John

1 hour ago, Stu said:

Good luck John! For me round here the answer would be about two! Hope you do a lot better than that 👍👍

I'm now clouded out so the answer was about two for me as well !

Plus the nova and a couple of nice doubles.

Oh, well, can't win them all !

Another clear night 😀

I'll see how many galaxies I can catch with my Vixen 4 inch F/6.5 tonight:

All in all, I think having a go at cleaning and re-mounting the existing objective lens is probably the most effective way forward.

Great report Mark

I must have a look at the Whale and the Hockey Stick again. I don't think I've observed them since that lovely night at Lucksall with our 6 inch scopes

3 hours ago, Capt Slog said:

....  It wasn't a case of "find the right patch and there they are", it was down to the exact location, I counted off lengths from the the nearest two stars in the correct direction....

 

That is a very good description of the process of finding these fainter targets

Great report Mark 

It's been really nice having some good galaxy hunting skies lately.

I often do what you do, do some observing then find out a bit more about what I've been looking at. As you say, sometimes you find out something quite unexpected

Of course then the urge is to have another look, armed with that additional knowledge !

28 minutes ago, Pixies said:

I also tried Iota Leonis. Magnitude difference: +3.96 and +11.06 and a distance of 2.3 arcseconds. This one I think I got. The small faint secondary trailing in the wake of the main star. 

Yep - that's a nice one in my 100mm refractor

Sounds a good session

14 minutes ago, Commanderfish said:

I do have an 8" CC and a 10" dob but they do take time to cool....

Assuming they are properly collimated, they will show M42 better than a 76mm or 100mm Tak , even when not fully cooled down.

There is nothing "magical" about Taks or other premium refractors. They are really excellent though and perform 100% as you would expect a premium scope of their aperture to perform, maybe even 110%

I love my Tak FC100-DL (the F/9 version of the FC100 series) but my 12 inch dob has always been the scope that has given me my "firsts" and my biggest "wows". I think the dob cost me around £450-£500 to put together.

I'm not knocking these wonderful refractors (I own 4 of the things ) but just being realistic on the basis of my experience

3 minutes ago, Pixies said:

I was observing some doubles in Leo tonight. One I tried was Kappa Leonis - after it was mentioned earlier today by a couple of posters.

Anyway. The 2.2 arcsecond split looked easily doable, but the magnitude difference got me. +4.46 and +9.70. Not quite the same difference as Sirius or Procyon, but a little tighter.

Still a big difference though and that makes it difficult to split. Later in the year, try Dela Cygni. The magnitudes there are 2.8 and 6.3 and the separation 2.7 arc seconds. It really can be quite hard to split because of that magnitude difference.

7 minutes ago, Commanderfish said:

Now here's a question for you; does M42 Orion Neb look better in an FC76 or an FC100?

I'd have assumed the 100, but reading reviews, am I wrong?

Why would it look better with a smaller aperture and less light gathering power ?

M42 is a deep sky nebula. A £250 200mm chinese newtonian will show it better than a Tak 76mm or 100mm.

Sad to hear of yet another poor customer experience with this company

Nice sighting !

Always a thrill to see a little fragment of the early solar system burn up in the atmosphere.

I think they are meteors unless they are proved to have reached the earths surface when they become meteorites

More time in Leo tonight with the 12 inch dob. I'm using a little more magnification and teasing out slightly fainter galaxies. I got 3 of the "Leo Quartet" in the Lions neck area including NGC 3185 but the 4th eluded me - I think it's surface brightness is close to mag 14 so too faint for the conditions this evening. Also picked out NGC's 3221 and 3222 which I didn't spot last night.

Well I got Sirius B reasonably easily earlier at 221x with my 12 inch dobsonian. No joy with Procyon B though even at 400x plus. Not really surprised to be honest

Not yet, but soon hopefully

The 12 inch dob is out again. Splitting Sirius, hence the crazy angle of the scope here in the UK

It will be "lights out" on this side of the house when it gets darker.

5 minutes ago, niallk said:

Great 2-part report!

Have my car packed to venture out to a dark spot for a wander along Makarians Chain and Coma B/Virgo/Leo.  Haven't been out for months due to lockdown restrictions

Hope you get a good session

When you get down to 1 arc second, I think the seeing conditions become the limiting factor. 

http://www.damianpeach.com/seeing1.htm

Here are some other experiences with this binary:

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/532543-zeta-bootis-tough-rascal/

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/704580-zeta-bootis-separation/

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/464791-last-night-zeta-bootes/

10 minutes ago, Stu said:

I’ve been wanting another one of these since I had to sell the last one quite a few years ago. Very pleased to pick up this mint example for a very fair price. It will be lovely in my Televue Genesis for widefield (~ 5 degree fov) and also the Tak (3.4 degrees)

Awesome Stu. My favourite "window" for observing the Veil Nebula though

Great stuff !

As Paul says, the Veil Nebula views on a dark night will really convince you that the filter is "earning it's keep"

I could probably get by quite well with the O-III as being my only deep sky filter. I did in fact, for a few years.

With planetary nebulae I do find that it's well worth observing both with the filter and without because the filter, while bringing out contrast in the target can also hide things like dim central stars and nearby non-O-III responsive objects such as the galaxy M108 which lies in the same low power field as M97, the Owl Nebula. 

I guess a really low profile filter slide / wheel might be helpful, one which takes up little or no optical length if there is such a thing

I've tried a couple of times with my 12 inch scope but with no joy at all so far

There is no harm in trying though

If you are getting bored of splitting Sirius night after night, you might find Alpha Canis Minoris, better known as Procyon, of interest.

It's higher in the sky than Sirius but the separation between the two component stars is less than half that of Sirius A and B at 4.7 arc seconds. That would be a relatively simple split for most scopes of course but, as with Sirius, there is a major difference in brightness between Procyon A and Procyon B which adds very substantially to the challenge - Procyon A has an apparent magnitude of .38 whereas Procyon B shines dimly at around magnitude 10.8.

So this is a very, very, very difficult double to split. But, hey, we like a challenge

Here are excellent images of Sirius A & B and Procyon A & B taken around a month ago by Tiziano Olivetti based in Tailand using a superb quality 20 inch scope (told you it was difficult !!!):

I've not tried this one as yet.

The Stella Doppie database has it at .25 of an arc second so I think getting any sign of elongation would be a result with any of my scopes which go up to 12 inches in aperture. The max resolution that the 12 inch can manage is, in theory, .38 of an arc second but in practice it's almost certainly less than that.

I will have a peek at some point though.