John

I have just reminded myself of one of my new years resolutions - don't get involved in equipment performance discussions 🙄

As long as we find stuff that we are happy with and the clouds clear occasionally to let us use it, that's what really matters 🙂

It's great that we have some clear skies and that observing reports are rolling in 👍

Just now, Nikolai De Silva said:

What is minimum size for a Newtonian to see the pup star? I have a SW 130p.

Sirius is much higher in the sky for you that it is here in the UK so your 130P may well show it reasonably easily. Yon need 200x or more, as little scatter as possible and as steady seeing as possible. The gap between Sirius A and B is around the same as Rigel and it's companion star so you can practice on that and see how that goes 🙂

The big challenge is that Sirius A is appears 10,000 brighter than Sirius B so the dimmer star gets drowned out in the glare of the brighter one.

Excellent result Nik 🙂

I got very occasional glimpses of the Pup last night with my Tak 100 but it was hard work !

6 hours ago, Stu said:

Praise indeed John, the SvBony certainly seems to be an excellent bit of kit, might have to try one! I was surprised how much difference the Ortho made vs the XW, glad I hung onto them 👍

 

I had a nice set of Astro Hutech HD orthos recently - the 7mm, 6mm, 5mm and 4mm. My plan was to have them for the nights of best seeing, toughest targets etc. After I got the Svbony zoom I compared the views carefully a few times on the moon, Saturn and Jupiter and could not see any differences at all. As the zoom was a more comfortable eyepiece all round, and the orthos quite hard work, I let them go to an ortho collector and he is very happy with them 🙂

The sketches that I posted recently were both done using the Svbony zoom. 

+2 for the Starguiders. Comfortable to look through and decent performance, very decent in the central range of focal lengths.

51 minutes ago, Stu said:

Very similar experience to me with E&F John, a 7mm ortho really did the trick, I was surprised how much difference it made.

Best night for ages here in terms of detail on Jupiter and E&F.

I spent a lot of time using the Svbony 8mm-3mm zoom tonight. From time to time I changed to an XW or Ethos or Nagler zoom but the Svbony zoom seemed to be doing as well as anything else this evening 🙂

5 hours ago, Sunshine said:

Amazing! I see you have the starlight feathertouch focuser, I am eyeing one of those for my 128 but I would like to know if it will will work as well with the 2.7” focuser. 

On that scope I have added the Feathertouch Micro Pinion to replace the stock Takahashi pinion. This gives me a dual speed focuser. The only other Feathertouch focuser that I have used is the 2" FTF2025 fitted to my 130mm triplet refractor which is excellent. It took me a few trials and errors but I have now got the FT micro-pinion to have a very similar feel to that "full" FT unit, which was my objective. 

Still pretty nice here 🙂

Best views of E & F Trapezium that I've seen with the 100mm frac for some time. 6mm-7mm seemed to be the "goldilocks" eyepiece focal length. Above and below that showed E well but really struggled to show F in anything other than sporadic glimpses. The 6mm-7mm zone proved to be spot on tonight.

32 Orionis was split quite nicely but the tighter 52 would not, quite, split. A tiny "peanut / snowman" type image of the pair was as good as I could get with the aperture. That one is given by Stella Doppie as a fraction over 1 arc second currently so a big ask for 100mm.

I changed tack for a while and used an O-III filter to have a look at the Owl Nebula. Not a great night or scope for that one so a faint circular patch of light was all I got. The Eskimo Nebula was a lot better with the central star showing and, after some careful observation, that "double core" look that it's known for.

When I add up the earlier lunar views, very fine Jupiter, GRS transit, double jovian moon vanishing act and the stuff seen since then it's been a good one 🙂

A Tele Vue Hi-Hat 1.25 inch - 2 inch adapter would do the job:

You might be able to get something less expensive made for you though or there maybe a less expensive adapter of similar design ?

Given that my scope tonight was smallish, I did attempt a sketch of the Jupiter show. I've added it to the one I did a few days ago with the same scope. I'm developing a bad habit here I reckon 🙄

What's this ??? 

Two sketches from me during a Jupiter observing season !!! 😲

Well the giant planet has really been putting on a show over the last couple of months and since it has actually stopped raining for a while I've even been able to observe it a few times and I've been inspired to put pencil to paper 😁

I do these quite quickly because I've found it the best way not to get bogged down in transitory details. I've tried to sketch what was obviously there rather than what I thought might be 🙄

Both done while observing with my 100mm refractor but not quite at the scope because the pencil and paper were on the dining room table a couple of meters from the scope, and where it is warmer !

The first was on the 6th January (I posted it somewhere on SGL back then) and the second sketch was tonight at around 19:00 hrs. Europa and Io were just about to go behind the planet and were just off the western limb, so I included them labelled "E" and "I" respectively. I enjoyed doing these so I might do some more, if the clear nights continue 🙂

And I do think the process helps you to see more as well 👍

Yep - the GRS is on the visible disk now. The useful thin high cloud is thickening here soon to become annoying and detracting, rather than adding to the jovian views. So I'm making the most of it, while it lasts 🙂

My trusty Takahashi FC100-DL eyeing Jupiter this evening. I seem to be using this setup for the vast majority of my observing lately probably because it's so simple and quick to setup and that it performs so well straight out of the house 🙂

Very thin cloud bands passing over here currently but the moon and Jupiter look very nice with the 100mm refractor.

At this phase one of my favourite lunar sights are the twin craters of Messier and Messier A, with the long rays extending from Messier A. Not my photo but this is how it looks tonight:

Their formation has been the subject of many theories over the years. Here is one impression by the artist Justinas Vitkus: 

Dealing with the weight and bulk of a 12 inch aperture optical tube is one thing, but there is a degree of stress caused by the knowledge that bumping it will mean re-collimating and may even dent the tube or, in the case of a bad bump, damage the optics. Moving a dob mount around has much less stress associated with it although they can still be awkward.

Of course the first few times you do it, you are fuelled with anticipation and excitement of a new, bigger scope. As time goes by, the lighter, smaller setups seem to become more attractive though 🙄

The further that the scope needs to be carried and the more obstacles that need to be overcome, before reaching the setup place, the more the chance of an accident.

My Orion Optics 12 inch weighed around the same as a chinese 10 inch but even so I rarely carried it more than a few metres on my own. 

If someone asked me, and was reasonably local, I would suggest that they come along to one of the Bristol Astro Societies public observing evenings or, if they were really local, I would offer them a look through one of my telescopes. 

I'm a huge fan of visual observing and believe that everybody should have the experience of seeing the moon, Saturn, Jupiter and a few other sights though a scope, with their own eyes but that does not necessarily mean that everybody needs to own a scope.

I had a Meade Lightbridge 12 and found it too heavy for me at 36kg in total. I later moved to a pre-owned Orion Orion optics 12 inch and found that much easier to set up and move about - it weighed around 10kg less than the Meade LB 12 !

12 inch optics are a noticeable step up from an 8 inch in performance though, whatever "flavour" you go for 🙂 

1 hour ago, Stu said:

I obviously live in the wrong part of Somerset John, cloudy here all day, and remains so this evening ☹️. Enjoy your skies anyway 👍

I think it was the other way round a few days back @Stu 🙂

Clearish skies here currently and the Great Red Spot is on the jovian disk 🙂

The seeing is not too bad either.

If you can keep them a little warmer than the outside temperature, you should never need to suck them 🙂

This is very sad news.

Some of my most memorable astronomical views came around a decade ago using a 20 inch David Lukehurst dobsonian that was bought to one of the SGL star parties. It's owner asked me what I would like to see and I choose Messier 51 and Messier 13. Those views will be with me as long as I live.

I have often visited David's website to have a look at the photo gallary of the wonderful scopes that he had created, including a very large refractor. 

The astronomy community have lost a valued member. My thoughts are with David's family as well as they come to terms with their loss.

R.I.P David Lukehurst.

Cloudy tonight in North Somerset. 

1 hour ago, Highburymark said:

I’ve had various set ups - a Quark which was poor, two Lunts which were great double stacked but both (one in particular) underwhelming single stacked. A couple of Baader/Solar Spectrum Sundancers which were basically nice etalons, but with other (significant) problems, and a double stacked Solarscope 70mm, which is wonderful - though once again, nothing particularly special single stacked. I’ve learned enough to show that all brands are highly variable in both quality and bandwidth, but Quarks/Solar Scouts and Coronado are more variable than the others - a view backed up by specialist forums like Solarchat. But these are mostly cheaper, entry level products. Interestingly, the real Rolls-Royce etalons were produced many years ago by Solarscope and pre-Meade Coronado. Though if you dig into the history of commercial solar Ha filters, all four brands share a common ancestry. 
One thing’s for certain - Stu’s route is a very cost effective route to wide-aperture observing. But the Beast will require good seeing to really shine!

I have to say that this variable performance is what has put me off H-Alpha in the past. The Lunt 50 (single stack) that I had was a so-so performer as was the PST that I owned for a while. We have 2 PST's in my society one of which is not bad but the other rather unimpressive. I have read a lot of reports of poor Quark performance. 

I realise that what such equipment is doing is pretty complex and that there are more satisfied owners out there than unsatisfied ones but it is still difficult for someone who is a little ambivalent about solar observing to feel motivated to spend several hundred £'s on what seems to be a sort of performance "lottery" 🤔

@Stu's approach with "the beast" makes a lot of sense though - have it put together and sorted by somebody who knows what they are doing and knows good H-Alpha performance when they see it 🙂

I'm glad that their eyepieces are better than their surveys ! 😁

I have looked through a number of H-Alpha scopes (up to 100mm) and even owned a couple but, somehow, the interest didn't hold with me.

But, those experiences were during the "quiet" part of the solar cycle so perhaps H-Alpha activity was quiet as well.

I do white light observing (herschel wedge) from time to time, mostly at society outreach events.

The Sun is a very interesting target because a) we depend on it, b) it changes all the time, and in real time and c) because it can be a nice, comfortable experience observing it 😁

So, speaking for myself, I would not rule out taking more interest in solar observing and I will be following @Stu's experiences with "The Beast" with interest 🙂