starhiker

Thanks. Please really have a good rest from the surgery and dont worry about the notion template. I had been using @k_martensen template and imported a messier list. I had been playing around it. But not quite get the motivation to really devote my energy into it yet, because I had no observation for really quite a while now. The weather is so bad here, I even forgot when was the last time that the weather allows me draging the dob outside after I am back home from work. I occasonally saw partially clear sky when driving home, and it became fully cloudy immediately when I check it from my garden...

I agree. I always like the customisable tool, though it might be a pain to manual input all data if not using existing software. But on the other hand, I am not interested in taking notes on the unnamed dim dot nor trying to observe anything below 11 magnitude from my garden.. So there won't be much I will keep record for.

Thanks a lot for sharing your notion page. I made a copy straightaway 😀 I will play about it and adopt some format from the screenshot of @badhex as well. There will be plenty of time to play about it before my next observation session, according to the weather forecast..... I agree with you about the choice of software by the way. I realised notion could do better job for this, especially the cloud based style.

Comparing your sky with mine, I know now that I will not try again on M33.. I have the same dob and not as good as your view on the DSOs. I tried M33 before but failed. Maybe I will only try it when I get the chance to visit a dark site.

Thanks a lot. I have a notion account, but please just deal with it when you really get time to spare. No hurry at all. Cheers. Broadband issue is annoying. I had experience of waiting for a fix for nearly a month after moving home. Eventually they had to dig the front yard and bury a new cable...

Thanks a lot. It would be really great if you are so generous to share it or part. I am not familiar with how the sharing works in notion. Maybe sharing a Messier database and the template if it uses one? So I can start from there? Cheers. I can imagine that it is very time consuming if trying to import the data manually one by one. But luckily I am just starting my visual journey not too earlier before. So I can build up it slowly while I proceed the hunting journey..

Thank for sharing! This is exactly what I want! I may try to replicate a similar system in notion as well. Though I prefer other local note taking system for work, a cloud based system like notion is actually more suitable for observing notes.

I finally got about 1-2 hours clear skies last night for probably 2 weeks. I decided to check around some DSO in Lyra and Cygnus before they are gone from the easy accessible sky of my garden. While I was checking Lyra, a light dot moving pretty quick from Lyra ascending in about NW direction. It probably has a magnitude between 3-4 as I can easily track it in my finder under the Bortle 6 sky, but not quite in the naked eyes. It takes about 5-10 seconds to move about 2.5 degree (half of the FOV of my finder). Not sure what it is, I suspect it is a satellite. I couldn't tell from a 40x eyepiece, and I was not able to change eyepiece while hand tracking a fast object like this. Lyra: Ring nebula found, but failed to identify m56. I am sure my dob should be able to resolve m56, but I couldn't tell if I am looking at it. Cygnus: m29, NGC6871, NGC6910. Tried to identify veil nebula, but I couldn't distinct them visually. When I am trying to find others, clouds are back!

Thanks a lot for you suggestion. They are really helpful. I checked the website of astroleague for observation lists before, but clearly the hints for making observation notes were ignored.. I will go back to have a better read.

It looks brilliant. I am going to try it in my next clear sky night.

I have not started observation notes yet. But I would like to start one and am interested in what you guys normally note down. Sketching is too much for me though. As for the journal system, @k_martensen, as you mentioned notion, why not try Obsidian or Logseq. They are free and have the similar functionality. I used Logseq myself for work related notes. I am sure you can customise a good template for your observation notes.

I got the same dob a few weeks ago. It is brilliant. I have no problem to observe moon and jupiter with both the 30mm and 9mm eyepiece. I am not sure why you have trouble viewing jupiter. But for the first two questions, I may provide some of my experience. I experienced that the tube dropped its head before when the angle is low. I simply fixed the bearing on the highest position of the tube, that is making sure the bottom is slightly heavier. All screws inside and the bearing are tightened to their maximum. I have no problem for the tube loosing its balance after that. The second problem is definitely that you didn't align the focuser properly. It is an easy fix. Just aim your dob far in the daytime, and adjust the two screws of the finder to align it to the center of the finder. Nice pictures btw. I had not made success to take a good picture through the eyepiece.

It is M31 in the orange circle. It is a lot fainter than Plaides. In a Bortle 6 sky, I could spot Plaides in my naked eyes very easily in my driveway that there are some light sources from neighbour's house and poles. But I can only see the patch of M31 lightly through a binocular or a telescope in my garden where is considered having less stray lights.

I got a couple of hours with a nice sky last night. It was the first time that I notice the issue when the dob is not cooling down. I tried to look at the moon immediately after moving the telescope out, then found that the image is so blur and turning the focuser didn't help. Then I let it cooling for a while and started from moon, saturn and jupiter. I decided to check around Lyra following a observation list imported in skysafari. Most of the effort is made to split the double double and to observe M57. Maybe the 133x eyepiece is not powerful enough, I could only vaguely split one of the double. They are too bright. For M57, it was easy to find it using the 40X eyepiece. But it is hard to find it using 133x - easy to lost it when switching eyepieces. I was just curious if I can see it better using a higher power one. I will try it again next time. Finally I use my dob to find M31 the first time. I managed to find delta and pi firstly in the finder, then found Mirach by moving up, then mu and nu. After nu appears in the finder, M31 vaguely appears in the finder too. The rest is straightforward. Late night, I observed mars and orion nebula the first time. Mars are so bright and red. Maybe too bright. Orion nebula is AMAZING! I wasn't expecting that I could see a rather bright white?/blue? patch so clearly. Simply amazing. But I didn't have much time before the cloud covered everything.

I started about two months ago with a Celestron G2 upclose 10x50. I can't say how good it is comparing with others because I only used this binocular. But giving its size and price, I am happy with it. Together with a skysafari plus, I have learnt quite a bit of sky. I still remember how excited I am when I find M31 using this binocular. Initially I was frustrated with the shaking picture. Then I bought a L-bracket to attach it on my photo tripod. But after some time, I decided to not use tripod for convenience.