May Observing Report

One incredible night - 06th May

The warmest day of the year so far and also easily the warmest clear viewing night (No coat required). I got my first telescopic view of Mercury which was nice to achieve. The planet itself is too small to see any detail. Was also easily visible to the naked eye at twilight. I had another look at Saturn as it will probably be my last chance while the sun's glare moves ever closer to it. Although the sky was a little murky due to the daytime warmth, I had some reasonable views of the Leo triplet and Bodes galaxies. After looking at the Leo triplet, I quickly checked out nearby double star, Algieba at high magnification (a very tight pair of golden/yellow stars, always a pleasing sight).

I swung the scope round to my heavily light polluted eastern sky to get my first proper view of the Hercules Cluster this year. Not the best view I've ever had of it, but still always has some wow factor in a 10" Newtonion. An iridium flare caught my eye in the West reaching about magnitude -5, (which thanks to the internet, I now know occurred at 11:17pm). About a minute later I saw my first ever 'proper' meteor. Quite bright and breaking up towards the end like a firework. It travelled from South to North ending just to the West of the pole star moving quite quick but not as quick as a shooting star. A fantastic surprise which was the icing on the cake for the night