Cassiopeia through the Haze

2 September 2021, 21:40 – 23:10 (BST)

Seeing: Average / poor

Transparency: Poor – very poor

Conditions: Patchy cloud with an overlying haze; moderate breeze. The nights are drawing in quickly now. This was the first “clear-ish” evening in several weeks, but the hazy transparency that seems to bedevil autumn skies was particularly bad tonight, ruling out any plans I had of going after faint galaxies.

So instead I took a leisurely stroll along the Milky Way at 92x (Ethos 13mm), starting at M57, and visiting M71, M27, the Veil Nebula (with the OIII filter), before arriving at the rich area of sky near M52 in Cassiopeia.

The Bubble Nebula (NGC 7635) was visible in the same field as M52 at 92x (with the OIII filter). It was also visible without the filter with averted vision, although the poor transparency made it even more subtle than usual. While sweeping with the OIII filter I also stumbled across NGC 7538 (the Northern Lagoon). Nearby clusters NGC 7510 and Markarian 50 also showed well, sharing the same field of view at 92x (unfiltered).

Collinder 463, open cluster, Cassiopeia

92x. One I’ve been meaning to revisit for a while, but the poor conditions may have compromised it somewhat. Appeared as a misty patch in the finder. In the main scope it showed as a large, sprawling cluster – even in the Ethos it seemed very loose. Comprised of mostly blue-white stars, interspersed with a few red-orange stars. One for smaller wide-field scopes.

With the transparency visibly deteriorating, I gave up on deep-sky targets and rounded off the session with a look at Saturn at 240x, glimpsed through a gap in the neighbour’s jungle. The seeing wasn’t great tonight either, but the planet’s post-opposition shadow was visible on the rings, and the moon Iapetus was showing well (for once).