John

1 hour ago, Roy Challen said:

I visited whilst on a uni residential week in 2017. Not sure it's 'pilgrimage' destination, but worth a visit if you're in Bath.

One place that did have a "pilgrimage" feel to it for me was Sir Patrick Moore's house in Selsey. We visited the town in spring last year and I could not resist finding the house even though Sir Patrick's scopes have now gone and it (I believe) has moved to new ownership. So many photos in his books were taken there and some "Sky at Night" episodes were filmed there.

I've just thought of one quite local to me - the Herschel Museum of Astronomy, 19 New King Street, Bath. Fascinating place and Uranus was discovered from the garden 🙂

Herschel Museum of Astronomy

Bath Astronomers hold their meetings there.

Personally I love the 31mm Nagler even though I don't use it that much. The Ethos 21 is more effective under my skies, usually. I didn't get on with the ES 92's (I had both the 12mm and 17mm for a few months) although optically they are excellent I agree. 

Lucky that there so many choices around today 🙂

I agree with the ones you list 🙂

I'd add the Norman Lockyer Observatory near Sidmouth, Devon to the UK ones.

A few years back we travelled to northern Arizona and I was able to visit a number of astronomy / space connected sites including Meteor Crater and the Lowell Observatory at Flagstaff. There are also plenty of places around there that the Apollo astronauts trained for their lunar excursions which are fun and interesting to visit such as Sunset Crater and of course the Grand Canyon.

Add some fascinating sites formerly inhabited by indigenous people, plenty of sunshine and amazing landscapes and geological features and you get a fine place to spend a couple of weeks 🙂 

I've owned a few mounts with GOTO capability but beyond a little playing around to check that it works, I never actually use the GOTO function so now I stick with mounts that are much simpler. Manual slow motion controls are nice (though not essential for me) but I don't want to be messing around with setup routines and power supply provision, however simple they are. I stick to this approach now for all my setups from the travel one to my larger ones. 

Suits me but I appreciate that others will have their own preferences 🙂

38 minutes ago, russ said:

...... Had to use the little Starwave 70 as couldn't move the 150 to a good position. Starwave nailed it though......

 

I got one of the Starwave 70 ED's a few months back as a travel scope. I've not been that impressed by small aperture refractors that I've owned in the past but the Starwave 70 has changed my mind on such scopes. It really is a surprisingly capable observing tool 🙂

Again tonight with my 100mm. Perhaps a touch fainter again - magnitude 11.9 / 12.0 maybe ?

Also tonight, a rather neglected planetary nebula in Hercules - NGC 6210, The Turtle Nebula. Small so it needs 100x or more to clearly differentiate it from the stars in the same field. Pale blue tone perhaps ? Planetary nebulae like this make good targets in the summer skies even if the sky is not completely dark.

Nice piece from Stewart Moore on the British Astronomical Association website on this object:

v132i02ja (1) (britastro.org)

Here is the Deep Sky Corner page which shows how to find it:

Turtle Nebula (NGC 6210) | Deep⋆Sky Corner (deepskycorner.ch)

Antares split with my 100mm refractor at 225x. Seeing not as steady as last time. Secondary star seen briefly but consistently during moments when the seeing settles then it merges with Antares diffraction effects during the less steady periods, which it has to be said outnumber the brief steady ones this evening🙄

I tried a couple of ND type filters which helped get a steadier view of Antares but the secondary star could not be seen with those.

A pretty challenging double star !

17 minutes ago, John said:

I've reported it to the webmaster and it's been removed promptly. Makes you wonder how many other dodgy ones are out there though 🤔

Now it's back but with no photos 😕

I've reported it to the webmaster and it's been removed promptly. Makes you wonder how many other dodgy ones are out there though 🤔

I've found that you can get decent low to medium magnification views from most scopes quite quickly after setting up, even with my 12 inch dobsonian. For higher magnifications though, allowing the scope to adjust to ambient temperature delivers sharper views, more contrast and less light scatter. 30-45 minutes was usually sufficient with my 12 inch dob and my 130mm triplet refractor. Less time with my smaller aperture refractors. 

Here is a recent UK AB&S advert:

U.K. Astronomy Buy & Sell (astrobuysell.com)

This "barely used" scope bears a remarkable resemblance to this one reviewed on the CN forum 11 years ago:

A review of the Celestron CPC 1100 telescope - User Reviews - Articles - Articles - Cloudy Nights

2 minutes ago, Mr Spock said:

New three months ago, and I've never regretted anything as much. When I think it cost three times what the Starfield did and is optically no better, and ergonomically only about 10%, I feel disillusioned.

I felt that coming through in the report you posted comparing the two scopes when you got the Tak 😟

3 minutes ago, The Lapwing said:

I am in agreement, I would but the ES, amazing value for money, some ES are very close to TV, the 20 mm from the 68 series is as good as any Panoptic in my opinion anyway.

 

 

 

 

 

There are quite a few options that are very close to TV performance these days and often for quite few less £'s 🙂

Having visited Meteor Crater a few years ago I would not want to be anywhere near when a largish chunk hits the ground 😲

Incidentally, it ought to really be called Meteorite Crater I think, as the thing that created it actually got to the surface.  

That hole was created by an iron chunk about 50 metres in diameter (pre-disintegration) they think.

Barlowed laser collimation is worth a try:

Rear View Barlowed Laser Collimation (smartavtweaks.com)

1 minute ago, Leo S said:

Sorry John. Did not mean to hijack your thread! I won't reply any more here unless it's on topic.

No problem at all 🙂

Thanks for sorting things out @Stu 👍

NEO's deserve a thread of their own 🙂

One of my favourite lunar targets 😀

At high powers you can see the dark "tyre tracks" that appear to run across the floor of Messier. 

Alas too much cloud cover here this evening to observe anything 😒

I've no argument that NEO's pose a significant risk however this thread is about supernovae prompted by the current such event in another galaxy. 

By all means start another thread on the NEO threats though 🙂

Did you buy it new - is it still under warranty ?

2 minutes ago, Mr Spock said:

On mine it's the tube/focusser interface which is tight. You can't adjust that! With all the mechanism removed it's hard to move the focusser by hand! I even tried removing some of the grease. It's just a poor fit.

Yours has the same focuser that mine does I think - the 2.5 inch inch ?

Was the action OK before the MEF-3 was fitted ?

Not only "whoops a big scope" but also "whoops a big scope case" with that one if I recall correctly 😁

Tak R&P focusers can be adjusted for tension. I did mine once soon after I bought it and it stayed "right" after that. When I fitted the FT micro pinion upgrade I did not need to re-adjust the Tak side of the focuser but I did need quite a bit of tweaking on the FT side of things to get the "buttery smooth" motion that I was hoping for. I used the motion of the FT unit on my TMB/LZOS as a benchmark to aim for. 

A Tak R&P with an aftermarket pinion dual speed upgrade will never quite feel the same is it did before the upgrade IMHO because of the inertia that the gearing and mass that the two speed focuser unit adds to the system. 

Out with my ED120 this evening. Seeing is OK but not as good as previous nights. I could not get a convincing split of Antares - too much unsteady air down that low. It has been a warmer day today so I think that is probably the cause. Zeta Herculis and Lambda Cygni were quite nice though, but they are significantly higher in the sky.

Over in Ursa Major supernova SN 2023xif was spotted gleaming on the edge of Messier 101 at magnitude 11.8 tonight I would say. Traces of the galactic core were also visible despite the twilight conditions.

The I went over to Camelopardalis and using the stars Pherkad and Kochab in Ursa Minor as pointers and then 5 and 4 Ursa Minoris as further stepping stones, I managed to find comet C/2023 E1 Atlas glowing faintly and forming a handy triangle with a couple of 6th magnitude stars. Some light still in the sky so I needed a little more magnification to tease the comet out in a definite manner. Not the most spectacular but it's my first sighting of this one so still nice to pick out 🙂

Shorts and t-shirt temperatures this evening here 🙂