August 6, 2010 August 7, 2010
Posted by orionrising in Observing.Tags: altair, aquila, cygnus, deneb, hercules, keystone, lyra, vega
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The Dense Starfields between Deneb and Sadr in Cygnus
Object: Stars
Site: Front Yard
Seeing: 5 (Best I’ve seen in a while)
Transparency: Excellent
Type: Deep-Sky
Constellation: Cygnus
Magnification: 10x
FOV: 4.8 Degrees
Observing Time: 10:15pm – 10:35 pm
Notes: The rich star fields in the neck of Cygnus the Swan, between Deneb and Sadr. At the beginning of my observing session I was looking for the “Keystone” in Hercules; didn’t find it, I’ll try again another night. The Keystone is too large to fit inside a FOV of 4.8 Degrees, so I will not see it all in one field. I then turned to the Summer Triangle and the respective constellations of the three brightest stars: Altair, in Aquila, Vega, in Lyra, and Deneb, in Cygnus. The first star I observed was Vega in Lyra. I tried to make out Lyra’s distinctive kite shape, as seen in the star charts, but I didn’t see it and was brought back to only seeing the epsilon lyrae star group, Vega, and delta-1 LYR in a distinctive triangle formation– see my “July 2nd, 2010” Posting for details. I later found out that <again> Lyra the constellation is too large to fit inside my FOV, which was surprising since it looked relatively diminutive in the charts. As a final destination for tonight, I marveled at the magnificent starfield in Cygnus, pictured above…I’m guessing a little over 100 stars were visible, which was quite a treat. Seeing and Transparency were quite awesome too tonight.
Amateur Astronomy with Binoculars and a Small Telescope 