Hi All,
Just wanted to tell everyone about an amazing half hour I had last night, Wednesday 31st, with my binoculars.
I don’t know what it is where I live but the dew in winter is ridiculous. I can’t see any telescope dew heater arrangement being able to deal with it. Water drips from everywhere like it’s been raining.
Anyway I had gone to bed but couldn’t sleep so got up and wandered outside. I noticed a star on the horizon was not doing it’s crazy dance, flickering through the atmosphere as they normally do, so stood at the edge of the patio and saw a beautifully clear and still sky. I’ve lived at my current location for about 15 years and can’t remember the Scorpius / Sagittarius region showing so much naked eye detail. At first I was annoyed about not being able to have the scope out and then thought of my bino’s.
Got a chair set up at the edge of the patio and sat down to some absolute treats. At first I just aimlessly scanned the area then honed in on a few things that stood out. Because I’m not a serious amateur and it was hard when all I had was a scope, I’ve neglected learning my way around the sky but this is what I’ve found the bino’s great for.
One of my favourite targets, The Lagoon Nebula was very clear and very bright. Close by was The Trifid Nebula which I have barely been able to see from my stupidly bright, sodium lamp lit backyard. I was wondering if that is what I was looking as it was so clearly visible. Not far away again was a decent sized fuzzy ball that was the globular cluster M22. I spent a bit of time with just these 3 targets going back and forth then working out where they were in relation to Sagittarius itself. Lastly I thought I’d catch a glimpse of Saturn. Bit hard to hold the binoculars steady enough but I could see there were lobes on either side.
About 20 minutes had then passed and as I was sitting in the cold with bed clothes and bare feet. I also don’t deal with cool temperatures at all. But I was very happy. So off to bed I went and was asleep within 10 minutes.
Thanks for reading.