Observing the milkyway with 20x90mm Binoculars

Hi all, I hope you all had a decent view of the perseids. Last night cleared up very nicely, so I decided to bring out my 20x90mm binoculars with a 3.2 degree field of view mounted on my parallelogram mount, which I hadn't done so in a few months. The sky was gleaming with bright stars, with the arch of the milkyway really gobsmacking

I started with M8, the Lagoon nebula, and what a sight, even at only about 10 degrees up at most, it was so bright with a ghostly pale green hue about 1.5 degrees long in an east-west direction. Sparkling slightly to the east was the starcluster NGC6530, a cluster of about 30 stars which were obviously born from the nebula, which from our distance, looked quite serene. I even managed to spot a relatively faint globular cluster NGC6544 to the southeast glowing at around magnitude 9, but no stars discernable, probably due to it's low altitude.

Moving upwards 2 degrees showed the Trifid nebula M20, and starcluster M21. I detected a slight hint of neblosity around a single star, even with 90mm binoculars it was hard to see anything else, M21 looked a lovely little cluster about a quarter of a degree in size, it's brightest star shining at about magnitude 7.

Moving northwest to M23, I couldn't help but get the feeling of isolation when looking at this cluster as it is very faint overall, it seemed embedded in a large area of galactic dust. It's stars are quite faint too, even though there were easily about 100 visible, the brightest at about magnitude 8.

I the moved across Sagittarius to M28, anaother low and small globular in a relativly sparse field, but easily seen all the same, however, this was nothing comp[ared to M22, this great globular cluster was huge, at least 3 times as wide as M28, and showing it's 5th magnitude visiblity very well. Using averted vision, there were easily hundreds of stars on show, I couldn't help peering into it's core over and over again, falling for it's pale grey hue everytime.

Going up about 5 degrees brought me to the easily seen starcluster M25, with a beautiful orange star U Sagittarii gleaming brightly at 6th magnitude, surrounded by about 20 stars. The lovely arch of stars extending from and over the cluster and back again really presented a lovely view of bright blue stars.

And so to M24, the small sagittarius starcloud, a name which really doesn't do this justice, one of my favourite parts of the night sky, what you can actually see is a window of about 12,000 light years into our galaxy towards the milkyway's centre thanks to a clearing of all that dust Stars here were innumerable, and the cluster NGC6603,as some class as M24 really couldn't be seen that well as it is very faint, I can only wonder did Charles Messier really see it with the telescopes of his time? To the west of M24 was a lot of galactic dust intermingled with further distant starfields, very faint and tantalizingly out of reach. I could also see easily see both dark nebulae Barnard 92 & 93, two opaque blobs of dust almost in 3D blocking starlight form ever distant. Even knowing the the dwarf planet Pluto was close by made me smile

A little north on M24 was the little starcluster M18, I have to say was unimpressive as it was so small, and seemed to consist of only about 10 stars or so, a comet lookalike in Messiers time? hardly not?

Even better was the Swan nebula M17, a ghostly hued, almost staight line of neblosity about one-third of a degree long orientated in an east west direction, tapering off on the eastern side. I could see a dark patch of dense dust on the western side intervening with the neblosity giving the apperance of a small hook. It did appear that this was only a small part of a larger asociation with a lot of dust. There is a beautiful 5th manitude orange field star just north and west.

Going north again to the Eagle Nebula M16 showed a large nebulous cluster at the top end of the shape of the letter S, the eagle nebula could not be seen amongst a bright nebula using averted vision.

Afer an hour and a half, the legs were getting tired, so I finished off northwards at starclusters IC2187 and NGC 6664 in Scutum, two lovely little gems embedded in dust, one could only help but thinking of inhabitants on a planet orbiting any one of those stars - how obscure and dark the universe would seem.
Closeby the the east were M26, a small condensed starcluter and even NGC6712, a globular cluster comparable in size and brightness to M28.

Finally, M11 the wild duck cluster was superb, glittering with so many stars deeply compacted from an 8th magnitude star to it's east. The cluster did show a shape of a V on it's side pointing eastwards. Moving 2 degrees west parked my 20x90's on the scutum starcloud, so deep with uncountable stars.

Keith..