John

12,000 starlinks planned to be in orbit by 2026 😬

Sounds a nice conjunction to have a go for 🙂

Just don't tell the weather gods !!!! 😬

I've used the ES 2x focal extender and the 2.5x Powermate.

The ES unit does a pretty good job of emulating the Powermate's benefits. Perhaps a touch more light scatter and the ES did change the focus point a bit (can't recall how much but not a lot and it was inwards) whereas the Powermate is pretty much totally invisible and with little or no shift in the focus point. The ES was as sharp as the PM.

In other words the often encountered subtle difference in performance for a large additional outlay. 

1 hour ago, Ags said:

I am always reluctant to post my negative reports of Nirvanas. Most people seem to get good ones, or my eyeballs are incompatible with the optical design, or I make unreasonable demands on the eyepieces. It seems the advice to give these a try works well for most people, and this advice has won me over to try twice. But having had two undeniable failures, I will not be trying a third time.

As is often said here and elsewhere, eyepiece preferences are a very personal thing.

The collimation in my 8 inch Skywatcher dob looks pretty much like yours is now. My scope is performing excellently 👍

My back garden (where I do most of my observing from) sounds a bit like yours Steve - "it depends which direction you look" 🙄

I got Triton tonight with my ED120 and that is listed at magnitude 13.5. It was not that high in the sky so may have been "extincted" (not a proper word !) to mag 13.7 perhaps. 

Right on the very limit for the 120mm scope and not readily held visible with direct vision.  

Just watching the Great Red Spot coming around the limb of Jupiter 🙂

Nice and clear here currently although some cloud bands passing across from time to time.

After a late session yesterday I'm keeping it short tonight. I've been concentrating on Neptune with my ED120 refractor and looking out for it's brightest moon Triton. 

Triton is a tough challenge for the smaller aperture scope being around magnitude 13.5. I carefully studied the patch of sky around Neptune using 300x magnification and, eventually, was getting consistent glimpses of a suspect faint point of light south of the planet and slightly towards the west.

I made a rough sketch of the position of the suspect in relation to the compass points and drift of the view towards the west (my mount is undriven).

After re-confirming my suspects position 3 times at the scope, I consulted Stellarium, Cartes du Ciel and the Sky & Telescope Triton Tracker app:

Neptune's Triton Tracker (skyandtelescope.org)

I was pleased to get confirmation from all 3 sources of Tritons position angle in relation to Neptune tonight and it's separation which is currently 16 arc seconds.

This is the first time that I have seen Triton with the ED120 although I felt I glimpsed it at an outreach session with the same scope last Saturday night. I was pleased with this result tonight which confirms that this distant rock and ice moon can be seen, even if only through glimpses, through this aperture. I suspect it would be beyond my 100mm / 102mm scopes though. 

This representation was generated by the S&T app and I added the compass points. The view is highly enlarged over that which is seen at the eyepiece of course, even at 300x 🙂

Great stuff 🙂

The images you get are a tribute to your skill and determination and also the quality of the optics in the 200P dobsonian I reckon.

Having recently acquired a 200P dob, not having owned one for over a decade, I had forgotten just how good the optics are in these scopes 🙂

Another variable to add to the formula is target altitude. Atmospheric extinction takes it's toll on brightness. There are formulae that help calculate this but they seem quite complex, to my brain at least 🙄

Atmospheric Extinction and Refraction – Asterism.org

3 hours ago, IB20 said:

Glad you got some good conditions John. 
I didn’t fancy the 2am bed-6am wake up from my two boys so will eagerly have to wait for my first shadow transit of the season.

My other half kindly let me have a "lie in" this morning while she had breakfast. I've got to be on good behaviour for the rest of the day now - no drifting off in front of the TV later otherwise I'll get the accusations of behaving like an "old man" 😬

4 minutes ago, WolfieGlos said:

.... a 6 panel mosaic I started…last month! Currently pulling in some of the best guiding and HFR values I’ve ever seen….

Great stuff !

I've no idea what it means but I'm sure it's great 🙂

19 minutes ago, WolfieGlos said:

Same happened here. But I decided to leave the scope out whilst watching a film…and now there’s no wind and it’s really clear to the eye, although transparency isn’t the best.

It's been cracking here for the past half hour or so. Transit of Io + shadow across Jupiter's disk is spectacular 👍

Io is on the disk alongside it's shadow now. Lovely sight 😁

30 minutes ago, John said:

Clear here now for a bit. Io edging closer to the jovian limb. Shadow transit starts in around 20 minutes 😁

Lovely detail now on the giant planet at 150x. Switched to 6mm Ethos to get a longer drift time.

I've been watching Io's shadow ingress onto Jupiter's disk. Fabulous views at 150x under a really dark, clear sky. And after all that moaning and groaning about the conditions earlier !

Tonight is the strongest reminder I've had for a while of why I am in this hobby 😁

Probably the best observing I've had this summer 👍

Clear here now for a bit. Io edging closer to the jovian limb. Shadow transit starts in around 20 minutes 😁

Lovely detail now on the giant planet at 150x. Switched to 6mm Ethos to get a longer drift time.

In the BillP review of diagonals I think the Astro Tech ones are also Long Perng products. 

I've owned both the 1.25 inch and 2 inch versions at some time or another under various brandings. 

6 minutes ago, cajen2 said:

I think their 'Marvel' EP range are clones of the StellaLyra 80° LER/UWAs, which are made by Long Perng. Don't know about the diagonal.

I think the diagonal is by Long Perng as well.

It's good stuff judging from the items that I've tried from that source.

I've just had another session outside with the Tak 100. Jupiter clear of pesky conifers at last and a few breaks in the cloud cover gave some nice views. Best magnification tonight seemed to be 150x. I was using Astro Hutech orthos in the 7mm - 4mm range. Limited AFoV and tight eye relief but very sharp and very little light scatter around the planets. 

During the steady moments I could see 5 cloud belts plus the N & S polar zones. The north equatorial belt was showing some very interesting knots and whirls and I could see at least 2 festoons looping down from it into the pale equatorial zone. 

The seeing was good enough to be able to tell Ganymede and Europa from their apparent size in the eyepiece. Io and Callisto seemed about the same size but obviously Io is approaching the jovian disk currently. 

Cloud cover thickening again so I may well miss Io's shadow transit but this past 20 minutes or so has been a bonus 🙂

13 minutes ago, IB20 said:

....Clouds have sadly turned up now, boooooo!

 

Same here. I was just starting to enjoy myself as well !!!

26 minutes ago, John said:

Hazy cloud cover here but I can see some stars plus Saturn and Jupiter.

Nice views of Saturn, Neptune and Iota Cassiopeia so far with the Tak FC100. 

I don't think it's going to last though 😒

I'm so glad I've got a scope that needs hardly any cool down time and is quick to set up with the weather we have had this summer and autumn. 

 

Pah !!! - thin clouds have gotten thicker and thicker. Scope back in. 😒

Jupiter still not in view due to a large conifer. "Clear Outside" says that the sky might clear again in a couple of hours ...... 

I've remembered another mistake. This:

I picked it up cheap from a photo dealer. I had read some criticisms of them but thought that I might be able to tweak it into being a useful portable scope. Whatever I tried I could not get sharp images through it, even at quite low magnification. It's a sort of bird-jones design I now know and not even a half decent one of those. It's made in Japan so not everything from the land of the rising sun is well designed and made 🙄

My 1960's 60mm Tasco refractor gave much sharper views of everything. I still have that Tasco. The 76mm catadioptric ended up in bits in the bin I'm afraid.

Hazy cloud cover here but I can see some stars plus Saturn and Jupiter.

Nice views of Saturn, Neptune and Iota Cassiopeia so far with the Tak FC100. 

I don't think it's going to last though 😒

I'm so glad I've got a scope that needs hardly any cool down time and is quick to set up with the weather we have had this summer and autumn. 

The transparency is really poor but I can at least see some of the brighter stars plus Saturn and Jupiter so a scope had to go out !

I picked the Tak FC100-DL because it has virtually zero cool down time so it's up and running at 180x and 225x from the off. Nice views of Saturn but it's fainter moons are hard to pick out (unsurprisingly).  Slight fuzzy mobile snap - hands shaking a bit from the sheer shock of actually being able to observe something !! 🙄

Nice - no false colour in evidence there !