rojay

I'd not come across this book, so thanks all for mentioning it. Turns out you can browse it on the Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/atlas-of-the-messier-objects-highlights-of-the-deep-sky/page/219/mode/1up (it's the old edition, obviously)

A short, but welcome, session for me this evening. Tried a few eyepieces on the Orion nebula; I ended up liking the view through the 15mm BST Starguider the most. Also clusters M41 and NGC2362 (for the first time, I think). Then cloud stopped play before I had chance to see anything else. Still, better than nothing 🙂

A short session for me last night, just the moon and Jupiter in my newish VX14. Nice details on both, with the Baader 10mm giving the best views of Jupiter's bands. On the Moon I enjoyed using a Svbony zoom, and turning it up to silly magnification. Like others above, I noticed how prominent Rupes Recta was. By the time I finished, my gloves were sticking to the ice on the tube!

Welcome!

Makes sense, thanks Artik.

Thanks. It's great for DSOs, but I was wondering particularly about stars: I see you can search for names like Polaris, but is there a way to do e.g. Beta Lyr or an HD number etc?

Hi, quick question: does the search function work for stars by catalogue number? I see it works for proper names, are their other options? Thanks.

I've been trying Astrohopper this evening, and found it works very well for me. With a single fix on Altair, I could "push to" M11, Albireo, M27, and M57. All of the objects were in a low- power field of view first time. Thanks for sharing this app!

Last night was my first look at Saturn this year too, same impression - much flatter than last time. Otherwise, a bunch of classics: Ring nebula, double double, Hercules cluster. I also had a nose around in Ophiuchus, because it was a well placed patch of sky. Some nice clusters, and a bright planetary: NGC6572, small but definitely non-stellar and a first for me.

Great stuff, I hope that's not marker pen on the carpet for the asteroid belt!

Hi all, I had quite a decent session yesterday, the highlights for me were the Double Cluster, Wild Duck cluster (M11), quite far down in the murk, and the carbon star V Aql. For the first time, I tried the trick of looking at a bright light to undo dark adaptation: it dud seem to help pick out the red colour.

Nice sketch, thanks for sharing. You inspired me to look at the Coathanger tonight! First time I've observed it in years...

Hello and welcome!

First session for a while for me, and I made an attempt to see some Virgo galaxies through the light pollution with the 8in Dob. I managed M49 - some nearby star patterns helped me point to the right place. Otherwise no definite detections, only hints. I still wanted to see galaxies, and since Virgo wasn't cooperating, I went higher up and in a direction with less LP to M81/82 which were much easier, and clearly different shapes. I'd had enough of challenges, so I slewed over to Hercules for an enjoyable look at M13, using a 10mm ortho to darken the background. Then two of the ultimate easy-to-find objects for a relaxing end to the session, Mizar and Polaris.

I did some wide field with the ST102. M44 was the highlight, a really good fit for the scope. Also a bit of cruising round Auriga, some nice star fields there.