Hi all, I've been a member of this forum for a number of years but I believe this is my first report on it, probably because our decent observing windows are so few and far between here in the UK that a particular thread is usually well old by the time I get an observation of an OOTW. Owen Brazell pointed this one out to me and an opportunity came on the night of Saturday 19th August. Scope used: a 600mm (24") F4.5 driven Dobsonian. Location: Norfolk,UK; about 12 miles West of Lowestoft (UK's most easterly point) and about 35 feet above sea level. My skies are quite dark for the UK but this was a milky night with NELM 5.5 at best, lower at times (Humidity can be a problem here and it was about 80% on this night.) Seeing was about Ant III, stars were sharp with an 8mm Ethos (x340), but starting to go blobby with a 4.7mm Ethos (x575).
I identified the star field using Alvin Huey's excellent chart as posted on this thread (thanks Alvin). I identified the mag 12 star in the centre of the field and the 2 fainter stars in a line above it. I immediately noticed the faint 'star' below the brighter one. I could see that it was elongated but I couldn't split it. I sketched the elongation and position in relation to the row of 3 stars and was pleased to note when checking afterwards that it tied in with the images. N.B. a 3.7mm Ethos (x730) didn't improve the view (seeing not good enough) but confirmed what I was seeing.
An exciting observation, thanks to all for the helpful information on this thread.
Andrew Robertson
Last edited by Andrew Robertson; August 22nd, 2017 at 10:08 AM.
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