Well, tonight was a nice night for observing. Very clear, fairly warm… good stuff! I decided to go searching a little higher in the sky and found myself in Sagitta and Vulpecula. Initially, I tried for M71, a dense globular in Sagitta. But, for all the searching I did, I simply couldn’t find it! And I’m positive I looked in the right place. Very strange, since it’s only mag 7.0.

On a positive note, I found M27, aka, the Dumbbell Nebula tonight! This is a bright, 8th magnitude planetary nebula located in Vulpecula. It showed itself as a faint smudge against a starry background. I can’t say I really noticed the dumbbell shape. :) Still, very cool… my first nebula!