John

I've just ( at 19:10 hrs BST) found Venus this evening with my ED120 refractor. The "finding" was done with Stellarium to get the bearing, a compass and then some steady and methodical sweeping with a 9x50 RACI. Venus showed it's phase clearly in the latter and stood out well against what is quite a pale blue sky. The seeing seems a little unsteady though so I doubt that I'll see much in the way of features.

Filters are probably the easiest acquisitions to assimilate without too much 3rd degree from the budget manager. I mean, who would believe that a simple glass disk with a naff branding like "Tele-something" might cost 250 quid ???

Got to be twenty quid at most ! 😉

The 23mm and 16.5mm Pentax XW 85 degree eyepieces have been out for around 10 months now. From time to time I have thought about moving to an all-Pentax eyepiece line up for the sake of simplicity and because I am very fond of my current XW's in the 10, 7, 5, and 3.5mm focal lengths in both performance and ergonomic terms. Adding the 23mm and 16.5mm 85's to those XW 70's would seem to create a pretty comprehensive and versatile set of quality eyepieces even feeding my "ultra wide" tastes when required 🙄 

I wonder if folks who own either (or both !) of these 85 degree eyepieces have any comments on how they have found them in the real world of practical observing ? 🙂

Many thanks in advance for any feedback 

8 minutes ago, Kon said:

How? Seriously! Your drawn features are very similar to my capture from last night.

I have managed to see some features during daylight but not in this kind of detail.

I think the answer might be:

- Very fine scope

- Both eyes being used

- Lots and lots of experience

16 minutes ago, Paz said:

...I'm still thinking about it though!

Speaking from an observers perspective, there is something almost irrationally attractive about a ~5 inch refractor 😉

9 hours ago, John said:

- The famous "blinking" planetary nebula NGC 6826 in Cygnus is around 2000-2200 light years from us but also a very young object compared with many that we observe. Current estimates are that this planetary nebula could be as young as 1000 years old...  

 

 

I woke up this morning pondering this. If an event happened 1000 years ago to an object 2000 light years away, how come we can see it ?

I'm going to need to do some more research on this one and "fact check" a bit more ! 🙂

32 minutes ago, IB20 said:

It was actually reports from yourself and @Highburymark that has taken me down the TV plossl road for Ha, so thanks! 👍🏻

It's an interesting road to follow 🙂

- solar optimised eyepieces

- planetary optimised eyepieces

- deep sky optimised eyepieces

- travel eyepieces

- outreach eyepieces

No wonder we end up with boxes of the darn things !

Over the years I've had a couple of sets of TV plossls, the older "smooth" ones and the newer design ones. If I could only shake off this lure to wide field I'm sure that I could live with a single set of TV plossls plus the Nagler zoom for all my astronomy needs 🙂

I've been having a pleasant relaxed session with my 120mm refractor this evening.

I seem to be interested in observing targets of different extremes currently.

3 of tonights subjects, for example:

- The supernova SN 2023ixf in Messier 101. While the progenitor star was an ancient red dwarf within the 21 light year distant classic spiral galaxy, the immense outpouring of energy (outshining it's host galaxy) that signals it's demise was discovered less than a month ago. Tonight my estimate of brightness for this one is magnitude 11.6 - a little dimmer than my last observation a few days back. Of Messier 101 however, I could see barely the faintest hint.

- The distant globular cluster NGC 6229 in Hercules. I reported on this one a few days ago as well. Then I was comparing it with the much closer Messier 4. The interest tonight was not so much the near-100,000 light years distance that this cluster lies at but rather it's immense age. NGC 6339 has been estimated at 12-13 billion years old so nearly as old as the Universe itself. Compare that with my next target ......

- The famous "blinking" planetary nebula NGC 6826 in Cygnus is around 2000-2200 light years from us but also a very young object compared with many that we observe. Current estimates are that this planetary nebula could be as young as 1000 years old - a tiny baby in cosmic terms. Quite easy to spot at around 50x as a fuzzy star even under the less-than-dark skies but the best view was at around 200x. The magnitude 10 central star shines out from a small cloud of surrounding nebulosity. A UHC filter did not do much for it but an O-III makes it stand out more, albeit at the expense of the central star which becomes very hard to see with this aperture of scope. I think I prefer the unfiltered view with slightly dimmer nebulosity and a nice clear central star. No sign of the "blinking" effect this evening though. 

So even with the skies not really getting properly dark at this time of year, there are some fascinating and rather exotic targets available for the small telescope owner to wonder at 🙂

5 hours ago, Zermelo said:

(2)  A 50 mm finder bracket. 
I know that some people praise the regular "two screws and a sprung peg" version as "ingenious", but I've never gotten on with them.  Whenever I back off one of the screws, the finder always seems to stick, and need a nudge/wrestle.  I've also had difficulty, on a couple of scopes, in getting the finder to align with the OTA direction - it always seems to run out of adjustment (yes, I've tried shimming the shoe).
This one looks a better bet:

 

I have some of the "2 screws plus sprung peg" brackets and a couple of the above type, with 6 screws, 3 at each end, to hold the finder. 

I get on OK with both types but find that the 6 screw types hold the finders much more accurately in position and for much longer than the other type does. I usually need to tweak the "2 plus spring" ones a little each time I use them but the 6 screw types only rarely need any adjustment.

23 minutes ago, JeremyS said:

Is that a bottle (largely necked) of Aberlour I spy?

And any chance it’s my favourite A’bounadh? Cask strength. If so you are a man after my own heart Jim 🤔

This thread gets a bit like "Through the Keyhole" at times 😁

47 minutes ago, Merak said:

It looks like the 80ed has the same crappy focuser as the 100ed-r , shame really as the optics are pretty good.

Same optics as the Skywatcher ED100 and ED80 but Celestron opted for a thinner tube and a very mediocre focuser. Vixen did the same but sensibly stayed with a nicer tube and focuser. Vixen charged quite a bit more for their versions though.

Nice to see the term "Object Glass" getting aired again 🙂

1 hour ago, Paul Manuell said:

Thanks for that. The write-up says screw top design. Are you familiar with how that works, as in what part of it screws in where, in respect of the focussing barrel and main eyepiece?

I've not used one of the Antares barlows but it looks like a type of twist / click lock arrangement with a compression ring holding the eyepiece, tightened using the larger grey knurled ring. The other end is a normal 1.25 inch push fit barrel I think.

Rother Valley Optics also sell the same unit:

Antares x1.5 Twist Lock Barlow Lens 1.25" - Rother Valley Optics Ltd

I've no connection to this advert but here is one:

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

One of my 1st astro observations and sketches was of the Wilson Effect on a sunspot. Made with my 60mm refractor and solar projection nearly 40 years ago 🙄

I'm not keen on unboxing movies generally. This one though I did find interesting - the arrival of some ES eyepieces at the Lowell Observatory. Some of the 3 inch gear included here which you don't get to see often and it is BIG stuff !!:

Unboxing Our New Explore Scientific Telescope Eyepieces - YouTube

I used to have the 17mm and 12mm ES 92 degree eyepieces and they were pretty large and heavy pieces even for 2 inch accessories. I didn't get on with the eye relief of these though so I let them go to new homes. Optically they were very impressive though.

2 hours ago, The Lapwing said:

Interesting, not just me then. I rarely if ever use them. Some targets, Orion, Ring, Dumbbell look better without them in my opinion. I think the last time I used one was last summer when I had a quick look at the Veil.

That said I am considering a TV Nebustar, I was interested to see how the reduction of red effects things.

I had a TV Nebustar Type 1 and didn't think it particularly effective. To me, the Astronomik UHC has more impact as did the DGM NBP.

I believe the Nebustar Type 2 is a much more effective filter - it is made for TV by Astronomik.

So the more recent version is the one to go for I think.

I got a similar snap of noctilucent clouds back in July 2020. The nice bonus was Comet Neowise also posing in the same shot 🙂

It was astro society talk night so I've been up to Bristol and back this evening.

The sky is not properly dark until the early hours.

There is a lot of thin cloud about tonight so deep sky objects will probably be difficult at best.

So why have I put a telescope out ?🤔

The answer must be that I just like looking though them !!!

It will be the familiar and easy targets tonight, probably double stars which gleam back like old friends through the warm air.

What could be better 😁 👍

Good work !

I used to have one of those - nice scope 🙂

They did a 6 inch refractor version as well - see if you can find one of those next 😁

Whenever I can, I prefer not to use filters.

I do use O-III filters on receptive nebulae, occasionally UHC filters and of course a good solar filter (Herschel Wedge).

I have recently been trying different filters to observe Venus but with no consistent and clear cut advantage, so far.

I use a Baader Zeiss T2 prism diagonal with my F/9 Tak 100 and 2 inch Tele Vue Everbright or Astro Physics Maxbright mirror diagonals with my other refractors.

I have occasionally swapped them around but in all honesty I've not seen any differences in their performance 🤔 

8 hours ago, Stu said:

Good stuff John.

Are you able to check if I spotted it based on this post? Was tough from here as the light pollution is worse than at home.

Thanks 🙏 

I'm pretty sure you got it and I've posted in that thread 🙂

Looks right to me Stu. I observed it last night with my Vixen 102mm. Clear at 51x (Delos 14mm). The position in your image and relative brightness compared with field stars looks spot on. About mag 11.3 I thought.

Nice one 🙂

I'm still rather amazed that my little 70mm showed it a couple of weeks ago but we were on Jersey and the skies there were more transparent than they are here plus the SN was a little brighter. M101 looked more distinct there as well even with that tiny aperture - wish I could spend more time under such skies 🙄

Observed the SN again tonight with my 102mm refractor. My estimate of it's brightness is magnitude 11.3 this evening. I think the transparency might be better tonight ?

I could see the core of Messier 101 and, using averted vision, got a few glimpses of the nearby galaxy NGC 5474 which is considered the closest of M 101's companion galaxies and has been distorted by gravitational effects from the larger galaxy.

NGC 5474 seems an interesting galaxy - I'll come back to it under a darker sky when I have more aperture to hand.

3 minutes ago, Dave scutt said:

Does it barlow well I went for a Antares 1.6 x barlow but that's still in the post as well

Hope you can bring it to focus OK. 

The Antares 1.6 has great glass in it but depending on the version, achieving focus can be challenging.