The constellation of Capricorn, dim and indistinct  in light polluted skies, due to its low altitude, reaches its highest elevation above our horizon in mid September at about 22:30 BST. It is worth hunting for its only Messier object, the small globular star cluster M30, (RA 21:40, Dec -23:11 epoch 2000). It is only about 3 degrees east of the magnitude 3.7 star zeta Capricorni. What makes it fairly easy to locate is that it is less than 0.5 degrees west of the 5th magnitude star 41 Capricorni. However, even when you can focus your telescope carefully on this star you will probably struggle to resolve the stars in this globular cluster, probably due to its low altitude at our latitudes. If you use a sufficiently high magnification, you may notice that the texture of this object becomes speckled with very faint stars that hover on the edge of visibility, enmeshed within the unresolved haze of the tens of thousands of fainter stars in this 90 light year globe of suns.

A completely different type of object lies about 14 degrees north-west, in the neighbouring constellation of Aquarius. This is the so called Saturn Nebula, NGC 7009 (RA 21:04, Dec -11:22). I don’t think I’ve ever found this object by star hopping. I usually use some form of setting circles or GoTo system. Once found, it is very bright, 8th magnitude, and has the unusual blue/green colour that is fairly common in planetary nebula of this type. Although only about half the size of the more well known Ring Nebula, in Lyra, it is of above average size for objects of this type. Even at first glance it seems obviously non circular and although it may take a very large telescope to see the sideways extensions, called ansae, in all their glory, the overall effect, to me, is of a view of Saturn at very low power, when then ring inclination is only about 15 degrees. In other words, a Saturn with stubby rings.

Globular Cluster M30 / NGC7099