Of Comets and Globular Clusters

12 July 2020, 00:00 – 2:00

Conditions: Mild with a very light wind. Some condensation (not forecast on clearoutside.com)

Seeing: Average
Transparency: Poor / average

Astronomy is not known for being a hectic pursuit, but this month it’s all been happening: the crowded star-fields of Sagittarius at their best (including my last three elusive Messier targets), Jupiter and Saturn at opposition, and – as if that wasn’t enough – a naked-eye comet that actually lived up to the hype. This was the second of three consecutive clear nights. Nights one and three were devoted exclusively to early-morning comet-chasing; on this night (11-12 July) I popped round to my local park to take some photos before returning home to catch up on some deep-sky observing.

Comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE itself was too low and in the wrong part of the sky to get my telescope on, but 7x50 binoculars gave a really good view, clearly showing the bright star-like pseudo-nucleus and the long dust tail extending several degrees, gently curving up and away from the horizon. I wouldn’t rank it as a Great Comet like Hyakutake and Hale-Bopp, but it’s certainly the best one I’ve seen for many years.

In a new strategy, I put bricks beneath the observing table to give the XT10 the little extra clearance it needed to reach below -32 degrees declination. The arrangement was more stable than it looked, but it’s not something I want to repeat too many times. All observations at 133x (9mm Nagler).

NGC 6624, globular cluster, Sagittarius
Fairly large condensed blur. Bright core with averted vision. Near Delta Sgr.

Given that I could clearly see NGC 6624 (at -30.3 degrees) you’d think I would have been able to see M69 and M70, but once again those two extra degrees of declination made all the difference. I may have glimpsed M69 as an extremely faint blur, but I need a follow-up observation to be sure.

M54, globular cluster, Sagittarius
Back up to -30 degrees again and this globular was no problem at all. Small, bright, condensed; as noted previously.

Bright ISS pass at 12:50.

M22, globular cluster, Sagittarius
Rich, large mass of stars – a little hazy tonight (its more typical appearance in UK skies, I think). Prominent rift on leading side, west of the core. Seemed quite loose at 133x.

I also tried (somewhat optimistically) for M55, but any chance of seeing it was hindered by the light from the rising last quarter moon. I spent the remainder of the session looking at Jupiter and Saturn, but poor seeing meant I only got fleeting glimpses of fine detail.