Rocking Horse Cluster

Hello , very quickly here with an observation from last night, early this morning for your interest, I have pasted my blog to cover all details.

This is rather in haste as I’m off on holiday early tomorrow. Clear Skies, Dale

Blog Thursday August 9th

Here I go with a really quick blog, a lovely sunny day gave way to a clear if hazy evening sky. With garden watering, allotment grass cutting and poly tunnel watering completed, not to mention a very enjoyable Harmonica lesson in town it was time for stars J

I didn’t intend it to be a long one, just one sketch would be fine, I had in mind an open cluster that Sue French had detailed in her latest & current Sky & Telescope Deep Sky column, NGC 6910 in Cygnus, known as the ‘Rocking Horse cluster’ it lies very close to Gamma Cygni in the direction of Deneb. Bright at mag 7.5 and fairly large at 10’, it showed up nicely on the monitor using the original 120N Watec running through an 80mm Stellarvue finder scope, visually attractive through my 6” refractor at 51x where direct vision showed the brighter members forming the distinctive if upside down rocking horse, using averted vision but many more stars into view and gave the central region a real mistiness from many fainter suns. I agree with Sue I see the 2 bright stars as wheels rather than a rocker, although a little imagination can add the curve of the rocker in ones mind.

The sketch I made using the 503mm mirror and later Watec 120N+ camera gives a detailed view but perhaps one lacking perspective due to the narrower fov. See my sketch here

Close up quickly 01.30 local time, work in only a few hours, and so to bed, happy, Dale

Kind regards, Dale

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