I recently bought a couple of minor new doodads for my telescope, but they were just—barely—important enough that I figured I should test the whole setup and make sure everything still worked. So I hauled everything into the backyard and connected it.
On a scale of Bortle 1 to Bortle 10, I live in approximately a Bortle 11 area. This means the light pollution is so bad that practically everything is too washed out to photograph. What's more, my backyard is hemmed in by trees, so I have only a small part of the sky visible. But I wanted to run a real test on a real object.
I ended up with M71, a smallish globular cluster also known as the Angelfish Cluster. Since a globular cluster is just stars, they're visible even in lousy light. All things considered, it didn't turn out too badly, and all my new stuff worked perfectly. Huzzah.
Bortles! (Throws a Molotov cocktail).
Just in time for the Perseids!
Looks just like an angelfish
I know that a lot of your readers don't care what doodads you bought, but some of us do -- spill, Kevin!
No, no, no, not a Molotov, that's violent and causes lots of collateral damage. Also more light pollution. Instead:
https://xkcd.com/2274/
(I got malleted when I posted this on Cloudy Nights -- too violent for them. The mod was embarrassed, but I had to admit that it does advocate violence and the damage to free expression was *pretty minimal*.)
[Once Upon a Time In Hollywood pointing meme]
Hey, I've been on papers that included that cluster.