeing.

East of Scorpius but before Sagittarius Ophiucus winds its way quite low, between these two constellations.

After M4, I was on the hunt for more globulars.

M19, easy catch at about 50X mag.

Could even just see NGC 6284 as a non stellar object.

M62

Thought I’d look for M6 since the sightlines were good – like the southern sky (not hemisphere but direction) equivalent of the Pleiades in that it’s a naked eye smudge but through binoculars or telescope at low power the stars  form a very pretty open cluster.

Was whizzing through objects too quickly to sketch them tonight, just want to see what I can see.

Upwards to M107, another globular.

Felt like looking north.

M81/82 at fairly low magnification, two for one galaxies.  Two galaxies in the one field of view.  Two doses of awesome.

One edge on, one face on.

Nova Delph 13 very high in the sky.  Dimming, was about mag 4.5 when I first saw it August 17 at the CAO , about mag 6 last weekend.

Cor Caroli – back to the north

M63 – another galaxy – small smudge

M108 – smudge

M51 – about the favorite face on galaxy I have for observing.  Yes, I know I need a light bucket – only so much I can see with an 80mm refractor, but even at low power I can see the bright central core and interacting arms of this galaxy cannibalizing another one 37 million light years away.

Dew - egads.  Going to pack it in, wasn't that late, around 11pm - but my optics were dewy and to be honest I was getting a little "hair on the back of my neck" feeling.  There are bears around, but haven't seen any here.