John

As has been said, the seeing is exceptionally steady tonight. There is quite a bit of thin hazy stuff up there as well so deep sky is no go and I'm having to star hop using the brighter constellation stars but binaries and the moon are looking superb. Sirius is about as steady as I've ever seen it.

This is a post on another forum where Don Pensack gives a good list of O-III filter friendly targets for modest aperture scopes:

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/675309-just-bought-a-oiii-filter-what-targets-should-i-go-for/?p=9624343

Observed with my 100mm refractor again this evening. Nova looks around the same brightness as it did last night. Certainly no dimmer. Maybe a tiny bit brighter ?

Similar to Baz's shot above, nice views of the moon tonight with my 100mm refractor:

A few years ago, at an SGL star party, I had the chance to observe Messier 13 with a superb 20 inch David Lukehurst dobsonian. The view was, to put it mildly, jaw dropping

The cluster completely filled the field of view and was resolved into 100's of thousands of stars right into it's core. I'll never forget that view !

M13 and M92 in Hercules (both excellent globular clusters) are starting to look quite decent by around midnight here. I was observing them last night as it happens.

If there is one target that really benefits from increased aperture, globular clusters are it. Dark skies help as well as does a modicum of magnification. 

At 200x with my 12 inch dob on a decently dark night Messier 13 really does look like this:

Many globular clusters though are not as bright and well resolved as the showcase ones, especially some of the more distant ones (they are all actually quite far away).

Examples of fainter globular clusters that are still interesting and worth observing are Messier 71 in Sagitta and NGC 2419, the so called "Intergalactic Tramp" in Lynx, the latter being a whopping 275,000 light years away.

52 minutes ago, SiriusDoggy said:

Does anyone know if it has reached peak brightness and started to fade yet?

Thanks ~

Nobody knows as yet. Novae like this can brighten, fade and then brighten again. We will have to wait and see ......

9 minutes ago, Muc said:

Got it tonight and it seemed comparable in brightness to the 7.3 star in the line of four.

It was to hard for me to identify using 10x50s. At 30x it was relatively straight forward to identify with the detailed chart. Now off to learn a bit more about Nova!

Nice Sky & Telescope piece on this nova and novae generally:

https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/observing-news/bright-nova-erupts-in-cassiopeia/

Nice shot Neil - pretty much mirrors the view I was getting with my 100 refractor.

M52 is a delicate little cluster isn't it ?

32 minutes ago, John said:

Just had another look at Nova Cas 2021 with 11x70 binoculars though convenient gaps in the cloud cover.

Does not seem any brighter tonight. Perhaps even a bit fainter ?

I might have the chance to get a scope onto it and see how it looks through that.

 

Observing it with a 100mm refractor at 37.5x and making comparisons with the AAVSO chart I'd say that it's still around mag 7.7. Noticably brighter than the 9th mag star nearby and a touch brighter than a mag 8.1 star a little further off.

There might have still been some thin cloud around when I first got the binoculars on it.

So I reckon very similar to last night. Has it peaked I wonder ?

Just had another look at Nova Cas 2021 with 11x70 binoculars though convenient gaps in the cloud cover.

Does not seem any brighter tonight. Perhaps even a bit fainter ?

I might have the chance to get a scope onto it and see how it looks through that.

Great report !

I love Gamma Leonis - first double star that I ever observed with a scope. My old Tasco 60mm refractor many, many years ago.

Gamma Virginis is also a lovely one, rising later in the evening here. A yellow-white pair of mag 3 stars a bit closer together than the Gamma Leonis pair.

Just to move this onto things more astronomical in nature, here is an article from 2019 from the Chandra X-ray Observatory on the latest image of Tycho's supernova remnant in Cassiopeia:

https://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2019/tycho/

This is a bit oddball but I came across this article and thought it interesting if not perhaps strongly astronomical:

https://www.entandaudiologynews.com/features/ent-features/post/the-astronomer-s-nose-tycho-brahe-s-controversial-prosthesis

For a more conventional biography of this very important astronomical figure, this webpage does a good job:

https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Brahe/

This portrait of him seems to show that he decided that a splendid moustache and an "interesting" haircut might distract from his nasal repair

6 minutes ago, Stardaze said:

Clear outside now forecasting a good single hour at 1am. It’s not been reliable all week 🤔

The good thing about this one is that, with the help of the charts and sketches in this thread, it is quite easy to find in binoculars. So you only need a smallish clear patch of sky to be in with a good chance

59 minutes ago, John said:

Clear patch again. Nova somewhat quite easy now and M52 is also visible glowing faintly with the binoculars.

I think its an evening to keep the binoculars on standby. Not enough clear sky to warrant setting a scope up really.

 

 

 

I told a little fib there - just enough of a clear patch appeared so I bunged the 4 inch refractor out for a quick gander at 30x. Quite a busy starfield with the additional aperture and magnification. Using nearby stars I'd estimate that the nova is in the mid magnitude 7's as well.

Huge wall of cloud now rolling in from the NW so the scope is coming back in. Grab and go astronomy - you can't beat it under UK skies

Clear patch again. Nova somewhat quite easy now and M52 is also visible glowing faintly with the binoculars.

I think its an evening to keep the binoculars on standby. Not enough clear sky to warrant setting a scope up really.

21 hours ago, Waddensky said:

My brilliant sketching skills came up with this. It shows 4 Cassiopeiae and M52, as well as some other field stars helpful in locating the nova at low magnifications.

 

Thanks to the above excellent finder chart from @Waddensky  and a surprise cloud break. I have just managed to see Nova Cas 2021 with my 11x70 binoculars !

I had about 20 minutes before being clouded out again so after picking up the nova I whizzed around the sky with the binoculars and managed to spot:

M81 and M82 in Ursa Major

M44 and M67 in Cancer (nice to get this fainter open cluster in the crab)

M42 in Orion

M 35 and NGC 2392 in Gemini (pleased to get this well known planetary nebula)

M 41 in Canis Major

And that's it for this evening I suspect - thank goodness for binocular astronomy

These Takahashi's do handle very high magnifications extremely well, conditions allowing

I didn't think I would use the 2-4mm Nagler zoom often but it seems to be my "goto" eyepiece for observing Mars, tight double stars and lunar details.

The Powermate 2.5 is a great alternative though, plus you get the extra field of view and eye relief of the Pentax XW's

I've owned a couple of the fork design mounts, a Tele Vue Gibraltar and a Hercules, which is similar to the one that you link to. The Gibraltar was a bit of a let down in all honesty. It did a decent job with my F/6.5 102 mm ED Vixen refractor but was not steady enough to handle an F/9 100mm refractor or the F/7.5 ED120 refractor.

The Hercules I had on a pillar on a 2 inch steel legged tripod and that was more sturdy than the Gibraltar but still not all that great and I was again a little disappointed in this setup. I know that @mikeDnight has had a better experience of one of these than mine though.

Overall I prefer the "T" style alt-azimuth mounts such as those pictured by @Philip R above to the forked style. The Giro II that I had was excellent as is the Giro Ercole that I have now. I also have a Skytee II which does not quite have the build quality of the Giro's but is very solid and steady.

Those are my experiences with them, for what they are worth.

How long do these usually events last ?

Do we know how bright the star was prior to the outburst ?

Thanks

Hello and welcome to the forum !

The good thing about the C5 scopes is that they can be handled well by quite lightweight mounts. I've even used one successfully on the humble AZ-3 mount !

The AZ-5 would be better though as would an AZ-4 if you can do without slow motion controls.

1 hour ago, Barry-W-Fenner said:

Found them both for the 1st time this evening. Truth be told, more luck than judgement. I managed to get roughly in the right area then found M81 while scanning around with the 17.5 morph (in the 12" dob) while observing M81 I was expecting to see M82 aswell, however it was just outside the FOV with the 17.50 - I did manage to get them both in the same FOV when I realised that I had found them both.

M82 was fascinating, I can now see why it's called the cigar. It looked really impressive and a very unusual Shape. I will certainly be visiting again when there is no moon. I bet these galaxy's look amazing from a dark sky..

Well done Baz !

It's worth using some higher magnification on M82 when you next get a chance. Something like 100x or so. The galaxy has some interesting dark lanes which run across it and some brighter knots as well and these start to show up quite nicely at higher magnifications

One of the few galaxies where seeing some structure is quite possible with moderate aperture scopes under average skies.

Good to hear of the successes with this one

Unrelenting cloud here, unfortunately.