John

I find Cartes du Ciel pretty accurate with regards to the positioning of comets. It's quick to do an update of them as well.

Nice report as ever Mark

It was a little "milky" here last night so I concentrated on other things rather than galaxies but I did do a slew of globular clusters at the end of my session and an attempt at NGC 50503 was one of them. This is the 2nd time I've tried to view this rather strange globular cluster and last night, again, I found the results rather inconclusive.

I may have seen a very faint smattering of stars in the right spot but then again my tired observing eye might have been playing games !

It's certainly a challenging one. I note that the Skyhound (Greg Crinklaw) used an 18 inch for this observation of it and it did not sound that distinctive even with that aperture:

https://observing.skyhound.com/archives/may/NGC_5053.html

I had two 15 minute sessions looking for Lyrids between midnight and 1:00 am. Drew a blank on this occasion, unfortunately.

53 minutes ago, Waldemar said:

Having it collimated and send back, will ruin the collimation anyway..

Cleaning a mirror is not a very difficult job, you just need to be careful:  Cleaning solution.docx

 

This is a 120mm refractor we are discussing. In this case the objective will need to be removed and the elements split because cleaning fluid from a previous clean has seeped between the lens elements. 

1 hour ago, hawksquawks said:

Thanks I did send this guy an email on Friday hoping for a quote I never got a response I suspect due to current events. if you have had experience with him before do you know what sort of cost i would be looking at?

 

I don't have any experience with him personally but I know that he is well regarded by those who have used his services.

I don't know what the cost might be. If you want the objective collimated then he will need the whole of the optical tube so shipping and insurance costs will come into play.

The ones I saw went almost straight overhead from west to east. I didn't check the time but I guess it was around 10:30 pm ?

The transparency looked promising earlier but the faint fuzzies that I've looked at so far have proved not quite as clear as I'd hoped so I've used my 12 inch dobsonian on points of light instead, mostly.

Initially I observed some nice binary stars including the golden pair of Gamma Leonis, then the closer, uneven pair of Iota Leonis and then onto the other side of the sky for the lovely triple star Iota Cassiopeiae.

Then I searched out NGC 6543, the "Cat's Eye" planetary nebula in Draco. This small nebula looked really nice at 265x. It had a clear pale green tint and the brighter eye shaped portion (which looked rather fat tonight) was surrounded by a much fainter mottled halo. The dim central star was gleaming out from the centre of the nebula as well at magnitude 11.4. I tried UHC and O-III filters on the nebula but the unfiltered view was the nicest I think with the main effect of the filters being the loss of the central star from visibility.

Back over to Virgo and I had a go at picking up the supernova 2020ftl in the galaxy NGC 4277. This proved to be close to the limit of this evenings conditions with the 12 inch scope as I was only getting glimpses of the supernova mostly with averted vision. It's magnitude seems to still be somewhere between 13.5 and 14 I would say, so holding steady.

While in the "bowl" region of Virgo I had another try at picking out the brightest quasar in the sky, 3C 273. Though the brightest, it is still a rather faint magnitude 12.9 point source and I had to do some careful star hopping at high magnifications to be sure that I was seeing the "right" faint point of light. Well it will be faint - it's 2.5 billion light years away !.

Fortunately there are some good finder charts for this object on line. I found the one in this Sky and Telescope article particularly good for finding this target (and it lists another 11 that you can find if you really fancy the challenge):

https://skyandtelescope.org/observing/12-quasars-for-spring-evenings/

This is one of the best images that the Hubble Space Telescope has captured of quasar 3C 273. Also shown in this image is one of the jets that the quasar emits from time to time - those are estimated to be 200,000 light years in length

It is quite mind boggling to be observing the light from such a distant and exotic object

I'll probably have a look at a few of the brighter globular clusters to round this session off. A bit of relaxation after these somewhat dimmer earlier targets.

I saw 10 earlier tonight and they were quite bright - about magnitude 2 I guess ?

Spaced out by around 20 seconds.

The only one that I know of is Steve Collingwood:

https://sctelescopes.com/sc-telescopes-broadhurst-clarkson-and-fuller-fullerscopes/

These are the Starlink satellites. This thread has more information and observations on them:

I agree with Stu about optical quality mattering. The best white light views I've had are with my ED120 and my Tak 100mm F/9. My Vixen ED102SS is F/6.5 and also pretty good but the Tak is even better

1 hour ago, Mark at Beaufort said:

.... I cannot image the view in your 20".....

I can - I observed M13 with a 20 inch dob at one of the SGL star parties a few years back. Not a view that I will forget in a hurry !

I also got to view M51 with the same scope on the same night - more jaw dropping views.

Lets keep things calm folks.

Thanks

I find the view at of globulars stunning with my 12 inch at around 200x baz so I think you are on the right track

Under a dark sky I also use lower power on M13 to try and see a little galaxy that is in the same field of view:

On your question 2, I generally find that my 21mm eyepiece gives a more contrasty view of galaxies than my 31mm does. I have some moderate light pollution where I observe. When I want to tease out fainter targets I add more magnification, eg: 13mm or even 8 or 6mm eyepiece.

On question 6, I guess it is scanning up or down Markarians Chain. I have also had nice views of the structure within Messier 64 recently and also observing the "Siamese Twins" NGC 4567 and 4578 "interacting" was lovely.

Great report again Mark

I had a break from observing last night but my 12 inch dob is out again this evening. Hope to go for Coma B galaxies and the quasar in Virgo.

If only there were more focal length in the Nirvana range.

As said above, the eyepiece fitting is missing from the end of what is known as the drawtube - the chrome part that goes in and out when you focus.

There should be a thread on the end of the chrome tube to take the eyepiece fitting but I don't see one. Maybe it is an internal thread ?

It actually looks like the drawtube (chrome) is in backwards in the photo.

Until we have some idea of budget I feel we are just "shooting in the dark" here.

All we know at present is:

- Planets are of strong interest

- 100mm or above in aperture

- Does not want to have to upgrade too quickly

If you try it on the stars you might find that the problem goes away. The eyepiece will reach focus further inwards on a target that is effectively at infinity rather than a much closer target. The 40mm may well not reach focus at just the same place as your other eyepieces though, it's worth being aware of that.

The usual criticism of 40mm eyepieces is that they cant show any more sky than a 32mm in the 1.25 inch focal length, which is true. So the view down them can seem a little like looking into a tunnel. Owners of long focal length scopes find them useful tools though.

If you need a physically short scope with a moderate aperture then a refractor is not really the right scope. The folded designs such as the SCT and cassegrain will be a much better "fit".

Go for the scope that does what you need in the way that you need it done

When you say nearer objects, how near do you mean ?

The focal plane (the point at which the eyepiece reaches focus) is often different with 40mm eyepieces in the 1.25 inch fitting.

15 minutes ago, Beardy30 said:

No I don’t wear specs 🤓😂

That can be helpful when choosing eyepieces - you have a wider choice at the medium and shorter focal length end.

Many of us end up with a number of scopes. I have 4 refractors (which is probably excessive) and a 12 inch dobsonian for example. I have also owned SCT's, Mak-Cassegrains and Mak-Newtonians in the past as well and I enjoyed those as well.

We find the designs that enable us best to pursue the interests we have and also those which we simply like using. All the designs have their strengths and weaknesses.

These "this design vs that design" threads are interesting but don't reach any firm conclusions because there isn't one really 

Luckily for those starting out in the hobby, the majority designs of scope will do a reasonable job of being an "all rounder" and (hopefully) cement the interest in the hobby

The Nirvanas are very good value. If you wear glasses when observing their eye relief is a bit tight though, ie: you may not be able to see the full field of view. Eye relief is the distance that your eye needs to be positioned above the eye lens (the top lens in the eyepiece) to use the eyepiece fully effectively.

The 16mm and 7mm would be useful in your 8SE, the latter as a "highest power" eyepiece giving 286x.

I've owned a couple of the Celestron X-Cell LX's and thought them good but no better in terms of optical performance than the less expensive BST Starguiders. Both have more eye relief than the Nirvanas.

The Nirvanas give a wider field of view of course.