Report - 2025-08-21

Peter's Viewing Log for 21st August 2025

This was the first viewing session of the new season, last time I was out was back on 4th of April, well overdue! I spoke to Phil earlier in the day and he said it was okay for my visit. I had my Meade LX90 set up and ready by 21:16, as usual I would be using my Pentax XW 14 mm eye piece. There was little wind with some cloud on the horizon, temperature of 15 °C, so it should be a comfortable session. The guide stars were Arcturus and Altair.

Unfortunately I could not start viewing as it was not dark enough! So I sat in my car for about another 15 minutes before I could start. At this time of the year, I would like to look in the Scorpio and Sagittarius area of the sky, low down in the south west part of the sky.

First target was Messier (M) 6 in Scorpio, this open cluster (OC) was very dim to look at but did have some bright stars within its group, being only 8 ° above the horizon does not help.

The next target, M 7 is two degree’s lower (the lowest Messier object in the whole sky) coming in with a declination of – 34 °, this OC was hard to see?
A bit higher up is M 80, a small fuzzy blob (FB) of a globular cluster (GC) which had a bright core.

Final object in this constellation was M 4, another GC close to the star Antares, unfortunately it was behind a tree so I could not view it! But I could view Antares, this is a bright star which looks similar to Mars, it is known as the rival of Mars.

Onto Sagittarius and hopefully bag most of the 15 Messier objects in this constellation before it drops below the horizon.

First object was M 69 which sits at the bottom of the ‘Teapot’ asterism (I would be slowly working my way northwards), this is a GC but was a faint fuzzy blob (FFB) to look at, does not help only being 8 ° up! Had to use adverted vision to locate it, the same story can be said for M 70, another GC close by.

On to M 54, another GC and a FB to look at, had a bright core.

On to the Lagoon nebula (M 8), an Emission nebula which looks wonderful in pictures but not to the naked eye, I could not make out any nebula at all just an OC to the east which might be connected to it?

Next was M 28, another GC which had a fairly bright centre. Nearby is M 22 which is also a GC, larger than M 28 had a bright centre and I could make out the odd star in this cluster.

The Trifid nebula, M 20 I could not make out, even using adverted vision, this is a star-forming region, and coming in with a Mag of 9.0 does not help me!

On to some OC’s now, starting with M 21 a very loose and sparse cluster. M 23 was similar to M 21 but is very large but still loose and sparse for stars. As for M 24, the Small Sagittarius Star Cloud I could not make out at all! M 25 is an OC which was hard to make out.

Finally an object I could make out, namely M 17, the Swan or Omega nebula, this star forming area was a large grey blob to look at. M 18 was not that impressive, this OC had just a few stars within the cluster.

My final Messier object was M 75 which is close to the Capricornus border, this GC is very compact and a FB to look at. This GC is a type 1 GC and one of the most distant, the densest of cluster going up to a value of 12 which is the most open before going to OC’s.

Time for the planets of which only two were on show at this time, starting with Saturn. The ring plane is very closed up but could make out the moon Titan to the west of Saturn.

Not far away is Neptune (can be seen within the same field of view as Saturn with the finderscope), just a dim dot to look at.

Time was now 23:25 and time to pack up and no dew on any of the equipment used this evening! It was nice to be out again under the clear skies and view the heavens. Finishing temperature was 13 °C.

Clear skies.

Peter Chappell

PS If you had been counting the Messier objects in Sagittarius, I found 14 of the 15, the object I missed was M 55, well to the east of the Teapot.