John

On the Moon now - it's an excellent "Schroters Valley" night tonight !!!

Great inside wall layering and structure visible in Aristarchus.

@Space Hopper: I missed Mercury - I would have to take the scope upstairs and observe from our bedroom and it's a little to large for that !.

I'll catch it another evening soon with a smaller scope.

Bright moon tonight so I took an early look at Venus with my 130mm triplet refractor when there was still plenty of light in the sky. The disk is 71% illuminated and 15 arc seconds in apparent diameter. Some suggestions of surface shadings but these became harder to distinguish as the sky grew darker and the glare from the planet appeared to increase. I tried a UHC filter which gave some pleasing views of the phase albeit tinted an odd blue-green colour.

After supper Orion was on show so I have turned my attention, and my scope, there. Went through my routine sequence of double / binary stars to assess the seeing and found it better than I expected - E & F Trapezium showing easily at around 150x and at the harder end of my sequence (which starts at Rigel) 32 Orionis and 52 Orionis showed a clear and clean split between the tight airy disks. The latter is always pleasing to be able to make and tonight was a good one

Betelgeuse actually looks a touch dimmer than Bellatrix this evening - maybe that because Betelgeuse red whereas Bellatrix is blue-white ?

Bright moon in Gemini will be next in line for observation I think.

This big refractor is so easy to set up and use on the T-Rex mount    

48 minutes ago, F15Rules said:

Hi Alan

The original Celestron Ultima and Parks Gold Ps Masuyamas did come with folded eyecups. I'm not sure about all the other versions, I suspect the Baader Eudiascopics do/did too.

See photo below of what they look like.. (not my set, sadly!😱😁).

They really do work well too, in my experience.

HTH,

Dave

Other brandings of these were the Orion Ultrascopics and Antares Elite Series. Both of those came with fold up eyecups of the same pattern that the Ultimas in Mikes photo are wearing. Not the best design eyecup design IMHO but better than the bare metal. 

I've owned quite a few of these over the years. Interesting that they are still well though of now.

I've always felt that these eyepieces came from the same factory that made the Baader Genuine Orthos, Fujiyama HD orthos etc, etc. There is something about the design and finish that is very, very similar. 

10 hours ago, McNewt said:

Sorry for the mess.  Flooring to be done.   

 

That's a superb alt-az setup

APM Maxload mount but I don't know the tripod / pillar ?

The scale of the thing often catches people out:

My favourite eyepiece for spotting the Plato craterlets is the Pentax XW 5mm which gives 318x with my 12 inch dob. My best count was 11. The lunar illumination needs to be favourable so that some shadow is showing on the floor of the craterlets.

I'm no imager but I can appreciate that is a great 1st nebula image !

It's the North American Nebula (NGC7000) in Cygnus. Rather low down at this time of year so that would add to the challenge.

2 minutes ago, Barry-W-Fenner said:

My Nemesis, The Veil. I still cant find it. I will need to start a thread for advice from the pros... 

Baz

Do you have a UHC or O-III filter ?

They (especailly the O-III) make all the difference in terms of visibility of the Veil.

6 minutes ago, Barry-W-Fenner said:

If I ever decide to upgrade my scope I think a 12" would be the largest practical size. I can't see any point going from an 8 to a 10 an any more than 12 would be difficult to move around the garden.

do you take you 12 from the dining room in one piece John? Or do you take it apart. If you take it apart I assume you also do this when relocating in the garden?

 

Regards

Baz

 

I lift it in two sections Baz. The optical tube just lifts off the mount using the "wheels" as handles. Base goes out first then the scope plonks on top then a few bits and pieces are attached while it cools.

I can move the whole thing a short distance in one piece (using a sort of sideways shuffle) but I have a weak back which I'm taking good care of so I try and minimise that. 

it is said that a 4 inch increase is needed to see a noticable difference when you get to the mid-aperture ranges.

2 minutes ago, ukskies said:

I thought it looked like the long version, do you not get any coma with that then john? Or is it just acceptible?

I can probably just see a touch of coma right at the edges of the field of view with my 100 degree eyepieces, if I really try hard and look for it. It will be there no doubt (according to optical theory) but I honestly don't find it intrusive in any way. 

This is just my experience over the 7 years that I've owned the scope. My dob is not a "perfect scope" of course but I feel that its a good one and it suits me just fine

Its worth thinking carefully about the aperture. A couple of inches larger sounds tempting and sometimes does not cost much more but when you get the thing setup you can get a shock

My 12 inch is as large as I can go given my need for a scope that can be setup single handed with relative ease and speed, taken down again equally speedily (rain clouds can move fast at times !) and can be moved around my garden fairly readilly to circumvent trees, neighbours houses, street lights etc, etc. Oh, and my scope lives in the dining room and there is only so far that I can push things with my other half

This is me with "big bertha" as my other half calls it, at an outreach event:

6 minutes ago, johninderby said:

Can’t emphasize  too much the importance of a dob that moves easily but not too easily and has no “Stiction”.

True.  It needs to remain pointing precisely at the target though changes of eyepiece, filter etc and not to move too readily if there is a breeze. Then move as smooth as butter to the next target. It's tougher than it sounds to get this "just right" but when you use a scope you sure know when it isn't

The Andromeda Galaxy is a very large object but unless the skies are very dark the view is usually limited to the core area. If you want to show M32 and M110 in the same view of view you need to keep the magnification down to get enough true field of view

Seeing the extended structure and dust lanes really needs dark, transparent skies as much as anything. Get your scope under such skies and you may be surprised how well it shows this galaxy group.

The good thing about the Heritage 130 in this respect is that it is readily portable

Nice gear but its not really gear testing weather around here tonight

2 hours ago, merlin100 said:

I've taken the plunge and ordered a red dot finder from eBay, as I'm fed up with the terrible OEM finder scope.  I take it that it should be easy to set up?

What scope is it for ?

5 minutes ago, itsbrittanyhere said:

The shipping label says California. Celestron and they told me to ship it there on the phone.

Who did you actually buy the scope from ?

1 hour ago, Endolf said:

Aaah, the posh side of Junction 19 😉, I'm on the other side.

My other half is from "over there"

Hi and welcome to the forum

I'm in North Somerset as well - Portishead.

Yes I think it does. They both use M10. My Berlebach tripod is EQ5 and HEQ5 compatible and that uses an M10 bolt.

Astronomy and beer - sounds fun !

17 minutes ago, Cornelius Varley said:

Probably common with this type of telescope.

Yes. Bird-Jones design I believe ?

Yep - it's an alt-az mount !

The next few nights we have some reasonable forecasts for clearish skies - the best that I've seen for quite a while. But the Moon is going to be 85% - 100% full and will dominate the night sky.

I love observing the Moon so it's not a dead loss by any means but it does seem to me that clear skies and a bright moon do seem to occur quite frequently.

Is my memory playing tricks on me or is there actually a reason (apart from sods law for the DSO fan) why these things seem to happen together

First lighted my T-Rex alt-az last night. What a superb mount !!!!

Just as well there isn't a "Willie Weasel" club - he was rather naughty and often got run over I seem to remember

Anybody want to join my "Green Cross Code Man / Darth Vader" Club ? (you get to wear the uniform !!!!)