John

18 minutes ago, scarp15 said:

Very good haul, a proper tour indeed.

Thanks Iain.

So many others that I could have got as well when I look at my charts.

25 minutes ago, mikeDnight said:

Here you go John, one scoundrel pic' just for you. 

That's more my style Mike 

Last time I wore a suit was at my sons wedding last June. My god that seems a long time ago now !

At least it's an easy star hop tonight:

Sigma 1 ------> Sigma 2 ------> Rho --------> ??????? now where is the darn thing ???????

31 minutes ago, Ships and Stars said:

..... I'd like to change the eyecup on the 20mm, it seems to hold my eye a bit far away when up, and when down there's too much eye relief, but a minor niggle.

 

I have a similar issue with the eyecup on the ES 17mm 92 but more than a niggle - I'm not finding it as comfortable as my Ethos's. I've read that the ES 92's are great for those who wear glasses when observing and they are really well corrected eyepieces though.

90% of that session last night was with the 21mm Ethos in the 12 inch dob.

Brilliant Mike - every inch the "gentleman astronomer"

I was a scoundrel with a dobsonian last night though

15 minutes ago, bish said:

I've never tried that one. Can"t hurt to have another app on my phone! 

Not an app I'm afraid. Its a PC application. I tend not to use a mobile when observing especially when going for faint stuff.

When I observed it Last night this comet was very close to the "small triangle" of the star hop route to M81+82 that Stu shared some time back:

It will be just off the top star of that triangle tonight at 9:00 pm so relatively easy to find its position:

3 minutes ago, Ships and Stars said:

I was going to ask if you had a effective method for keeping track of galaxies in that region. It does get a bit overwhelming for me. My best solution so far is just to have the S&T atlas on my lap and tick them off with a pencil, but on the fainter ones I'll have to print off a page from the deep sky atlas I think. 

Anyway, well done again!

I tend to hop from galaxy to galaxy and that way have some idea what I'm looking at. If I bump the scope away from my path though, I get lost rather easily in that part of the sky.

Still, being lost in "the realm of the galaxies" is a rather nice thing in these troubled times !

Nice report. Doing this stuff is good in these difficult times - good for the mind I think

13 minutes ago, Ciaran Meier said:

Thats quite a list,  you'll sleep well tonight 😁. 

Favourite one apart from the chain ?

 

 

The Leo Triplet looked nice.

I could have gone on and on in the Virgo / Coma area. I spotted a dozen or more other fuzzies that I could not ID with any certainty. There are quite a few Messiers in amongst the NGC's and it can get a bit confusing !

I find Cartes du Ciel pretty much spot on with comets.

8 minutes ago, Littleguy80 said:

I just picked up Comet C/2019 Y1 in Andromeda. It’s an easy star hop from M31 and quite an easy spot in my 10” dob despite being quite low. I went on for further views of C/2017 T2 and C/2019 Y4. We now have three reasonably bright comets!

Unfortunately Andromeda is behind houses for me currently.

They are reasonably bright but I would not want anyone who has not seen them yet to think they are in any way spectacular objects to be honest. Worth finding but hardly showstoppers !

Got this one and Panstarrs again tonight with the 12 inch dob.

Panstarrs is still currently brighter and larger I reckon. Neither spectacular by any means but comets are always worth having a look at

12 minutes ago, Barry-W-Fenner said:

I think you could be correct, the sky is crystal clear and there for hopefully the transparency will be good. Seeing might be a little on the wobbly side though. However I for one am glad to get the opportunity to go out and view. Get to know there will be plenty of other observers out there also.

I wouldn't mind a DSO night. I haven't had a huge amount of success with these so far, the LP is making life difficult. Anything in particular you are hoping to view?

 

Baz

 

 

 

 

I'm going to be doing the front and back ends of Leo (and between the Lions legs too !), Ursa Major and, if I stay up later the "bowl" of Virgo and Coma Berenices. There are simply loads of galaxies around those areas.

The easier ones in Leo are M65, M66, M105, M96 and at the "snout end" NGC 2903 is quite bright.

11 minutes ago, JeremyS said:

Is that a single point attachment, John? I.e. to just one of the rings.

I was thinking about a handle for a Tak tube ring, which also has only one screw thread.

Maybe I should start a new thread....

 

 

Yes, single bolt. It seems sturdy enough for the 4 inch Vixens but they are quite light. I've seen them used on Tak 100's.

If I put something on my ED120 and 130 triplet it will be bolted at both ends I think !

3 minutes ago, Barry-W-Fenner said:

John that OO 12" dob is pukka!  I bet the views are ace. I would really like an Orion model next around that size. When I have fully explored the 200p I will consider looking for one and a more premium brand of eye pieces to suit.

That said the 12" OO on  ABS with steel track focuser for £600 has had me sweating recently 😁

How do you think the sky will behave tonight. It looks amazing out but in my limited experience I don't know if that is a good thing?

 

Baz

Thanks Baz.

I reckon the transparency will be quite good but the seeing not so steady. It's a bit blustery here so I'm going to be sticking to low to medium magnifications anyway.

A better DSO night than a high power observing one perhaps ?

Now I've said that it will probably turn out to be quite the opposite

I use the Vixen handle on my, er, Vixen

It may well fit on the Skywatcher tube rings as well.

My 12 is out as well. It has been a nice sunny day so I'm hoping for a nice clear night to match

3 hours ago, Louis D said:

Can you imagine if phones required you to open a terminal window, and then type in all of your commands at the command line as was common 30 years ago and is still common in Linux?  No one would buy them.  Yet Synta continues to sell scopes with clearly outdated focusers and people continue to buy them.  I'm guessing because the buyers just don't know any better.

The Synta focusers do work Louis. They are not the best but they do work. 

My 12 inch dob came with one of those GSO crayfords fitted to it. It was OK but nothing special either. I've replaced it with a Moonlite now.

I would like to see the two eyepiece adapter approach that Synta use changed though. That confuses so many folks judging by the number of questions we get on this on here.

16 hours ago, davhei said:

Thanks! Didn’t think of using the OIII-filter actually, have to do that next time. Would be interested to see if it is possible to see the owl eyes.

If your skies are dark and transparent, you may well get suggestions of where they are. Certainly the face of the nebulous disk will show some contrast variations. M97 is a particularly good O-III target I feel.

The EQ3 is quite different from the HEQ5 that Astro Baby describes in that link.

I came across this thread on this forum which relates to the EQ3-2 mount which I think is pretty much the same as the EQ3 Pro:

Excellent sketch !

An O-III filter makes M97 pop into view quite a bit easier but thats at the expense of M108 which all but disappears so if you want to see both in the view, unfiltered is better.

The BST Starguiders make a good upgrade over the stock eyepieces. They have a good reputation on this forum

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/bst-starguider-eyepieces.html

Personally I think a 2 inch eyepiece with a focal length of 30 mm or so is worth having as well but they do tend to cost a bit more to get decent performance.

39 minutes ago, John said:

As long as its a good way off the target does not matter.

Actually, on 2nd thoughts, flying birds are not suitable targets !