John

I've just managed to find C/2020 R4 Atlas in Canes Venatici. It's currently listed at magnitude 9.5 but Neil's description of a hazy patch (perhaps elongated ?) without a clear nucleus is spot on for me as well tonight under poor skies. I'm using my 12 inch dobsonian.

Glad to have caught it - not a good observing night at all but the prospect of the comet got me out there

There is another comet not far away from R4 Atlas - C/2020 T2 Palomar but it's listed at around mag 12 just now and given the inconspicuous appearance of R4 Atlas I strongly suspect T2 Palomar will be "no go" tonight.

Even the normally glorious Messier 3 is looking a little dowdy tonight

Chart below from Cartes du Ciel:

I have not split this one but I'll certainly give it a go !

My 12 inch dobsonian and my 130mm refractor will be the best tools I think.

Very close separation and quite an uneven brightness pair - very challenging I would think !

Might have to settle for just getting some elongation with the refractor but we will see. At least it's easy to find and nice a high in the sky.

Thanks for the suggestion

49 minutes ago, scotty38 said:

Would it be a fair assumption to say these would not be possible with a Stellamira 80 ED?  I'm new to this so I'm still unsure of whether it's eyes or scope that limits me.

I've found a fair few doubles but I've not recorded which ones to then check if they're "easy" or not....

Under a very dark, transparent sky and with an experienced observer Eta Draconis may well be possible with an 80mm scope. The split and the B star magnitude are within the grasp of the aperture.

I think having doubts over observations is very much part and parcel of observing towards the edge of what the conditions / scope / observer can deliver. Thats what sends us back out again !

Interesting how often the "2nd time around" is so much easier though

Great report - I really enjoyed reading that

Despite having "back yard" skies and a max aperture of 12 inches to use I love to press deep into the sky as far as my conditions / scope will allow.

I have managed to see the 4 members of the Leo Quartet and one or two of the brightest members of some of the other groups you mention. It is a thrill when you pick up one of these very faint and distant smudges of light

42 minutes ago, F15Rules said:

I went out tonight at 10.45pm specifically to try eta draconis..as John said it's well placed at this time and the two end stars of Ursa Minor (one of them is Kochab) point nicely to eta nearby, if like me you've not looked for it before.

I tried various combinations and thought I could see the faint companion intermittently at about 220x, (Carton 10.5mm with Baader 2.25x zoom barlow), but it was only when I added my WO nosepiece (1.6x) to the stack that I could be sure it was there. It was faint but unmistakable and seemed to be just outside the 2nd or 3rd diffraction ring (seeing was pretty good but there was a bit of intermittent oscillation of the rings - I had to wait for short stable periods of several seconds, during which the image settled).

I'm thinking this must have been getting on for 350x, but the higher mag, coupled with short steady periods did seem to make all the difference.

Just for comparison I then turned to Polaris with the same high magnification and as John said, the companion star just stood out like a beacon, despite being fainter than eta drac's companion..Polaris B seemed miles away from Polaris at this magnification!

I also looked at Polaris with my new-to-me Axiom LX 31mm beast. At just 33x in the FS128, Polaris B was plainly visible. I was also struck by the lovely star field in the surrounds of Polaris - at 82 degrees, the field was very immersive.

A short but very satisfying session and thanks to John for sharing his initial impressions of this interesting but far from easy double 👍😉.

Dave

 

Nice report Dave - thanks for adding it to this thread

Glad you got some clear sky - it's been rather poor here for the past couple of nights.

On 28/04/2021 at 09:06, JeremyS said:

News in from Kato-san at vsnet overnight that V1405 Cas might be brightening.  Several observers in Japan reported vis or V=7.4 on Apr. 26. He notes "The nova before this brightening was apparently in "premaximum halt" ".

Time will tell - further observations encouraged!

I managed to have a quick look at the nova just now with my 4 inch refractor, though a convenient cloud gap (there have not been too many tonight ) and it still seems to be around the same brightness, maybe a touch brighter, certainly no dimmer than the last time I observed it.

37 minutes ago, garryblueboy said:

Hi John no it’s a cell with two doublets in Es said it was a really cleaver design and remarked on the quality as being outstanding and totally colourless 

Excellent. Another Thomas M Back masterpiece !

I wonder who actually makes the Skytee II ?

When it was first launched it was thought to be a Skywatcher product but FLO corrected that and said that it had been imported to the UK by OVL but was not a Skywatcher model.

It has a similar look and feel to Synta products though

Lovely scope !

Is the quad 2 at the top and 2 in the middle ?

36 minutes ago, jock1958 said:

When I stripped mine down for re-greasing I noticed some obvious flaws in the casting of Alt Axis Fitting which shouldn't have passed quality control checks but mines still in one piece and I haven't overloaded it!

I've just snapped a pic of the same part of my ST II. Not perfect but not as "holey" as yours:

44 minutes ago, John The Ron said:

... I think I will still go for an alt/az heavy duty mount and have a some in mind:- Sky Tee 2, RVO heavy duty Alt/Az, Giro Ercole being my main options but am open to more of the same ilk if you know of any? .....

The Altair Astro Sabre Mount is similar to the Giro Ercole:

https://www.harrisontelescopes.co.uk/acatalog/altair-sabre.html

The AYOswiss alt-az mounts are very nice indeed:

http://www.aokswiss.ch/ayo/ayo_ii/main_ayo_ii.html

I have seen some heavy scopes on the ST II. This is an 8 inch F/5.9 weighing over 14kg. Not sure that I would go that far though

My ST II has provided excellent service over the years that I've owned it. I do also have an Ercole but the ST II gets much more use, even doing a decent job with my 130mm F/9.2 refractor (pictured below) until I acquired a T-Rex for that scope. The ST II is still my mainstay for my 100, 102mm and 120mm refractors. I hope you get good service from yours Stu

9 minutes ago, Nik271 said:

I managed to see the secondary on Monday night with my 127mm Mak at 250x but it was very subtle and I could only see it for brief moments. It was breezy and a bit hazy so I will try again in better conditions. Hopefully this weekend we'll get some clear spells again.🤞

Well done

Spotting the secondary star seems to be influenced a lot by the observing conditions. I only glimpsed it a couple of times the night before last when I was using my ED120 refractor but my conditions then were similar to the ones that you describe here.

Lets hope for some nice clear, transparent skies again soon

I've not been able to get a clear split of the nearby star STF 2054 as yet with any of my scopes. I get elongation and it's clearly a pair but no split yet.

43 minutes ago, Zermelo said:

I've tried for this one twice in recent nights - failed both times - though the seeing was average at best.
It will stay on the list.

It is quite difficult to see the dimmer star. Having observed it a few more times now I would modify the illustration I posted earlier to reflect this:

2 hours ago, John said:

Well I'm going to try with the 100mm refractor tonight. Last time with this aperture I didn't get it but the seeing wasn't great then. Fingers crossed for tonight.

 

Eta Draconis can be split with a 100mm refractor. At 225x the faint B star was visible during steady periods. Blustery wind not helping. Getting sharp focus is important with this one.

10 minutes ago, jetstream said:

And give the same views???

Oh come on !!!

They are just scopes like any other Gerry

Very nicely made, which is what you would expect for the price, but just scopes.

Olly had it right I reckon earlier in this thread:

"....should we worship brands? I don't think so...."

Taks used to be the butt of a few jokes on here years back - I'm thinking of opinions on "takahashi alley" at a certain star party.

I guess we will have the same when the next SGL star party can happen ?

I do hope not, frankly.

23 hours ago, John said:

I've been able to split A and B Eta Draconis with my ED120 refractor this evening at both 225x and 257x (slightly easier at the latter).

 

Well I'm going to try with the 100mm refractor tonight. Last time with this aperture I didn't get it but the seeing wasn't great then. Fingers crossed for tonight.

3 hours ago, HollyHound said:

.... However, I can't carry this across the farm or take it on holiday, and it does need a little while to cool 👍

Refractor brands other than Takahashi can be carried across farms as I understand it

I've owned a Tak FC100-DL and a TMB/LZOS 130mm F/9.2 for getting on for five years now.

They are superb examples of refractors of their aperture - probably around as good as it gets and certainly the best optics that I've looked though.

Game changers ? Not for me.

It's nice to own and use them of course but my Skywatcher ED120 is not outclassed by them to any significant degree (which is why I still have it) and my 12 inch dobsonian (which cost less than any of my refractors) has consistently been the scope that has given me all my "firsts" and the biggest "wows" over the years.

I'm just an observer though. Maybe for imaging Tak's can do things that other scopes cannot ?

I don't regret spending the money on the Tak and the TMB/LZOS though. There is nothing like finding out for yourself

1 hour ago, chiltonstar said:

Some brilliant views last night - best for me at x190 with a 180 Mak. Schickard was amazing, but even Copernicus was showing a lot of detail in the escarpments.

Chris

There are a couple of interesting dark patches in the ejecta from Copernicus. Copernicus H lies in the centre of one of them. It looked like a tiny bright edged pit surrounded by a darker halo of material last night. Not sure what the other one is called. I've arrowed them on this image by Andre van den Hoeven. They both stood out well under last nights illumination. At one point they were thought to be of volcanic origin but Lunar Orbiter images have showed that at least H is definitely of impact origin:

Aristarchus looked wonderful tonight. The illumination caught the dark striation down the inner terraced walls of the crater. This is a HST image from the Advanced Camera for Surveys. My ED120 views showed the more obvious bits !:

19 minutes ago, Pixies said:

Think I got it in the 8" dob.

With the Baader zoom, I had no luck. Seeing wasn't great but seemed to be improving from earlier.  Tried the higher powered orthos, but no luck there, either.

Then I got out the Vixen LVW 8mm, which hasn't seen much action since last October when Mars was near opposition. I barlowed that with the x2.25 - to give me x337 magnification. This was a bit of a mess, but at least the wider angle could let me watch the star for a while. I could see something behind the star as it drifted West. I removed the barlow and it popped into occasional clarity:

 x150 magnification

I tried the 7mm ortho again, and the zoom, but it was only the 8mm Vixen that would show it. 

That looks to be in the right position for the newtonian view. I reckon you got it

It's not an easy one, especially if the seeing is a bit variable.

ED120 for me tonight. Lovely lunar views.

Mons Rumker very nicely showing close to the terminator and plenty of other stuff too !