With clearish weather forecast for the night i drug the 16 inch out and set up. When darkness fell i aimed at M81 and M82. To my pleasure i discovered that I could hit 200x, which was surprising considering the humidity induced haze.
My first target this time of year is almost always The Hercules Cluster i have gone to 400x on Hercules before, and it is cool to be able to throw that much power at it, but for me, in my 16 inch a 9mm 100 degree eyepiece might just be the perfect choice for Hercules. The propeller easily pops into view and the cluster is on full display at 200x.
M57, The Ring Nebula is always on the hit list and there is a lot to see at 200x. Tonight The Ring was a very blue/green color. Tonight was probably the first time i really noticed just how out of round the ring is and how the brightness of the gases change a bit as you go around the cloud. I also noticed just how ragged the edges of the nebula was. As i was looking around the edge i kept catching a glimps of something in the center of the nebula but when i looked at it, it would disappear. I look away it would flicker back into view. I do believe i was playing tag with the central star. A couple of other objects were in the FOV as well. Above the nebula I was easily able to see a mag 13 star from the GAIA catalog and towards the bottom of the FOV IC1296 was a distorded faint fuzzy patch. Given the conditions i was very surprised to be able to detect the mag 14 galaxy.
I did bounce around and caught another half dozen objects and called it a night.
