Report - 2025-09-28

28th September 2025 @ Nebo Farm

This was the day after the annual Swindon Stargazers star party which turned out to not be good due the cloudy weather they had over the weekend, similar to the one which got cancelled the previous weekend! This I find is pretty normal when you are planning astronomy events in this country, one reason I decide late in the day if I am going to have a viewing session or not.

I put the word out that I was going to have a session but one would join me for the evening, after getting permission from Phil to use his farm at Nebo, I had my Meade LX90 telescope with a 14mm Pentax XW eye piece set up and ready by 20:05. The guide stars for the evening were Arcturus and Vega, the weather was good to me, temperature was around 10 °C with no wind but some cloud to the south west horizon, the area I had hoped to view!

This time of the year is prime globular cluster (GC) season with a lot in the constellations of Sagittarius and Ophiuchus.

To start with I would be going to the solar system and Saturn which I could make out in the south-eastern sky. The ringed wonder planet was bright to look at, around magnitude (Mag) 0.6, I could make out the second largest moon in the solar system, namely Titan to the east of the planet.

Not far away is Neptune, the last known planet in our solar system but unfortunately I could not make it out, might not have been dark enough to view the planet, will try later? Off to the hunt of GC’s for the evening starting with Messier (M) 55, this is the only Messier object (of 15) in Sagittarius I did not see when I was looking at this constellation back in late August. M 55 was a faint fuzzy blob (FFB) to look at, it was hard to see. Did not help being only 9 ° above the horizon at this time with a Mag of 7.

On the border with Capricornus is M 75, a faint blob (FB) with a bright core, this is a small GC to look at. Into Aquarius and M 30, another FFB to look at and hard to see, being only 13 ° up does not help.

On to an open cluster (OC) and M 26 in Scutum, this is a very loose cluster with hardly any stars in it? Back to GC’s for a while and M 9 in Ophiuchus, this GC is large FB with a bit of brightness in the centre.

M 10 is one of the brighter GC’s in the northern hemisphere, coming in at Mag 6.5, it is large and has a bright centre, and I could make out some stars around the edge of this cluster. The same could be said for M 5 but is slightly brighter with a Mag of 5.8 but this cluster is in Serpens Caput.

Back to Ophiuchus and M 12, a large but dimmer GC and could make out some stars in this cluster. M 14 is dimmer with a Mag of 7.5 but I could not make out any stars in this cluster. For a while I had been wanting to look at Brocchi’s cluster in Vulpecula better known as the Coat Hanger cluster but unfortunately neither my Meade nor Seestar S50 had it in their catalogues. Best I could do is go to NGC 6802 which is right next door to this cluster, I could not see this OC but could see the Coat Hanger using my finder scope, great to look at.

By now (21:20) Saturn had climbed a bit, so I went back to this planet, I could see another moon to the west which turned out to be Rhea, the second brightest moon in this system. Have another try at Neptune and this time I located it, a pale dim dot unfortunately. Interesting the planet’s co-ordinates for the night was RA 0:00:0 and Dec – 1.28, right near the Vernal Equinox!

I could make out the Milky Way running from Cassiopeia down thru Cygnus into Aquila before getting too faint above Sagittarius.

Back to star gazing and the star Fomalhaut, this is the lowest Mag 1 star that can be seen from the shores of the UK (actual Mag of 1.1) in the constellation of Piscis Austrinus which I have never looked at before.

On to Caldwell 63 and the Helix nebula, this planetary nebula is the largest and closest to our Earth with a diameter of 25 arc minutes, not far short of a full moon? I could not see it at all, very low surface brightness but comes up well in pictures! By now Uranus and come above the eastern horizon, had a quick look at the seventh planet, just a larger pale dim dot to look at.

Onto M 33, the Pinwheel galaxy in Triangulum, comes up well in pictures but a FFB to look at.

Final object for the evening was M 15, another GC in Pegasus at the head of the horse, this is large with a bright core.