Clear, dark sky today, unfortunately on a midweek, so little time to observe.
I had a good look at the Dumbbell Nebula again and failed to find M56, a globular cluster. I did find another target though, the Blinking Planetary Nebula, with very little effort (or lots of luck, not sure).
Observing during the hot summer nights under the crescent moon is very relaxing.
The Messier catalogue consists of 110 deep sky objects discovered by Charles Messier. I managed to get two of them in my sights yesterday and even took a picture.
The Ring Nebula on the left shows as a faint grey ring through the scope but has a vibrant color palette only visible with cameras. The Andromeda Galaxy on the right is a very faint grey spot in my telescope and shows up as a fuzzy light ball in the picture.
The rest of the night was spent under a Waning Gibbous moon. Deep in the night I had Saturn, the moon, Jupiter and Mars all in the same part of the sky. All those planets will have optimal viewing conditions later this month and in case of Mars at the end of the year.
If you ever wondered what you can do with a simple smartphone on a telescope.
Right on time before a bunch of clouds appeared. These usually show up whenever you order new eyepieces.