Neptune, Nova, Scutum, etc

Tonight was another great night for observing.  It was muggy but not dewey and quite clear.  After my eyes dark adapted I was able to make out dim Scutum just off the 'beak' of Aquila.  It holds a pretty (and bright) open cluster I hadn't noticed before as well as a Messier object I've seen but didn't really pay a lot of attention to.  After scanning the sky around Scutum, I checked out Nova Del 2013.  It actually looked a bit brighter tonight.  I read earlier at AAVSO that these Novae tend to hang around for awhile and can be surprising.  The little tricycle asterism really helps to spot the Nova.  Next I rolled over and located Capricornus.  It was low and dim off the east wing of Aquila and below Aquarius but I was eventually able to make out its bat-wing shape.  Heading north from Cap I star hopped with my 7x50's over to Neptune.  There it was, very dim but unmistakable.  I'll have to try catching it in my 8" dob tomorrow night when company is here.

Taurus Poniatovii (and some other stuff)

It's been hot the last few days.  Hot and sticky.  So it was tempting to go out tonight and see what could be seen.  There's no moon and it was pleasantly cool under clear skies.  Delphinius was easy to see and I could even make out dim Sagitta, Sagitarius' little arrow.  I went out after reading one of my favorite columns in this month's S&T: Binocular Highlight.  This month was 'Finds in Ophiuchus' (p45 Aug 2013 S&T).  Old Ophi is a familiar sight in my southern exposure, made even better since I removed some trees in that direction last winter.  I quickly zeroed my 7x50's in on Beta Oph.  Beta and Gamma make a nice pair easily visible unaided.  Just a field east of Gamma was a large V-shaped pattern of 5 bright stars: Taurus Poniatovii.  It looks like a miniature Taurus charging through my binocs.  Properly emboldened I next went after IC4665.  Bingo, there it was, making about a 130 degree angle with Beta and Gamma, a fairly bright glowing blob of stars.  A bit dim but actually one of the nicer open clusters I've seen, not counting the Pleiades of course.  I next tried for the whole enchilada, Cr 350, another open cluster south of Gamma.  At first there was nothing but a small isosceles triangle of 3 stars and a dim star off to the right about the same distance as the height of the triangle.  Cr 350 should be in the middle of that pattern but where was it.  I decided it was too dim and my eyes weren't dark adapted enough so I paused to check out Nova Del 2013.  Sagitta was clearly visible unaided so I figured the nova would be a snap if it was still visible.  There it was, right below the little sat dish asterism I had seen the other day.  It is down to about mag 6.4 now, dropping like a stone.  I used a little tricycle-like asterism nearby to estimate its brightness. Several minutes had passed so I went back to Cr 350.  Using averted vision I was able to make out a small rectangular patch right where it should be. 
I've not had much luck with the Collinder series since I started it half-heartedly a while back after finishing the Messier list.  They are generally pretty dim, especially for binocs or my ETX-70.  It looks like I've finally broken the jinx and snagged a Collinder!

My first Nova

I saw my first Nova tonight!  Nova Del 2013 was mentioned in S&T's newsletter that I read this afternoon.  It was said to be easily visible in binoculars and unaided in fairly dark skies.  Well, with a moon well past first quarter I knew I wasn't going to have anything close to dark skies but I hauled out my trusty 7x50's anyway to see if I could even find Delphinus, the constellation that hosts the new nova.  I was able to see the summer triangle just fine so my hopes were raised.  I started with Altair in Aquila and hopped west to Sagitta the arrow which points to the nova.  After a bit of fiddling with a star chart to see just where the nova was located, I decided it was about a binocular width away from the tip of the arrow.  Sure enough, there were two fairly bright stars where there should only be one. The star was HR 7811, a mag 5.7 star in Vulpecula, and not quite as bright as the 'new star'.  I estimated the nova was about mag 5.0, not quite as bright as the 4.4 mentioned in the S&T article, but still plenty bright.  If it wasn't for the moon I would have been able to see it unaided. For comparison I used 28 and 29 Vul.  The nova was not quite as bright as 29 Vul but brighter than 28 Vul, hence 5.0.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.  If that is the case, the nova may have already 'peaked' and be gradually dimming after growing in brightness the last few days.  It'll be interesting to see what others report.  At any rate, it was neat to finally see an 'exploding star' for myself.  This particular 'classical nova' was only discovered on Aug 14.  It was essentially a hydrogen bomb in the form of a thin shell about the size of Earth which surrounded a white dwarf.  The dwarf survives the blast and begins accumulating more hydrogen from its larger companion and the process repeats ever so often.
I'll need to come back and visit this location in a few days to see if the new 'star' has disappeared from view.