2005-08-16

After some time of just sitting and looking and sweeping around with the binocular I went to see if I could see M29 with them (having found but failed to identify it with the 'scope back on 2005-07-16). Found it with no trouble at all. It stood out as a reasonably bright fuzzy object with a hint of "grain" to it. Through the binocular I can see why Messier would have included it in the catalogue.

Watched a satellite pass roughly South to North through Cygnus with the naked eye. It appeared to occult one of either 30 or 31 Cygni. It was hard to tell which, if either, it did occult but it came very close — so close that it looked like it occulted.

Saw a brief flash of light just near Vega in Lyra. The flash was less than a second long and was much brighter than Vega. Annoyingly I didn't note down where it was in relation to Vega.

Expecting it to be an aircraft I kept an eye on it for a couple of seconds to see if it happened again but didn't see anything. Had a sweep of the general area with binocular but couldn't see any evidence of a satellite either. I suspect that it probably was a satellite but failed to find it after the flash although I guess there's the possibility that it was a pinpoint meteor (a meteor that appeared to be heading right at me).

With binocular I think I've found M103 in Cassiopeia. Could see a faint, fuzzy object in what appeared to be the correct location but could generally only see it with averted vision (not surprising given how light the sky was and given the faint haze that seemed to be hanging around). It appeared to be within a shallow triangle of three faint stars.

Further checking with Starry Night confirmed that it was M103.

Also, about half way between δ and ε, I noticed what looks like another fuzzy object just "below" three stars in a line. Noted that I should check on some charts later to see what, if anything, it is.

Checking with Starry Night the three stars in a line were HIP8106, HIP8020 and HIP7939. The fuzzy object would appear to have been a collection of stars in the region of HIP8239. While this is a tight grouping of stars it doesn't appear that it is any sort of cluster.

With binocular I think I've found M52 in Cassiopeia. Noticed what looked like a fuzzy star that was alongside a triangle of stars. One side of the triangle is cut by a curved line of five stars.

To aid in checking later on made the following sketch:

The "fuzzy" in the sketch wasn't as obvious to the eye as the sketch might suggest but it does give a good idea of the location and the suggested size is probably about right.

Checking with Starry Night: confirmed that it was M52.

The sky was getting more misty and lighter so decided to call an end to the session.