Since it was too windy on top of Edelweiss-Spitze ...
... we moved to a more protected site about 200 m lower
Barny and I observed at the Glockner High Alpine Road (Austria) - a grand area with various observing possibilities in about 2500 m altitude,
with no bigger settlements nearby. It is rated among the best observing sites in the Alps accessible by car. Sometimes we had noticeable cirrus
and haze (probably due to dust from the Sahara), alternating with longer periods of excellent transparency and a wonderfully structured Milky Way -
very conspicuous low in the South (e.g. NGC 6520 & B86 !). And the "Herschel-400" object NGC 6118 was no problem in my 120mm refractor:
Both 47x (13mm Ethos) and 67x (9mm Nagler) showed readily the oblong form with averted vision. And nice impressions of Coma- and Hercules
galaxy clusters in Barny's 18".
Since it was too windy on top of Edelweiss-Spitze ...
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... we moved to a more protected site about 200 m lower
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Barny and Ben, with 18-inch Dobson and 120 mm refractor
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Silhouette before Wiesbachhorn (alt. 3564 m)
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Hike to Pasterze glacier
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Alpine anemone
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Excellent conditions (limiting magnitude at least fst = 7.0) with a nicely structured Milky Way. Intensive observing from 22:00 to 2:45 - when dawn
already started in this short June night. In the 18-inch we identified several components of the Hercules galaxy cluster (dist. app. 500 million light years),
and saw some details in NGC 6027 (Seyfert's Sextett). In the 120 mm I observed the two doubles Struve 3057 and 3062 close to Beta Cas, as well as
NGC 7789, NGC 7209 and various other Milky Way objects, plus some other double stars. Two bikers came along during the night, whom we showed
some Astro highlights.
Our site, view to south
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The 120 mm is waiting for the night
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Barny's camp
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View to limestone "Wilder Kaiser", highly esteemed by climbers
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