Gfamily

I'm sure many people know about this site, that shows you transits of the ISS and the Moon https://transit-finder.com/

Just a quick note to say the two books I ordered (DDSs-N and DDSOs) arrived today and I'm blown away by how good they are. Far easier to navigate than the PDF versions, and they look very good on the page. MrsG was similarly impressed and we're looking forward to using them when we're next out at Astrofarn France. Many many thanks @Ags, I'll let people see them at the next meeting of our astronomy group in July. EDIT I should point out I ordered from Lulu, which means I have the spiral bound version. I can see this will significantly improve the usefulness in the field. I also see that Amazon don't offer it in a Spiral binding, so it's worth having a think about how you'll use it before deciding where to buy. Personally I avoid Amazon unless there's absolutely no alternative (there usually is an alternative 😊)

I'd say there are two measures in your query - "brightest" and "most recognisable", and although there is a certain amount of overlap, I think that your list is fair as regards brightness, but not so good as regards recognisable. My guide here is the "if you were out under broken clouds, and saw constellation 'X' through a gap, would you know what it was?" Here, there are some smaller constellations that would be higher up the list, doing better than their brightness would suggest - I'm thinking particularly of Lyr and Del as good examples, and I'd say that CrB is another. As for the constellations that are on your list, I would put Cas and Sgr far higher than 13 and 18 respectively.

The Deep Space Network status page is available here

I've got a 102 mm Skywatcher Mak, and although it's adequate for the Moon and planets, it didn't real give me what I want for DSOs. For faint fuzzies like Galaxies and PNs, it didn't really give enough of a contrast gain to take advantage of the magnification, whereas for star clusters, its field of view is relatively small so they don't really show at their best (I like to see them against the background distribution of stars). On the other hand, I've recently bought a 72mm ED refractor that gives wonderful views of clusters and is capable of surprising levels of magnification for planets and the Moon. Yes, there isn't anything much that it can do for galaxies and PNs, but then again, I wouldn't have got much with the Mak either. As for their relative weights - the 102mm Mak weighs about 1.9kg, whereas the refractor weighs 2.5kg. These may be a bit higher than you're hoping for, but you might find the info useful.

As I'm using SS6 for the scope control, I like to use the correct view for the general whole sky view and selecting the next targets. I don't want to be changing settings when I zoom in for the reversed image eyepiece view. As far as I'm aware there's no setting to allow the image alignment to auto switch at a certain zoom level. Mainly this. In addition, I find the Stellarium + slider to set the magnitude limit quicker to reach through the menu system. ETA : It helps that I got both apps when they were on half price, so I feel that I've not overspent. I'm really waiting for the Sky Guide app to come out on Android, as I know Jen Millard who writes the science pages.

Have you tried the free versions of either/both? Those should show you what to expect from each. I used to prefer the original iteration of Stellarium, but the more recent version that they used for the Plus version seems a bit clunkier. Sky Safari has more options, but some of the defaults (graphics, sounds, animations) were just annoying (to me YMMV), so it's taken a while to get used to it. I now use Sky Safari Plus (the intermediary version) for controlling my telescope, and Stellarium + (very much zoomed in - and with the field of view reversed) at the eyepiece to allow me to confirm what I'm seeing

There are a number of issues that can have an impact on the quality of the image at the eyepiece. Some may be environmental, such as; in the summer, the moon can be relatively low in the sky, so turbulence in the thicker depth of atmosphere can affect the view. Similarly, depending on the position of the jetstream, high altitude winds can cause poor viewing. ( see here https://www.netweather.tv/charts-and-data/jetstream ). Also, if your scope hasn't been collimated since it was unpacked, then the mirrors may well be slightly out of alignment, and you're not going to get the best views. And, as had been mentioned, the best views will be along the terminator, so best to observe in the week to ten days after new moon (or before the new moon if you are an early riser).

I have a built in intervalometer on my Pentax K5, but I find an external one much easier to use, particularly when the camera is at an awkward angle* I have a velcro 'loop' pad on the back and two velcro 'hook' pads on the mount, so that I have somewhere to fix it (otherwise it tends to act like a pendulum), but other than that, it's an easy way to remotely fire the shutter and set a sequence running without having to crane my neck. *it's always at an awkward angle!

In technical terms, there is a principle that the more detail there is in an image the less compression can be achieved - so if you order your images by file size, the largest files are possibly going to have finer levels of detail in the image. ETA This assumes that you have your images in a compressed format (for example Jpeg etc). Following on from this, a hint I recall from years back is to look at your images upside down - this removes the tendency of the brain to interpret the image, but allows the brain to assess the general shape and layout instead, which can lead to a more immediate response.

I'm not sure if this is any help, but I'm currently re-reading the Owen Gingerich book about his search for first and second editions of De revolutionibus In it, he mentions the Karlsruhe Virtual Katalog, which might be of use. https://kvk.bibliothek.kit.edu It's a great book by the way. Edit to add : it's called The Book Nobody Read. The title being derived from a statement made in Koestler's The Sleepwalkers

It was read out on Episode 120 June Part 1. What might be interesting is for you to use planetarium software (like Stellarium) to have a look at the region of the sky that the Hubble Space Telescope is currently looking at. So - start with https://spacetelescopelive.org/latest which will show you what HST is currently looking at If, when you look, it says "Hubble is acquiring a new target" - you can use twitter to see what it's been looking at recently on https://twitter.com/spacetelelive Each tweet has a link to an observation - an example is here https://spacetelescopelive.org/2022-06-08T11:18:57Z and the observation will be part of a research proposal. The research proposal will give a list of targets. However, as you can see, the thumbnail image includes the RA and Declination of the target, and you can bring this up on Stellarium (You might want to set the display to use "decimal degrees" rather than hhmmss (hit F2, go to the Tools tab and it can be selected there). You might find it fun to explore the same area of the sky as one of the 'Big' scopes.

Knowing our luck it would happen during the month of June and be between Taurus and Gemini (other months and unsuitable regions of the zodiacal constellations are available). One thing that was very personal was during the summer of 2021. I was out with my 'new' refractor looking at M22, while my wife was looking at Steve Tonkin's August Binocular Sky newsletter and very coincidentally also looking at M22. At the same time as we were both watching, a bright Perseid meteor flew about 1/3 degree from it , so easily viewed by both of us. The first time that either of us has seen a meteor through binoculars,

I saw Comet McNaught through an office window in Liverpool in December 2006 - It was not very long after Sunset, and the sky was still bright, but McNaught was clearly visible. I tried to phone my wife so that she could see it too - but wasn't able to get through, and it was the only cloudfree sunset that we had for about a week in both directions. For Southern Hemisphere observers, McNaught counted as a 'great comet'; I'm just pleased to be able to say I'd seen it 'before it was great'

This is a copy of the sequence suggested by Don Machholz. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1lIKUywI95QJdrelI31vLJD4NhkJjgN5EZmeAP9k3ak8/edit?usp=drivesdk I derived it from this webpage for an attempt over the first moonless weekend this April https://spacetourismguide.com/messier-marathon/ I understand that it'll be updated for next year's date.

You might also enjoy the WorldWideTelescope website This gives you the opportunity to roam the sky, zoom in on areas and see what's worth looking at in your field of view. https://worldwidetelescope.org/webclient/ I suggest you start by selecting the Digitized Sky Survey (Color) and start exploring by clicking on the images at the bottom of the screen.

Hi Ash I suggest you have a look at the Crash Course Astronomy Videos on YouTube. These are presented by a great guy called Phil Plait - who calls himself the Bad Astronomer (because one of his first things was writing about Bad Astronomy in films, books and TV programmes) He's very good Anyhow - this should be a good place to start https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sViAwfeMjV0&list=PL8dPuuaLjXtPAJr1ysd5yGIyiSFuh0mIL

The principle is that the split objective will produce two images, which move relative to each other as the micrometer screw is turned. When used as a heliometer, the two images of the sun start aligned and the micrometer moves them until the top edge of one image of the Sun lines up with the bottom edge of the other image. This allows the angular diameter of the Sun to be measured at different points in the Earth's orbit For Bessel's work, he used the heliometer to measure the angular difference between the fast moving 61Cygni and two reference stars several times over a period of a year or more. The telescope is turned so that the split images move along the line between the stars, so that one image of 61Cyg lines up with the other image of the reference star. The micrometer movement gives the angular distance between them. The two sets of distances produce a trace showing the average proper motion across the sky with a superimposed sinusoidal curve. The size of the curve gives a measure of the parallax. Here's a mini gif of some slides from a talk I gave to our Astro Society about Bessel's work

I took a handful of pupils to a residential centre on Anglesey where we did some imaging, so somewhere I have a slide showing Halley's comet.

Any rapid increase in floaters should be considered a red flag. I had a strange phenomenon of a mixture of bright flashes and short lived localised blackout areas in one eye - it came on very rapidly, just as I was getting out of the car one afternoon. I went straight to the local specialist eye hospital (where Mrs G had her detatched retina treated 5 years earlier) and got immediate triaged for assessment. It turns out that (fortunately) it was caused by the thickening vitreous humour pulling away from the retina, but without causing any permanent damage.

I initially thought that the docking would be timed as it passed over UK, but then I saw that the 23:10 scheduled for the docking was in UT rather than BST. As it happens, we had extensive cloud cover at the time - so only saw the ISS briefly as it passed the meridian. With binoculars we couldn't see any evidence of the Starliner module. ETA - got to say, great images

A new programme - although BBC4 has had its funding reduced that means it generally only shows archive material, this had special funding from a Norwegian charity called Kavli that meant that it cost the BBC practically nothing.

c.f.

According to the Wayback Machine, the cost of an 8" Edge HD (at FLO) was £1079 in April 2016 £1400 in Sept 2020 £1469 in Jan 2021 £1750 in April £1889 currently Given the significant problems with getting stock, vendors have to consider what margin they have too apply to maintain profitability when you might only have capacity for selling half the normal number of units.

A RDF on a hot shoe bracket can be invaluable for centering on the target. First align the RDF by using it to line up on a bright star. Take a 5 second image and work out how far the star is from the centre of the image Adjust the RDF so that it's lined up wth the centre of the image. Line up the RDF against the star again and confirm that it is properly at the centre of the image