Tonight I had planned to go out and view M71, a globular cluster in the constellation Sagitta. Sagitta was at zenith (directly overhead) when I went out to view. The constellation of Sagitta is latin for “arrow”, and is right near the constellations Vulpecula, Cygnus and Lyra. What sparked my interest in viewing M71 tonight was that the Comet 2009 P1 Garradd was very close to the globular cluster. I'll be honest, I've never viewed a comet before and I'm not sure if any of the stars in my field of view were actually the comet. Not sure if I'd be able to see it in my telescope, and I don't think I was viewing long enough to notice any movement of a comet through the eyepiece. I couldn't make out any dust trails or anything behind it either, and I heard that someone the other night was just able to make it out with an 8 inch telescope; I've only got a 4.5 inch, so I'm don't think I'd get a view of it.
I had a little over an hour of clear skies until some clouds finally came in and obstructed my view. At which point I came back inside to allow them some time to clear. Went back out and the clouds were still there so I called it a night, but not before I was able to get 2 nice sketches of M71. Nothing beats going out with a goal and succeeding. M71 is a magnitude 8.3 globular cluster between the stars γSge and δSge (Greek letters are Gamma and Delta respectively) at the coordinates of RA: 19h54m Dec: +18. Below is my sketch of M71 in both my 32mm eyepiece and my 12.5mm eyepiece, followed by the notes I took during and after my viewing.
The thumbnail view is a good representation of this image in the eyepiece.
M71 Sketch, click to enlarge
I viewed and sketched from 22:48-23:35, the skies were partly cloudy with decent transparency in the air. In the 32mm M71 looked like a fuzzy ball. Through my scope it looked a little bit wider than it was tall and had a nice grouping of dimmer stars near the cluster, and a few brighter ones further out. I couldn't resolve any of the stars within the cluster itself even with a higher magnification I couldn't resolve the stars. With the 12.5mm I could make out a few more stars around the cluster which I couldn't see with the 32mm. I also didn't notice much loss in brightness of M71 with the higher magnification even though higher magnification usually equals a dimmer object.
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Mike
-Mike