13-14 May 2021, 23:30 – 00:30 (BST)
Seeing: Average / Good
Transparency: Average
An unexpectedly clear night (for an hour at least), defying every forecast I’d looked at. Cool air, no wind (at ground level), light condensation on the telescope tube after a few minutes, but fortunately the lenses and mirrors stayed clear. Clouds low in the south, moving slowly north.
Anticipating that my observing time would be limited I stuck with just one eyepiece for the session: the 13mm Ethos at 92x.
M5, globular cluster, Serpens Caput
A beautiful sight with 5 Serpentis in the same field. Once again, V84 was at least as bright if not brighter than V42. Otherwise the cluster appeared much as it did on Tuesday night.
5 Serpentis was comfortably split at 92x. The companion star seemed a little brighter tonight; perhaps the transparency was better.
NGC 5921, galaxy, Serpens Caput
Small, faint fuzzy oval next to a y-shaped (or h-shaped, depending on your field orientation) pattern of field stars. Brighter towards the centre with averted vision.
NGC 5970, galaxy, Serpens Caput
Ghostly oval glow just south of a bright field star. Gradually brighter towards the centre with averted vision. Nice yellow-blue double star to the east (identified in NSOG as Otto Struve 300).
NGC 5962, galaxy, Serpens Caput
Round hazy glow with a bright core. Star-like nucleus with averted vision – seemed slightly offset to the east.
M13, globular cluster, Hercules
The 13mm Ethos doesn’t necessarily give the “best” view of globular clusters (in terms of resolving fine detail and pulling out the fainter stars), but it often gives the most beautiful, the Great Globular in Hercules being a prime example. When you see it in such a wide field that the field stop effectively disappears from view, it’s like being out there in space with it. And there’s always something new to see if you look carefully enough. For example, tonight I noticed two lines of stars running through M13 (parallel to the two 7th magnitude stars flanking the cluster). One running straight through the centre, and the other slightly offset to the southeast, adjacent to one of the arms of the propeller feature (adding to the contrast effect).
By now the patchy clouds advancing from the south had covered nearly half the sky, pushing me farther north.
NGC 6015, galaxy, Draco
One of the galaxies I missed the other night. Appeared as an extended lenticular haze east of a field star. Brighter towards the centre with averted vision.
With the clouds pushing me still farther north, there was just time for a quick look at Nova Cassiopeiae 2021 (aka V1405 Cas), which has brightened dramatically in recent days. (See: https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/observing-news/nova-in-cassiopeia-brightens-suddenly/ )
I didn’t have a finder chart to hand so I had to identify it by comparing the field stars on my atlas to the ones visible in the finderscope. Fortunately it stood out really well at around magnitude 5.5. The Ethos showed it in the same field as rich open cluster M52. A very nice appetiser as I wait for my elusive first supernova.
At this point it seemed like the patchy clouds might leave some clear sky behind them, but then the wind abruptly reversed direction and an even thicker bank of cloud rolled across from the north, putting an end to the session.
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