M25...at the third attempt.

Hi all

Another frustrating night, that nice lady reading the weather on RTE informed us that the east coast will be clear, sure enough it turned out to be, set up the equipment, got the best alignment I've had in a long time, turned to Sagittarius for some double stars and the clouds rolled in. : angry:

Some breaks occured and I managed to get two double stars and a sketch of M25. It took three attempts to get this sketch down, I'd draw a bit, the clouds would roll in, clear and then get another bit until on the third attempt it was finished. But it was worth it in my opinion.



I really liked the big smile at the heart of the cluster.

with the low declination of almost -20 for M25, wasn't it difficult to sketch?

thanks for that smile, something to look for, if I sweep once again in these low regions:)

-20 dec is not that far south, not as far as you would imagine and it's possible to see even further south, not too much further from my back garden.

It would be interesting to know what is the most southerly object that one of the forum members have seen from Ireland.

Personally I've seen M54 and M69, at -30 and -32 dec, that was from a house in Wexford with a stunning southerly view.

From my back garden I've seen M28 at -24, much lower than that and the trees begin to interfere.

Nice sketch Paul. I remember seeing M7 low on the horizon from the Trabolgan holiday village in Cork a few years ago, it is about -34 degrees, the only time I have seen it from Ireland. With the light pollution in Belfast, I can only see really bright objects to the far south, Jupiter at the moment, Antares, Kaus Borealis if I'm lucky. I can see most of Sagittarius from Mia's house, and I have seen M22 from Jonathan's, so it's not too bad.

Lovely sketch, Paul. I also went out expecting a clear sky to find clouds. But I decided to clean up the observatory and an hour later they had cleared. Boy am I glad I stayed out!

The lowest observations I have recorded are NGC288 and NGC6144, both between -26 and -27. But anything below about -20 never rises out of Drogheda's light dome from my location. There are some targets -- the Little Ghost PN comes to mind -- that are bright enough to punch through the soup, but they're few and far between.

Cheers,
-- Jeff.

Nice sketch there, M25 is a really fantastic wide cluster to look at. Personally I've spotted the 'cats eyes' in Scorpius barely! from the coast in waterford some years ago

At -37 degrees :woohoo: This shot is of M7 and M6. The 2 stars are at bottom right.

s56.photobucket.com/albums/g172/Keithg1_...7starclustersweb.jpg

Keith..