Kure Beach 8/26/09

This past week, I spent three nights at Kure Beach, which is on the outer banks of North Carolina just south on Wilmington. We rented a house on the beach with some friends, and the first evening proved great for observing. I brought my 10x50 binoculars and Celestron 4" f/9.8 refractor.

The back of the house faced directly east. As it was getting dark, I brought out the binoculars to show my friends the moons of Jupiter and our own moon. Once it was dark, I found M13 quite easily right overhead. After showing some friends how to find it, I noticed that Sagittarius was in an ideal positing in the south, and we had a great view. I started making my way up the Milky Way.

The giant open cluster M7 was a great target since everyone could see it naked-eye. Seeing was surprisingly good, so we had good contrast in the binoculars despite the light pollution.

The globular cluster M22 was spectacular. It looks so large and is pretty easy to spot even for a complete newbie. From there, I started panning up and hit M8, M20, M16, Swan Nebula, and Wild Ducks with lots of other little gems mixed in. This was now officially the most fun I've ever had with binoculars.

Quite pleased, I looked around for other targets and went searching for the Dumbell Nebula. Despite the neck contortion, it was easy to find and looked quite ghostly among such a dense star field. At this point, I decided to get the telescope out.

I setup the 4" refractor on the second-floor balcony facing the beach. The extra height gave us an even better view of Sagittarius. We hit all of the same targets with the telescope, plus the Ring Nebula. Seeing was very good, and in still moments I could resolve a lot of stars in M13. On Jupiter at 200x, I could see three bands and easily see that the middle one was split by a white stripe in the center.

By about midnight, I looked out over the water and realized that the Andromeda Galaxy was in a nice position and easily visible naked-eye. It looked beautiful in the binoculars and the telescope as well.

We ended the observing there, and everyone had a blast. It was really refreshing to have a ton of fun with a simple set of binoculars and a modest refractor. I also enjoyed the tracking feature on the equatorial mount, especially since I am so used to re-adjusting dobs between each guest viewer.

I am eagerly anticipating next week's arrival of 15x45 Image-Stabilized binoculars made by Canon. As much fun as the 10x50s were, I'm sure the IS and extra reach would have taken things to a new level.