Friday's Observing at Canterbury (28/08/09)

Weather was not looking good for the observing this friday with cloud and rain until 9:30pm.

Between the hours of 10 - 11pm some cloud was driffing past but we still got good views of deep sky objects.

Objects Observed

M27 - Dumbbell Nebula

Coment Christensen around magnitude 11 but still very bright fuzzy mass.

NGC 6946 - Galaxy Face on in Cygnus which three of the four of us could see the central mass as a faint glow but you had to spent at least 10seconds before you could see this galaxy.  I would ensure the sky is dark and very clear to see this.  We still have not seen this galaxy in an 11" SCT so unless you use the telescope at the Canterbury observatory or you have your own scope 14" or bigger i doubt this will be seen easily.

NGC 6934 - Globular Cluster in Delphius where some of the stars were visible.

NGC 7006 - Globular Cluster in Delphinus which provded difficult to resolve the stars of as it was quite small.

NGC 6905 - Blue Flash nebula, I can recommed anyone looking at this object which is on par with M57.  You should be able to see this object in a 6" telescope easily.

Jupiter - This was difficult to see at the beginning of the evening but around 11:30pm the atmosphere stablised and a good amount of detail was visible on the disc.  No great red spot or the small white spot but festoons and shape in the southern equitorial belt.

Milkyway was certainly visible naked eye and at least two meteors were observerd going through Aquila

The evening ended at 2:30am