Location: my backyard
Time: 8pm – 11pm
cloud cover: none
temperature: low 60s
humidity: maybe 60% climbing to 80%
seeing: good (4/5)
transparency: excellent (5/5)
darkness: no moon, suburban light pollution
instrument: 8″ SCT

Don and Carol came, brought binoculars. We started by observing Jupiter. Polar cloud caps visible, almost convinced myself I could see the GRS. Four moons visible, Don and I remembered all names but Callisto.

Pointed out summer triangle Vega-Deneb-Altair and constellation Cygnus. Observed familiar double stars Albireo and epsilon lyrae.

Clusters next. Started with M39 OC in Cygnus: clear blue pinpoints. Then looked at M15 GC in Pegasus: fuzzy ball with several distinct stars.

Next came planetary nebulae M27 in Vulpecula and M57 in Lyra. Outline of M27 was distinct but dumbell shape difficult to discern. Carol’s eyes seemed more sensitive than Don’s or mine. Ring of M57 clear, Carol could see dim star at center. First time I remember seeing planetaries so clearly.

Moved to Andromeda M31. Again Carol could see some swirling where Don and I only saw fuzzy core.

Ice giants came last. Uranus was a nice cyan disk with a white spec, remarkable color. Neptune was small, hard to make out as a disk or any color.

Finally used binoculars to view rising Pleiades. Very nice view in 12×50. Air was still enough for me to see three or four stars with naked eye, in the past it seems like I mostly saw a collective glow.

Dew became a problem later, corrector began fogging lightly around 10:45 even with dew shield. Humidity had coated the binocular

Saw Albireo double blue and yellow, very nice. Didn’t realize last night I should have been looking for double-double in epsilon Lyra. Revisited tonight, but could not resolve inner doubles with 3″ newtonian and 7.9mm eyepiece.

Also shopped nebula filters today; considering buying the Meade #908N Narrowband Nebular Filter.

Caught Arcturus low in the west, twinkling across a wide spectrum, beautiful.

Also viewed Vega and Lyra-epsilon (double). Spotted M57 dim but distinct. Saw M29, but there are so many stars in Cygnus it’s hard to know which are part of that cluster.

Also wanted to try M2 and M15, but the mosquitos were terrible. Need more candles.