NGC 6894 - the diamond ring - 10 inch reflector +Watec
Instantly seen as a ring like structure rather like a celestial polo mint. It was of even brightness, quite uniform and a faint magnitude 14 star was seen just at the inside edge within the side of the ring wall. No central star seen (mag 17.5)
NGC 6826 - 8.75 inchreflector
Easily seen at low powers as a fuzzy disk about 1.5' away from a magnitude 8 star. At 288x it is a perfectly circular shell of gas with diffuse edges. The centre of the nebula was very bright and condensed, this was about 15" across while the outer edge of the nebula faded suddenly and was half the brightness of the middle region. The nebula looked very green in colour and possibly mottled, the central star was very bright and dominated the nebula.
HDE 226868 - Cygnus X-1 - 8.75 inchreflector
This is the site of a black hole, the visible component is called HDE226868 and is slightly half a degree from Eta Cygni. HDE226868 is a magnitude 8.9 star and also a spectroscopic binary with a period of 5.599823 days and its absolute magnitude is -6 making it 20,600x the sun's luminosity. Its mass is 20-30 suns and is 8150 light years distant and is a millisecond x-ray burster...Phew!
NGC 6960 - the veil nebula - 8.75 inchreflector
Immediately obvious using an OIII filter as a bright band of nebulosity, it was just visible unfiltered. It was about 5' wide at its widest part mid length then it tapered into a point. No detail was seen in the nebulosity but the western side seemed to be more sharply defined and using averted vision it perhaps appeared fuzzy.
NGC 6995 - the veil nebula
This was seen using an OIII filter as a bright knotty nebula and careful viewing showed considerable detail. Filamentary structure was seen to a remarkable degree consisting of long running arms in a WSW direction, three arms were seen, the two most southerly arms were suspected to loop around each other and a faint detached part of the nebulosity was seen to the WSW of the northernmost arm. The main nebula ran N-S and the central part of the veil at the northern edge of the sketch is NGC 6995, this showed great knots and lumps of very bright nebulosity. The eastern side of 6995 was the brightest, the western side faded off slightly.
NGC 6888 - the crescent nebula -12 inchreflector
This was seen as a large and fairly obvious arc of nebulosity though it was more difficult due to nearby lights! The nebula was situated around a triangle of unequal stars, the brightest at magnitude 7.2, also a double. The brightest part of the nebula was the western side seen as a fairly straight nebulosity running to the east and then curving down to the ESE for around 10', this area seemed quite thick, the arc then looped around the bottom star of the triangle and up to a faint star to the WSW, this area was quite faint and the remainder of the arc at this point was not seen. I suspect that the arc was filled with a very faint nebulosity to form a complete oval.
NGC 7027 - 8.75 inchreflector
Looking like a bright blue elliptical disk this small nebula took high magnifications really well, its oval disk was brighter at the centre and gradually became dimmer at the edges but still with defined edges.
M39 - 8.75 inchreflector
Easily seen in the finderscope and probably better suited for it. In the main scope at low power it is a scattered triangular grouping of stars with no real concentration. There were three magnitude 8 stars roughly aligned N-S which were the brightest with myriads of fainter stars scattered around the field of view.
M29 - 8.75 inchreflector
M29 is a small box shaped open cluster of fairly bright stars visible in the finder as a tiny grouping of stars lying in an incredibly rich starfield. In the main scope it consists of 6 or 7 bright stars in a slightly squashed box pattern about 6' in diameter and at first glance is a dull object but careful viewing reveals fainter stars, twenty in total.
NGC 6910 - 8.75 inchreflector
A nice little cluster in an odd shape, I counted about 15 main stars in the cluster. There were two magnitude 7.5 orange stars at either end of the cluster and also the brightest in the cluster with the rest of the stars running around them.
NGC 6960 - the veil nebula - 8.75 inchreflector
The northern part of the veil is brightest as it passed the star 52 Cygni then it split into two and became much more diffuse.
NGC 7026 - 8.75 inchreflector
At low powers this planetary nebula is a slightly fuzzy star close to a magnitude 10 star on its NE side. At 288x it is a small circular glow only a few arc seconds across, it looked to have fuzzy edges and a brighter middle but using averted vision it began to show signs of internal structure consisting of a ring structure but this was only suspected. I also noticed that the nebula seemed to have a bright area (stellar?), possibly the central star of magnitude 14.8?
NGC 6811 - the hole in a cluster - 8.75 inchreflector
This was a nice cluster with fairly even magnitude stars with a loose structure. The main shape was circular and was very well resolved with a large empty void at its center which gives the cluster its name.