John

It's no good Doug - you got me to get a scope out after I'd sworn that I would have a "night off" You are dead right - the seeing is superb for lunar detail this evening I'm glad your post was a "bad influence" on me !

I agree with this. Meanwhile your Hyperion 24mm will be allowing your current scope to show all that it can.

Dosen't the Hyperion 24mm already do that for you ? In your 127mm mak-cassegrain I would have thought it would be doing a fine job.

NGC 3147 is an interesting galaxy: http://www.sci-news.com/astronomy/thin-accretion-disk-ngc-3147-central-black-hole-07382.html

Thanks very much Mark I think I got this one tonight with my 12 inch dob:

Thanks to @davhei's heads up and sketch and also the info that @Mark at Beaufort linked me to on the CN forum, I'm pleased to say that I have managed to observe SN 2021 hpr in NGC 3147 with my 12 inch dobsonian tonight. The conditions are OK but a little milkier than ideal here. Fortunately the part of Draco where NGC 3147 is located (the tail of the dragon I suppose ) is right up towards the zenith so I could see reasonably faint stars despite the transparency not being quite 100%. It's very close to the constellation boarder with Ursa Major. The galaxy itself is not too difficult to locate using the brighter stars in the rectangle of Ursa Minor as initial pointers and also the 2 brightest stars at the tail end of Draco. NGC 3147 showed as a reasonably bright smudge of light at around 100x considering it's 130 million light year distance. I then started to incrementally increase the magnification teasing out the faint triangle of stars that the galaxy sits in (line of sight-wise of course). First the mag 12.6 star, then the mag 13.6 one and when I teased out the mag 14.2 star I thought I might be in with a chance of seeing the supernova. By this time I was pretty well dark adapted and the magnification was 338x. I do find that these higher magnifications help tease out the fainter stars. A point of light was now showing at the correct location and, as there are no other stars brighter than mag 17 around that spot, it had to be SN 2021 hpr. In terms of visibility I felt that the SN was similar to the mag 14.2 star but possibly just a little easier to pick out now and then ?. Certainly less bright than the mag 13.6 star nearby. I'd go for a solid mag 14.0 but I'm not the best at comparing these faint points of light. I'm pleased to have got this one as it is one of the fainter supernovae that I've observed. Earlier I had also had another look at SN 2021 hiz in Virgo so seeing two of these events in one session is a treat

It could be worse. It could be "Tascohashi" as happened to Celestron a few years ago

Another little gem, the crater Plinius, on the boundary between the Mare Tranquillitatis and Mare Serenitatis. Not the crater so much, though that is nice, but the 3 very thin rilles that run across the boundary between the Mare on the Serenity side of Plinius and across towards Dawes. I don't think I've seen these before

Lovely phase of the moon this evening. One of the stand out features for me just now is the crater Proclus between the Mare Crisium and the Palus Somni (Marsh of Sleep - love that name !). The crater is one of the brightest parts of the moon but the illumination tonight shows some shadow within the crater and it's shape, depth and some inner wall structure. The crater shows a hexagonal shape quite clearly under this light. Lots more to see so I'm going back out there This is a Lunar Orbiter image from overhead:

Great report Andrew I've been trying to convince myself to give observing a rest tonight but reports like yours do not help my resolve

Thanks Mark. I'm going to try for the NGC 3147 SN with my 12 inch at the next opportunity.

Nice report ! I've only managed to split Antares once - it's a very low target from here

I agree. Galaxies generally were not as clear as they were the previous night. The dim point sources seemed to glimmer though OK though.

Not necessarily Paul ! I've been out with my Vixen ED102SS this evening and I've managed to see SN 2021 hiz with that scope as well. The view is similar to the Tak in terms of the challenge but having achieved it last night with the Tak did make it that bit easier tonight with the Vixen at a similar magnification. When I say "easier", not really easy of course - still more or less at the limit of what the scope would show. Tonight the SN, at times, seemed a tiny bit easier to see than the magnitude 13 star close to it but at other times they were both of a similar brightness (or dimness !). At 140x I had enough true field of view to be able to see NGC 4635 off to the west of the SN as well. The Vixen is a 20+ year old scope now so I'm pleased that it's glass and coatings are still working well I ought to also add that for these observations (last nights and tonights) I've been using primarily Ethos eyepieces. The mainstay was the 6mm last night and the 4.7mm tonight. Despite the number of lens elements these eyepieces have, they don't seem to get in the way of being able to push these smaller aperture scopes towards their limits. I did compare the Pentax XW 5mm with the Ethos 4.7mm and found that they were both delivering essentially the same results on this task, the much larger true field of the Ethos was beneficial in keeping more comparison stars in view and showing the NGC galaxy in the view as well. Challenging but satisfying observing again

Fat frac with a fat eyepiece

Almost certainly a scam. There are lots on e.bay and the one thing they have in common is that they feature ultra top end equipment.

Well worth a few tries I think I've spotted Titania and Oberon with my 12 inch dob but not, as yet, with a smaller aperture.

Your sketch has provided me (and others I think) with some excellent observing over the past few sessions

Thanks Mark - I think @mikeDnight has glimpsed the Horsehead with a 100mm

Thanks Stu and it's a bit of a relief to read that - most of the ones that I tried said mag 12.8-13.0. I do wonder if the SN is around 13.0 rather than 13.3 though ? The transparency was good tonight though - I saw 11 galaxies in Leo without much difficulty.

Great stuff Neil - I found the transparency good tonight as well. Just the one SN for me tonight - SN 2021hiz but I was just using my 100mm refractor. I will have a look at 2021hpr another night - sounds a good one !

As above. Your 6mm eyepiece will be about as much magnification as will be useful most of time so you don't really need a barlow lens. Some lower power eyepieces will be very useful though. Something around 12mm - 15mm focal length and 25mm - 30mm as well.

I'm slightly nervous about posting this but I'm amongst friends so here goes. I've been using my Tak 100 refractor to observe double stars this evening but I noticed that the sky transparency was quite good so I've also been challenging the scope and myself to see how many galaxies I can spot. I thought I was doing well in finding 11 in Leo, and quite a few in Coma Berenices, Virgo and Canes Venatici. The brighter ones were looking really quite contrasty for a small aperture scope. I was going to have a look at the Markarian's Chain of galaxies on the Virgo / Coma B border but my scope wandered downwards a little into the bowl of Virgo and I saw a familiar starfield in the low power field of view I was using. This was the field within which the galaxy IC 3322A is situated which is currently hosting a bright supernova, SN 2021hiz. I know this star field quite well having observed the supernova 3 times over the past few nights with my 12 inch dobsonian. North and south are reversed in the refractor of course but there is a distinctive line of 4 magnitude 8-ish stars to one side of the location of IC 3322A which is quite distinctive either way up ! Without any expectation at all I thought I would have a try at seeing the magnitude 12 stars close to the position of the galaxy and supernova. IC 3322A is barely, if at all, visible with my 12 inch scope so I knew that it would not be any sign of it with the 100mm refractor and that was the case of course. I did though manage to see a star which I know to be magnitude 12 and that was visible with direct vision at 38x magnification. So I upped the magnification to 90x and kept observing. As my eye became fully dark adapted (this took about 30 minutes at the eyepiece) I started to pick out a magnitude 12.8 / 13.0 star which, with a brighter star, forms a triangle with the supernova. This star was seen intermittently but held for a few seconds when it did appear. I started to dare to think that I might actually be in with half a chance of detecting the supernova which is currently listed at magnitude 13.3. I increased the magnification again to 150x and again, as my eye became fully dark adapted and my mind got "into the zone" as it were, the magnitude 12.8 star glimmered and, not far from it and forming a triangle with the brighter star, another faint point of light was definitely glimmering as well. SN 2021hiz ! I was really not expecting this to be visible so I popped back inside to check the position charts for the SN, flipped one around to simulate the refractor view and then went back out to the scope. I needed another 20-30 minutes to get dark adapted again but the result, once I was, remained the same - I'm sure that I was seeing the supernova. I have repeated the exercise again and replicated the result again, just to be sure. Obviously having observed this supernova with a larger scope previously helped and the star charts I have for it are spot on. What I can't quite get my head around is how my 100mm refractor has shown me a point source target of magnitude 13.3 The limiting magnitude for a 100mm scope under a dark sky is generally given as 12.8 or 13.0. Maybe the SN has brightened a touch since the 13.3 figure was recorded (admittedly a day or two ago now). The magnitude 12.8 star did look comparable in brightness with the supernova this evening. Anyway, as you can probably tell, I'm very excited to have seen this with my 100mm scope. Having repeated the sighting 3 times over the past 90 minutes I'm pretty confident that I have not imagined this very faint glimmer of light and I did gradually build up to being able to pick out these on the limit points of light through careful dark adaptation. I will keep a very interested eye on other folks observations of this supernova to see if they detect a further brightening as well. The rest of my session this evening was very enjoyable starting with the crescent moon and tiny mars but seeing supernova SN 2021hiz with my 100mm refractor has rather stolen the show !!!!! I just hope anyone reading this does not think that I've gone a bit mad ! I've flipped and cropped an original excellent sketch made by @davhei a couple of days ago (I hope he does not mind). The green circle shows approximately the field I was getting at 150x:

I'd go for a 100mm / 102mm if possible. I've seen 11 galaxies in Leo with my 100mm this evening. Plenty more elsewhere too, including M81 / M82 looking nice and bright.

I find the moon very interesting. So much to see. A book that I've found has fired my interest in lunar observing is the 21st Century Atlas of the Moon by Charles A Wood and Maurice J S Collins. Far from being just another atlas of the Moon Mind you. I'm not a particularly avid solar observer while others spend a lot of time (and money) observing it so there you go ! Transparency is not bad again tonight - even the little 100mm refractor is showing plenty of galaxies in the Leo / Virgo / Coma area.