On 11 August evening, Monday, I noticed a break in the sky at about 2230 hrs and quickly carried my NexStar 5 down to a dark spot below my block of flats. There, I quickly got the waxing half moon in sight and what an incredible vision it was. Bright and silver, with the high contrast and clarity you could only imagine. This was even better than on the photographic plates.
Then, swinging the scope higher to zenith, I got Jupiter again in sight with her moons skirting her and I can imagine how easily it may have been for the early powered astronomers to have guessed that the necklace of light were the Jovian moons. I was also able to get sight of a few globular clusters which were near the moon and bright enough to be viewed through the thin equatorial cloud layers.
Tonight, there should be opportunity to get the Trifid Nebula (M20) again, and hopefully the others like Barnard's galaxy etc.
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