Friday night, we had a mostly clear night for new moon, in the southeast Virginia area. I spent the night observing in a yellow zone, with a limiting magnitude of about 5.9, maybe 6 at zenith. When I arrived, two people who I observe with frequently were already set up, with another on the way. All three of them are excellent observers. One observer was using a 5 inch takahashi refractor, and the rest of us were using 10 inch Orion Dobs. Once again, we started off the night observing bright objects until it got completely dark.
At about 10:15, when it was completely dark, I viewed M5, at 150x. I observe M13 almost every night out, but haven't observed M5 in forever. Too me, It's probably the second best globular in northern skies. I noted it's tight core, and the beautiful spray of stars surrounding it , mostly concentrated on the north side. This globular really does rival M13.
Now for a much smaller and dimmer globular, NGC 6642, this tiny globular has a bright star superimposed, and it also has a dim outer haze surrounding the core. This object is pretty easy to locate because of its close proximity to M22.
The highlight of the observing session was the obscure planetary nebula, Me 2-1, also known as He 2-126. It sits right next to a magnitude 9.8 star, and at 150x it shows a bright fuzzy, mottled, almost twisted core, surrounded by dim outer shell. Also the core is slightly elongated. I was amazed at how much detail could be discerned for such an obscure object, also none of the present observers had ever logged the object before.
I tried minkowski's butterfly and failed to see anything ,so afterwards me and two others decided to attempt the starfish galaxy, NGC 6240. The trick with objects that push the limits of your optics, is to be completely dark adapted and be absolutely certain you're looking where the object should be. I used sky tools to make sure I had the correct star field, and after spending about 10 minutes looking and using averted vision, a slight brightening was noticeable.
NGC 6645 is a neat open cluster, that fills in a diamond shaped area, with a double star inside of it. NGC 6781 is a beautiful planetary in Aquila, it shows features of the Owl Nebula, and the Ring nebula, also one side of it droops down somewhat. I also viewed the Bug Nebula in Scorpius, this a neat planetary nebula, the bipolar structure is easily noticeable. This is a truly unique object, it's interesting the way the outer structure fans out.
Other notable observations were Campbell's Hydrogen star, The Fetus nebula, The delphinus Globulars; NGC 7006 and 6934, and a few other bright showpiece objects such as M15 and NGC 7009. I spent the rest of the nigh observing bright objects I haven't seen in awhile. We also managed to split Antares in the 5 inch Takahashi refractor. I packed up around 2am and went home for the night.
NGC 6781
