John

If it landed in a biggish chunk that would make an impact pit of some sort which will help folks looking for it. Stony meteorites (eg: Winchcombe, Barwell etc) usually break up in the atmosphere and come to earth in small bits. An iron though might make it all the way down more or less in one piece or at least in larger pieces (eg: Sikhote-Alin). The meteorite hunters will be out in force around the likely fall area, as reported later in that thread 🙂

I read somewhere that the very early versions of the MN190 had a secondary diameter of 51mm which, at 27% of the primary diameter, made it potentially a decent visual planetary scope. Quite quickly though Skywatcher decided to put a 63mm diameter secondary in them (33% of primary diameter) to suit the needs of imagers better but perhaps moving it away from an optimal visual planetary scope ? The Russian mak-newts I mentioned earlier in this thread are optimised for high resolution visual observing with secondaries of around 20% or even less, than the primary. They are still heavy instruments though, take time to cool, and have their quirks so I'm guessing that your considerations have moved on now 🙂

Nice report but the position angle does not seem quite right 🤔 @Mr Spock's chart posted above has it at the correct position I reckon. The field shown is about what I get at 250x. Unless binoviewers change the orientation of the view - I don't use them myself.

That was almost exactly the situation that we were in. We had toured the western USA back in 1989 but astro related sites were simply not on the itinerary. When we were there I realised that we were not far from places such as the Lowell Observatory and Meteor Crater but too late to change the plans to actually visit any of them. In 2019 my other half gave me the thumbs up to arrange "something different" so I did 😁

What a great trip and super photos ! They bring back lovely memories of a similar trip that we did in 2019. That was in early September though and keeping cool was the challenge rather than keeping warm ! The observing deck was opened just after our visit so it's great to see the scopes installed and in action now. As it happened I bumped into @Saganite at the Lowell Observatory doing a similar tour 😁 Magnus mentions eyepieces. Here is a video posted by the Lowell Observatory showing a delivery of eyepieces for the public observing sessions:

Quite a large chunk. The Barwell Meteorite in 1965 was thought to be about as large as a turkey before it broke up. That is the largest UK fall.

It looks like Bresser are still using the old Meade-style finder mount. Those can be swapped out for a Skywatcher compatible foot but you need the type of foot that has slots rather than holes for the fixing screws because the screws on the Bresser mount are further apart than the Skywatcher ones. Something like this: StellaLyra Finder Shoe | First Light Optics

Nice haul Ian. What scope were you using ? I seem to struggle to get convincing sub-arc second splits whatever scope I'm using 🙄

I guess this should not be a surprise. It seems to be the way things have been going over the last few years, in all sorts of fields, and I don't think the pace will slow. The application of new tech to make things that were hitherto difficult and challenging, somewhat easier. With these new binoculars you still need to get out and find the birds to point them at 🙂

Thanks 🙂 Currently listed as mag 12.8 so medium apertures can see it.

I agree with the advice above that you will need to move to a 200mm aperture scope, or more to see noticeable gains visually.

Watching the moons come out of Jupiter's shadow is, perhaps, even more interesting than when they start their trip behind the planet. The start of the journey is a gradual slide ending in a sudden disappearance whereas coming out of the shadow is rather like someone turning on a light using a dimmer switch slowly, and well away from the planets limb 🙂 The solar system mechanics in motion before your eyes - you can't beat it 😁

Excellent report and sketches 🙂 Great stuff to catch Uranus's moons. I have only managed two of them and that was with my 12 inch scope under a really dark sky.

Bristol AS meeting tonight for me and by the time I got back, the sky was mostly obscured by clouds so I've not put a scope out. Nice to read the reports on here though - it did look quite nice out there when I set off for the meeting. Interesting talk about the Beagle 2 mission so that made up for not being at an eyepiece I think 🙂

I had tried with my 130mm refractor the night before last but it was not to be despite the larger aperture. Last night must have been a little steadier - Sirius A showed a number of diffraction rings rather than the mushy, flaring scatter of light that is often the case. Sirius B popped in and out of visibility just on the edge of the diffraction rings. Very faint and not the most stable view that I have had of it though. I'm finding that my eye needs quite some time to adjust to this task and allowing that to happen on such a cold night tested the patience to be honest with you 🙄 Good luck for the next time 🙂

I've just packed in for the night after getting some nice glimpses of Sirius B. The seeing stayed steady - earlier I had a tight but clear split of 52 Orionis, which I'm aways pleased to get 🙂

My record of this conjunction was a snap with my wife's compact digital on full optical zoom with the exposure compensation set down 2 stops. I've no idea what other settings the camera chose 🙂

The transparency has improved a lot here and the seeing is still holding steady so I'm still observing in between warming up sessions inside 🙂

Looks like a genuine LZOS objective and Feathertouch focuser in a custom tube. It might be something that someone has put together themselves - you can buy the objective and the focuser separately and supply your own tube. Perhaps they wanted a lighter overall scope than the ones that APM supply with the objective ? As long as the tube has light baffles correctly installed within it (no reason to think that it would not) then it should be an excellent performer. Here are a couple of reviews of LZOS 105mm F/6.2's in the tubes supplied by APM in Germany: Review of the APM TMB 105 f/6.2 Triplet Apo Refractor | Alpha Lyrae (alpha-lyrae.co.uk) Buyer's Guide to Four-Inch Apochromats (scopeviews.co.uk) These weigh 6.6kg which is quite heavy for a 4 inch class refractor so maybe that is what the originator of your scope was looking to achieve - same optical performance in a lighter tube ? I hope you enjoy it 🙂

The lunar features are so sharp tonight, even at very high magnifications for the aperture 😲 The Hyginus rille actually looks like a series of crater chains and I've been tracing another long chain of craters across the lunar surface - the Catena Abulfeda which terminates right alongside the crater of that name. The sky transparency does not seem that good so, unless things improve, it's probably not going to be a good DSO night. The high resolution targets are excellent though 😁

Nice views of the moon and Jupiter this evening with my ED120 refractor. GRS is currently in transit on Jupiter and on the moon, the Hyginus and Triesnecker rilles are looking great 🙂 Both targets close to each other in the sky so it's easy to skip between them taking in a mix of lunar and jovian sights 🙂 Snapped this with my wife's compact digital and, it came out OK I think:

If you have a clear night, before you try Sirius, have a look at Rigel (bottom right of Orion) and see if you can see it's companion star. That is a useful test of the seeing conditions and also gives you a guide to how far away from Sirius the Pup star is in the eyepiece. Rigel's fainter companion star is on the other side of Rigel than the Pup is from Sirius but it's separation from Rigel is very similar.

I agree. That mottling of the NPR is a sign of really good seeing as well as really good optics. The latter we can do something about, the former, we live in hope of !

I've bought the scope in now as well. Still very clear and sparkly out there but too cold to be enjoyable now. My last target was Sirius but it was too sparkly so I knew from almost first glance that the Pup was going to stay hidden behind its glare tonight. It was great to give the big refractor a proper go at Jupiter earlier though. With the rotten weather that preceded this colder stuff, the big frac has been bypassed in favour of the grab and go rigs.