John

1 minute ago, dweller25 said:

That’s just not right John 😂😂😂

No, you are right. It does not cost enough for the Tak mob !

I seem to be able to get by without handles on my refractors

Being OCD must be a pain to live with - I'm glad that I'm not bothered by that sort of thing.

1 hour ago, Stu said:

Moved to EEVA section, observations done with NV gear.

Could the non-EEVA observations of this SN be stuck in a thread of their own ?

You can fit one of the Vixen handles onto the Tak clamp:

The colour difference might upset some though.

Good stuff - they will be pleased with that one !

Quite a long hold currently

5 hours ago, skyhog said:

Yes, good article. I think you would need very dark skies and the right transparency to see this in a 12 inch scope. 

An interesting challenge would be to see the smallest aperture scope that can spot 3C 273.

In theory it should be visible with my 120mm refractor but just beyond the ability of my 100 / 102mm. It would be interesting to see if this holds in practice

43 minutes ago, Commanderfish said:

They are really nicely made and finished rings and light too. I don't know.the diameter for the TSA I'm afraid.

The TSA 102 seems to need 114mm tube rings:

https://www.highpointscientific.com/takahashi-tsa-102s-apo-telescope-ota-tsa0102

One of the things that I like about the Takahashi tube clamps (I use one of the special longer ones with my FC100-DL) is that they are cast items and Takahashi started out as a casting company. They developed their expertise in this field over 30 years before moving into making scopes.

I've seen Takahashi's with aftermarket rings, focusers and finders / finder mounts. I suppose the objective is the heart of the scope though so as long as that stays, everything else is interchangeable to suit the owners desires / needs  

Interesting piece here from Sky & Telescope giving some more quasars to look for in the springtime:

https://skyandtelescope.org/observing/12-quasars-for-spring-evenings/

So far, I've only seen 3C 273 in Virgo plus a blazar that flared up a few years back but I can't recall it's ID

If this has the optical performance qualities of the Morpheus and achieves the other characteristics that APM specify, I think it will fly of the shelves at that price. 

I am imagining a set comprising the APM XWA 20mm, an APM Super Zoom and a Powermate or similar quality barlow / extender. Could be all an observer needs ?

For the SCT / Mak-Cassegrain user, just the 20mm and the zoom.

The most important bit of kit is the Stargazers Lounge mug

It is an interesting object - thanks for flagging it up

The faintest point source that I've managed to see with my 12 inch dobsonian is magnitude 14.7 but I'm certainly happy to try and push my eye and the scope further as a challenge and give it a try !

10 hours ago, John said:

.... Coming down a little to find NGC's 5198 and 5173 quite close to the much better known "Whirlpool" galaxy M51.....

Although close to Messier 51 in terms of "line of sight" I ought to have added that NGC's 5198 and 5173 are a lot further away - around 112 million light years distant compared with M 51's 31 million LY's.

Glad you got it Mark

It's a busy area, galaxy-wise !

Nice report Stu

I assume the title should have read "12th April...." ?

Or is this a retrospective ?

How good it is to see you posting again Andrew and what a great report 

Another decent night here so far.

12 inch dob out again. Spending more time on the other side of the sky from Leo this evening although I've just had a quick look at the supernova in IC 3322A in Virgo and it's still there and around the same brightness (mag 13 ish).

On the other side of the sky I've had some nice views at 338x of the planetary nebulae NGC 6543 (Cat's Eye Nebula) including it's central star, used 122x on M 97 (The Owl Nebula) and teased out indications of it's "eyes" using an O-III filter. With the filter off, I just managed to squeeze the planetary nebula and the galaxy M 108 into the same field of view, which was nice 

Obligatory looks at the galaxies M81 and M82, M51 and NGC 5195. Explored the knots and rifts in M82 at 338x where the galaxy more of less spanned the whole field of view.

Found Messier galaxies 109 in Ursa Major near Phecda (Gamma U. Maj) and 94 (the Croc's Eye) in Canes Venatici. The latter is really bright and showed easily in my 9x50 finder.

Went a bit deeper in this area and picked up NGC's 4490 (the Cocoon Galaxy) and 4485, an interacting pair of galaxies in C. Vn. Coming down a little to find NGC's 5198 and 5173 quite close to the much better known "Whirlpool" galaxy M51.

Popped down into Hercules to find the globular clusters M 13 and M 92. Both well resolved despite not yet having risen that high.

Back up to Canes Venatici to have a look at NGC's 4631 and 4656, the Whale and Hockeystick galaxies, respectively, which I've not observed for a long time.

It's still clear but I think I've had enough for tonight. Another enjoyable deep sky session  

Another look at this SN tonight with the 12 inch dob. About the same brightness as last night I'd say

59 minutes ago, jetstream said:

....The contrast merely looks greater because of the increased detection capabilities of the eye....

 

 

As a visual observer, if the contrast looks greater, the target object stands out a little better. As my only "tools" apart from the scope and eyepiece are my eye and brain, if I've optimized their operation through selecting a certain eyepiece and got a better view, or maybe seen something rather than nothing, then that's a win as far as I'm concerned

3 hours ago, mdstuart said:

....I managed to observe some more markarian galaxies. Some of them are visible even up to 400 million light years away given their active nature.

Mark

Excellent Mark

I get a real thrill from observing these very distant objects even if the view through the eyepiece is often very faint and challenging. When I finished last nights session I had a touch of "aperture fever" and started looking at 16 inch and over dobs that I could get if I ditched a refractor or two.

If I had somewhere better to store scopes and a wider open aspect to my garden I think I could become a "faint fuzzy" hunter with a whopping light bucket

The image I posted above of the 4 Markarian's Chain galaxies was the newtonian orientation. Flip it the other way up and the reason that these are called "The Face" becomes clearer:

I agree that the APM XWA 20mm would be an excellent alternative to the 21mm Ethos and at considerably lower cost.

Originally I had the Explore Scientific 20mm / 100 then had the opportunity to obtain a 21mm Ethos at a very reasonable cost so could not resist. The differences between the ES 20 / 100 and the Ethos 21 are small - mostly that I can take in the full field of the Ethos without rolling the eye cup down. I imagine that the differences between the Ethos 21 and the APM XWA 20mm are even smaller. Hey, ho, I have the 21mm Ethos now so I'll stick with it.

I deliberately try not to name the specific equipment brands that I use now because "naming the names" tends to lead to rather dull "this brand vs that brand" digressions. Probably been involved in too many of those over the years

With hindsight I should have posted that the eyepiece concerned are  20mm-ish / 100 and 30mm-ish / 82 eyepieces.

There are a number of ~20mm / 100 degree eyepiece options around. I think the point I was making was that eyepieces of this specification offer something very useful in terms of exit pupil / true field / magnification 

I had a couple of objectives this evening:

- Have another look at Nova V1405 Cas

- Try and locate and observe supernova SN 2021 hiz in the faint galaxy IC 3322A in Virgo

The first objective was achieved with my 4 inch Vixen refractor. The nova looked to me to be still around magnitude 8, which is where it's been for the past week or so.

I used my 12 inch dob to try and find the supernova and managed that as reported here:

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/375004-three-new-bright-supernovae-to-look-out-for-ic3322asn2021hiz-ngc3310sn2021gmj-ngc5018sn2021fxy/?do=findComment&comment=4070864

With the sky transparency looking quite good I spent some time on other galactic challenges:

- I managed to see the 4th member of the Hickson Compact Group 44 group in Leo, sometimes also known as the "Leo Quartet". I've seen the other 3 before (NGC's 3190, 3193 and 3185) but tonight I was also able, with the help of 200x magnification and a little averted vision, to see the fainter NGC 3187 as well. So that was a good result.

- I had a look at the other end of Leo for traces of some of the members of the Copeland's Septet group of galaxies also known as Hickson Compact Group 57. The location is not too difficult to locate but actually seeing these dim galaxies is pretty challenging under my skies. I did get clear sightings of two of the brighter members of this tight knit group (probably NGC's 3753 and 3745) and some vague hints of others in this area. Under better skies I think this group would be worth a re-visit. These are 400 million light years away I believe so no wonder they are faint !

- I took a high power (199x) look at the lower end of the Markarian's Chain where the 4 galaxies that form what is sometimes known as "The Face" are situated. This triangular grouping of Messier's 84 and 86 and NGC 4388 with the fainter NGC 4387 right in the centre looked really well defined (even the fainter NGC 4387) at this high magnification and more or less filled the field of view.

With some clouds starting to interfere with things I decided to call it a day there. Another enjoyable deep sky session though with some good objectives achieved

I've managed to see supernova SN 2021 hiz this evening with my 12 inch dobsonian. I used Stellarium plus @davhei's very helpful sketch to nail the position.

My (inexperienced) estimate is that the SN is very close to the same brightness as a nearby magnitude 13 star. Once I was dark adapted the SN was reasonably easy to spot at 122x. At 199x I was just getting suggestions of the edge on host galaxy IC 3322 and it's orientation relative to the star field. I think IC 3322 lies at a distance of around 81 million light years ?

The somewhat brighter galaxy NGC 4365 is in the same field of view as the SN at 122x. 

Pleased to see this - I think it's my 12th SN ?

Thanks to @alanjgreen for the heads up

"Praesepe" - not a name that's used often enough IMHO

Apparently it means "manger" in latin.

40 minutes ago, Deadlake said:

My neither, I went for an SXP2 because it’s lighter then the competition. I can be in and packed up in 10 minutes at the end of the night. That means the scope, mount and tripod are disassembled and stored.

My solution for the 130 f/9.2 is alt-azimuth with no power / alignment requirements.