John

2 hours ago, Stu said:

Looking at the satellite, it seems to be clear over much of the country, with some high haze and everything is moving very slowly. Could be a cracking planetary night tonight!

Saturn is here tonight for a change. Jupiter was so so. Seems to be either one or the other but rarely both being decent and yet they are not that far apart in the sky

Must be "saturny" seeing this evening !

14 minutes ago, markse68 said:

it was my silly little joke John- I think Antares is fairly straight forward for Geoff down under 😉

Ooops !

I was thinking with my "northern hemisphere" slant !

Galling to see where Geoff's dob is pointing to see Jupiter. My scopes are practically horizontal when viewing it from here

That is a terrific image - one of the very best I've seen for a long time

7 hours ago, markse68 said:

The double double’s easy! you wanna try Antares- oh wait 🤔😂

I've split Antares twice. Once with my 12 inch dob and once with my 5.1 inch triplet frac.

Harder than Sirius IMHO.

Skywatcher ED120 tonight on the Ercole mount / Berlebach Unit 28 tripod:

There is the Sky & Telescope Mars Profiler:

https://skyandtelescope.org/wp-content/plugins/observing-tools/mars_profiler/mars.html

Also the freeware Virtual Planet Atlas:

http://www.ap-i.net/avp/en/start

Personally I would much prefer to own and use an 8 inch dob than the Evostar 90 so I would make the change but the price being asked for the dob seems on the high side for a used one. It does depend on the model / spec / included accessories though.

So my advice is to go for the dob but try and get the price of it down. Over here a new Skywatcher 8 inch dob costs £280 / 305 Euros. Used they can be bought for around £200 / 220 Euros.

Interesting report

I've tried a couple of times to see Deimos and Phobos when observing Mars with my 12 inch dob.

I've spotted a few "suspects" but on checking I discounted them as being a bit to far from the planet, wrong orientation etc.

I tend to use Cartes du Ciel to check positions of planetary moons as this has been accurate for me with other planetary moons.

While these two tiny moons look as if they should, from their magnitudes, be possible with a decent aperture scope I suspect the reality is that they are a lot harder and their elongations from Mars need to be optimal to give us a chance to glimpse them.

I'm going to keep at it though and I'm sure you will

I've found these links which are useful:

https://www.observing.skyhound.com/shallow_sky/mars_moons.html

https://astronomynow.com/2018/07/30/find-martian-moons-phobos-and-deimos-at-the-red-planets-closest-approach/

Looks like Phobos will never be more than one planetary diameter away from the Martian disk, which will make that one very challenging !

8 hours ago, Louis D said:

@John Have you noticed any eyepieces or telescopes presenting out of focus edges that used to be in-focus? 

I have not noticed this as yet Louis but during this Autumn I will be looking more critically at the views and I'll look out for this.

9 minutes ago, Louis D said:

Because it depends on your visual accommodation.  If your eyes are young, FC is not a big deal.  If you're old and suffering from presbyopia, it becomes an annoyance.  People really need to specify whether or not they suffer from presbyopia before commenting on FC.  This is true for both eyepiece FC and telescope FC.

For the past 3 year or so I have needed to wear glasses for reading and close to clarity. So I guess I'm in that group ?

I've had a similar experience to Mike tonight with Mars. Very nice views with my Tak 100mm F/9

5 minutes ago, jonathan said:

Does anyone know when the best period will be to observe Mars?  October, yes, but are there any factors I should be aware of?  I saw it a couple of weeks ago looking pretty good, hoping to get an even better look!

Now is good. It gets about .75 of an arc second larger at opposition in mid October but that won't be noticeable.

1 minute ago, Alan White said:

But are they just tales or reality?
I have read such varied opinion on the XW 14 and 20.

I've experienced FC in other Pentax eyepieces (the XF's) and didn't like it so I was not prepared to take the chance that the frequent reports of FC from some very experienced observers in the 20mm and 14mm XW were untrue.

But I'd be very happy for you to try them and prove otherwise Alan

Takahashi FC100-DL tonight. Jupiter and Saturn were quite nice compared to other recent sessions. Fingers crossed it stays steady for Mars

4 hours ago, parallaxerr said:

What time were you observing John. It looked like conditions were improving when I packed up, but couldn't stay up later what with the kids having me up at 5am 😴

Could be heat radiation/thermals I was suffering with. I may have to plan a later session to get better views.

Around midnight Jon.

I've just been out looking at Jupiter and Saturn with my Tak 100. The seeing is not too bad tonight.

1 hour ago, Gfamily said:

There's a google cached version - I assume it's the relevant article

https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Wnq6h12LUw4J:https://www2.wwnorton.com/college/astronomy/astro21/sandt/startright.html+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk

That is the one. Thanks.

2 hours ago, Louis D said:

That 12" must have been miscollimated or had a terrible mirror.  My most memorable views of Jupiter were through a 12.5" Mag1 Instruments PortaBall with a Zambuto mirror on an Osypowski equatorial platform at a star party.  I could make out all sorts of festoons and barges in the belts with ease.

I agree. When they are higher in the sky my 12 inch dob has shown spectacular views of Jupiter and Saturn. Similar Jovian details to the ones you describe. Strings of eddies around the GRS, white ovals, that sort of stuff.

I went for the Delos 14mm and 17.3mm because of the FC tales I'd read about with the XW 14mm and 20mm. They play well with the four shorter FL XW's that I have.

30 minutes ago, LeeHore7 said:

Hi

What scope do you have, as when I've been viewing Mars with my skywatcher explorer 150p for a change I stop sown the scope by placing the cap back on and removing the small cap on the front to dim Mars down a bit and gave good viewing, I generally use my skymax 127 for planets but fancied using my other scope. 

I think Siouxie is referring to an 11 inch SCT.

I wonder if the results might be better with one of the smaller aperture scopes in her signature ?

Mars looks OK'ish at times with the 90mm achro refractor I popped out tonight. The S polar cap is clear and a range of dark areas when the seeing and the wind gusts steady for a moment and the cloud blobs keep clear. Not staying out for long though.

I've got a scope out but I've not looked through it yet. Quite blustery winds but it sounds as if the seeing is rotten as well.

This review is very relevant:

One paragraph in it stood out for me:

".........So my recommendation is that before you venture into the realm of filters to
improve your planetary views, first make sure that you are getting detailed views of planets
without filters, as the filters will not perform any magic making a poor view all of a sudden good
with many details......."

I don't think any of these filters are "magic bullets"

I did think about getting a filter or filters for Mars and the planets this year but decided not to in the end.

I have used quite a few types in the past and didn't find that they added anything to the observing experience for me.

When ever possible I prefer to observe without using a filter and make the best of that.

Try the Pelican with the Penguin - you never know what might happen !

The only X-Cel LX that I've owned was the 25mm. It was pretty decent but, for me, not a "stand out" eyepiece in any way. For a 127 mak I would probably save a few £'s and go for a BST Starguider 25mm instead.

I often use the Hyperflex with a Baader 2.25x barlow which gives a nice high power zoom of 9.5mm - 3.2mm. You would not use much below 6mm with your scope though I reckon.