Father-Son Night Under the Stars
A father-son night of stargazing and exploration during an astrocamping trip, featuring various celestial observations.
A Memorable Night in the Starry World
The third day of my vacation commenced with picking up my son, Ben, at noon. He was eagerly looking forward to camping and especially the shared nights of stargazing. We spent the day leisurely, enjoying a mix of badminton, chess, and bocce—a welcome diversion before it was time to set up the telescopes again.
Ben Takes the Lead
As twilight approached, we began by setting up the Seestar. Ben decided to capture a portion of the Cirrus Nebula. Our observation session kicked off, as usual, with the Cr399 asterism in the constellation Fox, which we examined together through the binoculars. However, a role reversal soon occurred: Ben took charge and independently guided us to various celestial objects.
After some initial challenges in recognizing constellations and stars, he had much better success with his glasses on. His first target was the Ring Nebula M57 in Lyra, followed by the globular clusters M13, M92, and the small “Mouse’s Face” NGC 6229 in Hercules. He hit the mark right away with the galaxies M81 and M82 in Ursa Major, as well as the Whirlpool Galaxy M51 and M101 in the Hunting Dogs. I was genuinely impressed by how adeptly he adjusted the Dobson telescope to locate these objects. We then enjoyed viewing the lovely Owl Cluster NGC 457 and the double star cluster h&Chi in Perseus, before taking another look at M13. I shared with Ben the details about the propeller-shaped feature within M13. After a few moments of focused observation, he claimed to have spotted the dark “propeller” inside the cluster. Although I strained to see it, I couldn’t make it out—such is the keen vision of youth!
From Planetary Nebulae to Stephan's Quintet
After Ben's successful series of observations, I took over again and focused on the planetary nebula NGC 6210 in Hercules. This object is a challenging target, revealing its details only at high magnifications.
Later in the evening, we turned our attention to the Cirrus Nebula in Cygnus. We admired it both through a wide-field eyepiece and at medium magnification—the “Storm Bird” and the “Witch’s Hand” are always spectacular sights. A particularly exciting challenge was observing Stephan's Quintet in Pegasus; we managed to identify one of the galaxies without a doubt. To conclude our night, we could not miss M31 through the binoculars, along with “Caroline’s Rose” NGC 7789 in the constellation Cassiopeia, before finishing with a view of Saturn.
It was truly a wonderful evening. Watching Ben handle the technology and navigate the constellations brought me nearly as much joy as the observations themselves. Tired but satisfied, we crawled into our tents for the night.
Image Sources
- NGC_6995_327x20sec_2026-07–12_final: Matze Schmidt
- Astrocamping_3: Matze Schmidt
