Absolutely brilliant skies over Lony past two nights. Acropolite must be having a field'night' with his new LX90. However I have been star hopping through the milkyway myself with my 76mm.
First after just some arbitary scanning I happened upon a markedly bright cloud just to the west of Crux and upon some research I determined this most likely to be the ETA Carinae Nebula. Quite brilliant, dotted with individual light points in some intricate patterns.
Bouyed on by this first sniff off success I set off this evening to find Omega Centauri which was just visible to the naked eye once I used a star chart to narrow down the area of sky it inhabited. Through the telescope a hazy but reasonably brilliant cloud appeared roughly circular in shape.
Any suggestions for other targets for small scopes will be greatly appreciated.
Happy Viewing All
