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Hi James & All,
Very interesting report mate and thanks for taking the time to post it. I was most interested by your assessment of the seeing. I think there is a typo in there on one of the PNe -- NGC 6867 might be NGC 2867 -- a very nice PNe in Carina
I just woke up from being out at Bargo last night till 3am and the seeing was the best there I've seen for about 3-4 years -- really small, tight star images. Sirius B (the pup) was a walk in the park at x185 and x247. It was for me an 8/10 occasionally verging on 9/10 seeing-wise. SQM-L reading was 21.33 at midnight. Not too shabby either.
Later in the night I had my best look at the Homunculus for a couple of years at x317 and x462 (even though it was only at 40 deg elevation) and then we passed on to some superb PNe IC 418 (Spirograph Nebula -- x634 at zenith), NGC 2818A (x462), NGC 2393 (Eskimo Nebula -- x462 at only 40 deg elevation), NGC 2440 (x634 nr zenith), NGC 3242 (Ghost of Jupiter x317) all with OIII or UHC.
Tack-sharp star images at x462 is an extreme rarity around Sydney and was savoured hungrily by the five other observers who were with me. Eyegasms all round. A night to remember.
On nights like this, I don't muck around with galaxies, it's the small, high surface-brightness PNe that are the real eye-openers.
Best,
Les D
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