John

11 minutes ago, markse68 said:

8.75” f7.4 newt 460x- needs that mag to clear the noise

Really great spec for such tasks. Must be a killer planetary and lunar scope as well ? 

1 minute ago, markse68 said:

Great- thanks John- it’s what I’m seeing right now

Excellent - what scope and what magnification ?

1 hour ago, John said:

I've gone for the ED120 refractor this evening so I'll have a gander at some of these and see how it does

I'm interested in comparing my 6 year old sketch made with the same scope with the current view of Zeta Herc.

I've updated my sketch - this is the 2020 version. Position angle has changed more than I had realised. Split and definition of secondary star is a little clearer now. I observed this at 225x, 257x and 300x with the ED120 using the Nagler 2-4mm zoom eyepiece. The sketch greatly enlarges the image visible at the eyepiece though. Primary star looked a touch yellow tonight but this is a monochrome sketch !

Just manged to get this with my ED120 refractor. Only the 2nd supernova that I've managed to see with that scope !

If I had not observed it already a couple of times with my 12 inch dob I would have really struggled though. Could not see the mag 13 star that is close to the SN though, at least not more than a momentary glimpse of it. The SN was faint in the smaller aperture but definitely there.

Had to get used to viewing the area with N at the top - that took a while !

Nice one Paul

Quite hard to see visually but your image does a great job.

They sell this in Sainsbury's. I must get a bottle next time I'm in there. It's only £4.50 a bottle so I won't get my hopes up too much:

I've gone for the ED120 refractor this evening so I'll have a gander at some of these and see how it does

I'm interested in comparing my 6 year old sketch made with the same scope with the current view of Zeta Herc.

10 minutes ago, JeremyS said:

Don’t like to tell you this John, but I think someone might have nicked your green & black from your focused while you weren’t looking

🙂

I'm testing a secret design for Tele Vue - it's "cloaked" 

Mid August for Saturn and Jupiter to be reasonably placed in the South at around 10:30 pm.

I'm not a great equatorial mount user but I have owned both of those. I would go for the HEQ5 because I think it's more robust, tried and tested and has more capacity.

The AVX was pretty good as well but I do think that the HEQ5 is a better overall mount.

3 minutes ago, Jennifere20 said:

Have you ever found a galaxy? 

There are quite a few that you can see with your scope. You need as dark skies as possible, and no moon in the sky. Low magnification as well. You can't really see them in the finder so you get the scope pointing as close as possible to the right part of the sky then pan around with a low power eyepiece in the scope.

Up in Ursa Major there are two close together that I have seen with a 60mm scope - Messier 81 and Messier 82. Here is a chart of how to find them:

They might look a bit like this though the scope:

Clear here in the South West. Venus will be unmissable in the West when the light from the Sun has faded a little more.

31mm, 21mm, 17mm (the ES 92), 13mm, 8mm and 6mm.

Up to now I have found the ES 17mm 92 a rather frustrating eyepiece. Excellent performance but I have struggled with the eye positioning. Last night however it all fell into place much better and I found it good to use and a fitting companion to the black and green ones

Definitely the best ES eyepiece that I've used so far.

Lovely scope !

I used to have one except mine was black and had the Bresser branding. It was a Vixen SP102M underneath though

I have the ED120 setup this evening on the Ercole mount and Berlebach tripod so China meets Germany, so to speak

A touch of the USA in the focuser of course !

There should be a rubber ring around the finder tube which holds it into the front end of the finder mount. If this is missing, the finder flops around and will not hold it's position at all. I've put some red arrows on the pic of your scope where this rubber ring should go.

As you adjust the 3 screws at the rear of the mount the finder then tilts gently being held in the mount by the rubber ring. The benefit is that once pointed and aligned it generally should stay aligned.

You may have this already in place but I thought it worth checking.

M97 benefits a lot from a UHC or O-III filter. I had some great views of it last night with my 12 inch dobsonian. Filterless, the nearby galaxy M108 was in the same field of view. The UHC and then the O-III filter enhanced the contrast of the nebula but I lost the galaxy. With the O-III I could just make out the "eyes" of the Owl.

The central star of M57 is magnitude 15 so just a bit beyond what I can do from home with my 12 inch. The central star in M27 (the Dumbell) is visible though even with my 120mm refractor. It needs a bit of magnification to tease it out. The Dumbell Nebula seems very large after observing M57 !

These nebulae repay some study at different magnifications and with / without filters. Initial impressions can often be a little "so what ?" but the more you look, the more you see, like so many aspects of astro observing

A couple of my favourites are the Eskimo Nebula in Gemini and the Blue Snowball in Andromeda.

It was about mag 5.5 naked eye limit at the zenith here last night.

I could see M51 with the 50mm finder, which is usually a reasonably good sign.

Easy now then

If it's clear tonight I'll set the 130mm refractor up and take a peek at these and see how they lie.

Mine comes off the scope and is stored indoors. As is the scope in fact. Not had an issue with the battery / battery holder to be honest. The battery seems to last for 12 months or more.

My sketch dates from about 6 years ago.

The odd thing is, and I observed Zeta Herc just a few days ago, that the position angle has changed a bit not not massively ?

Pi Aquilae (which Mark also mentioned) is quite a bit easier than Zeta Herculis I find. Straightforward by comparison.

Somebody on "Cloudynights" managed to image Zeta Herc 3 years ago:

27 minutes ago, markse68 said:

Thanks guys- it was a wonderful night and I’m still buzzing- looks like tonight is shaping up to be another fine night. Lucky really as thank you @John for the sketch- you’ve made me doubt my split! 🤦‍♂️😂- I’d have put the b star more in line with A in direction of travel but will look again tonight. Maybe stay up late enough for a proper look at Jupiter and Saturn too. 

With my ED120 at high power (200x plus) the secondary star looks the colour of dirty blu tack and looks like a small lump practically stuck to the side of the brighter primary star. With my 130mm refractor the secondary star is more star-shaped and the thin gap between them a touch better defined.

The separation here is a paltry 1.3 arc seconds approx which is a challenging split when both components are of equal magnitude but with Zeta Herculis the primary is mag 2.9 and the secondary mag 5.4 so quite a difference and that adds further to the challenge of splitting them.

I have got them split with my 100mm Takahashi FC-100DL but I need really steady seeing to get this, the star high in the sky and the split comes and goes as a wafer thin black line.

If you point the scope downwards the optics are less exposed to passing birds and bats and the warm air in the tube, which should rise, can escape out through the rear port of the scope and out through the diagonal if it is the mirror type and left uncapped.

7 minutes ago, Jennifere20 said:

Haha. So how do I find where a planet is by using time? 

The setting circles on most mounts are really not large enough or accurate enough to find things, unfortunately. When people used to use them seriously they were made much larger diameter so that the calibration could be much finer and more precise.