I had the telescope out in the garden last night (mainly because it was warm). Although the visibility was appalling - you could hardly see any stars due to the summer sky - I persevered and after an hour of searching found my prize; a huge cluster of stars in the far distance, first found by Charles Messier in 1779, and designated “Messier Object 56”, or “M56” in his catalogue of celestial “deep sky” objects that is still used today.
It took about an hour to find the cluster - and then all you can really see in a telescope is a very dim blur in the place the cluster is supposed to be. W was helping me in the hunt, and she confirmed what I was seeing (when you look into blank areas of sky for long enough, it’s easy to make yourself think you’re seeing something that isn’t there).
M56 ranks as the most distant thing I have seen so far. It’s graded as magnitude 9.5 - the Sun is magnitude -26, and visible stars go to about magnitude 5 (higher number = dimmer) with good conditions. M56 is over 32,000 light years away from us…
It was hard work, and I’m very tired this morning, but it was definitely worth it.
Following the discovery of M56 I got a bit cocky and went after M101 - the Pinwheel Galaxy. After half an hour or so I found the exact patch of sky where it should have been, but after looking for a good few minutes (hoping it would materialise out of the darkness), nothing appeared… have to try again on a darker night.