RobertI

I’d only planned a five minute session with the binoculars but it was so clear I thought I ought to get one of the scopes out. Thinking I might have a go at the pup, I decided to get the 150PL out. It was actually lovely to reacquaint with this very capable scope - first look at Sirius was really nice with four sharp diffraction spikes, which were actually very pleasing to the eye, and also helped focus. Sadly, Sirius itself was far too wobbly to attempt to see the pup, so I had to look elsewhere. With a Morpheus 17.5mm in, giving 68x, I enjoyed some nice views of M42, M35-38, M97, M109, M51, M44 plus lots more. It was great fun swinging the canon around the sky and dodging the puffy scudding clouds - the whole thing really reminded me of the times I spent with my first scope as a teenager, a similar 6” Newt. I’m always surprised what a good deep sky scope a 6” F8 scope makes, with sharp stars and contrasty views.

1pm came and I got a bonus - all the street lights went off (a recent development) so I had even darker skies. Sadly by this point cramp was starting to set into my feet - a potential downside to standing to observe - so happy to pack away for the night. 

I was also thinking/hoping a robotic EAA scope of some sort. I think the Seestar et al have proven the demand. Interestingly many (most?) users of the Seestar, Unistellar, etc seem to be using them for imaging (ie: long integration times with post processing) instead of EVAA (ie: near real time ‘live’ viewing). I’m more into EVAA myself, and although I'm very tempted by a Seestar, it only really seems to work well for EVAA on the brightest objects, which is a bit limiting. So I’d be very interested in something that can go deeper more quickly even if it’s more expensive. 

Nice first light. Plenty more to see with that 8”! 👍

5 hours ago, Ian McCallum said:

I've not used a telescope in nearly a year, due to poor mental health.  I lost a beloved pet on 5th February 2023, which caused me great anguish.  For a long time, I couldn't get the loss out of my mind and still miss my beloved pet every day.  I eventually tried to keep busy and concentrate on other hobbies.  I've just set my astrophotography rig, for the first time in nearly 11 months.  Obviously, I've missed out on nearly a year of things and have became very rusty - but hopefully, I'll get back into it again...

PS:  I've suffered from poor mental health for many years, but this was one of the worst bouts of it.

Sounds like you’ve really been through the mill over the last year, I hope you’ve got some support and help. Glad that you’ve rediscovered astronomy, that seems like a good sign. 

For many visual observers, a 127 apo would be all the scope they need (me included!). 

Your existing 4”/5” scopes would be fine to start visual with, but assuming they are tied up with imaging, looks like you are  after a good all round scope(s) to see what aspects of visual appeal to you? My feeling is that the 9.25, while a good scope, is pretty expensive for the aperture, and is not good for wide field. For that price you could buy a nice 10” dob for faint fuzzies AND a 4”/5” apo for wide field and solar system AND some good binoculars. But if you have your heart set on a 9.25 it will do faint fuzzies and solar system pretty well.

I think there are lots of visual treats that imaging cannot match, such as the beautiful views of stars/cluster/doubles, particular provided by refractors, the 3D lunar and planetary views through a bino-viewer, the explosion of globular clusters through a larger aperture and sweeping the Milky Way with binoculars. And the reward of seeing challenging objects at the limit of visibility is also an attraction to many. 

Interesting update Alan. I still use my Nadira chair for all my observing, haven’t had the damp expansion problem (yet!) but mine is stored in a dry garage. I have added a layer of foam to the seat to make it a bit more comfy for long sessions. Stability has been fine, even on grass, but there was an occasion where I hadn’t slotted the seat in properly and I crashed to the ground when I sat on it - fortunately it was on the lowest setting as I was viewing near the zenith, so I only had a few inches to fall. I am now super careful when slotting in the seat! 

6 hours ago, GrumpiusMaximus said:

My garden (faces practically due East, with the South and North visible, West totally obstructed by my house and all aspects obstructed by other houses,

Identical to me! 

I always enjoy Astrobiscuit’s videos, the latest one was also very entertaining and a huge amount of work must have gone into it. I think the main issue was that Mr Biscuit (Rory) placed too much faith in his engineer friend (obviously a fine engineer, but design of astronomy equipment apparently not his forte) which seemed to lead to a series of unnecessary issues with the mirror. Not sure about that fragile wire-based secondary spider arrangement either. But I’ll keep watching as I’m curious to see where this story goes next…

Fun fact: The name for the Canary Islands  comes from the Latin  “Insula Canaria”, meaning ‘Island of the Dogs’. Nothing to do with our feathered friends. 🙂

2 hours ago, John said:

After rain pretty much all day today stars started to show though thin hazy clouds at around 10:30 pm tonight tempting me out with my 100mm refractor to clear my head following the usual Xmas excesses.

The seeing was surprisingly steady and the Orion binaries put up a good show and I also panned the scope a little eastwards to catch that magnificent triple star Beta Monocerotis. What a superb sight !

Beta Mon is well worth searching out even with a small aperture scope. The 3 components are readily seen at 80x and upwards magnification and 150x shows them really well.

Here is how to find this binary star:

 

It is a cracker, I promise you. Herschel called it the "wonder star" 🙂

 

 

It is indeed a wonder star, which I haven’t caught yet this year. I remember my first view, actually not that long ago, when I saw a lovely double at low magnification, and as I slowly zoomed in a third component appeared - a wonderful way to discover it! 

Sounds like you are after something with decent aperture, quick to set up and carry around the yard, ideally with something better than a red dot finder? I am a big fan of the 130-150mm F5 Newtonians for giving the best aperture in a lightweight package, especially the ones that don’t need collimating. I would suggest two options to think about:

• A 150P Newtonian on a goto mount - would remove the need for starhopping with a red dot finder (apart from initial alignment), but you need to spend extra on a powertank and cable. 
• A 130P Newtonian on a manual AltAz mount - you can then use something like Astrohopper on your smartphone to find your targets

These setups also have the advantage of being able to observe standing up, which removes the extra hassle of a chair, and is useful if you do quick ‘grab and go’ sessions.

The Celestron Starsense Explorer technology is excellent , but I don’t like the flimsy tripods and mounts on them - the 8”-10” dobsonias are the best, but these will be too bulky for you by the sound of it. 

8 hours ago, CharlyLeyequien said:

So, it finally arrived and I was so happy, I immediately went to my roof to collimate and align the lil beauty and have it ready, and I just went out to see the only thing I can see, Jupiter and the Moon(Bortle 7 city), and it was amazing hahaha

First I gotta say, I was a bit nervous, got overwhelmed with big words like collimation and adjusting the viewfinder, but it was all childs play, extremely simple, I took about 40 mins all in all, and considering my 0 experience, that was good(I think)

What I gotta say is that I thought the telescope would be a bit more stable, maybe it is just that I need to be more careful, but I did lock it up and it still moved very easily, but again, maybe it is my inexperience

Now, I have to say that I am extremely surprised and never really gave it any thought, that the sky moves so fast, one minute I had the moon in focus and another it was already leaving focus lol, I mean, it is kind of obvious, but I had seriously never considered that haha

Also, I thought that with the 10mm lens I would see the moon a bit bigger, but it fit perfectly inside the eyepiece, that was also a surprise, but I am not going to get any more powerful eyepiece until later on(And I know that I need to make sure that I can use them with the telescope, can't quite remember why lol, but I will look at the vids you guys shared again)

I am so happy, gonna be looking at the sky much more from now on

Well done, sounds like you’re well on the way with your astro journey and that scope will serve you well (I have one myself). 🙂

Thanks John, I’ll have another more serious go this year. I think I may have to go to my local park to get away from the houses and get a better southern view, but even then I’m not sure I have the right scopes for the job, the 102ED being possibly too small and the C8 just not having good enough optics (“hairy stars”). Perhaps the 150PL? But I’ll re-acquaint with your excellent post to help me decide.  

My most recent first light was with my 102ED around three years ago. It was significant as it was my first experience of a good quality medium sized apo, having used mainly mirrored scopes for years. First light was perhaps a bit underwhelming, but subsequent sessions revealed to me a lot about what the scope could do on different types of object, so the first light report was really just the start of an interesting journey of discovery.  If conditions aren’t good for a first light report? I think I might still have posted to convey how I got on with the weight, length, focuser, cooling, etc. 

Superb, well done! 👍 M82 can reveal some mottling on good nights so another reason to check up on them regularly. 🙂

18 hours ago, Alan White said:

You could play a selection of consoles and a few select computers, but many were static sadly.
A great fun and blast from the past.

They had a 1970's into early 80's office set up, all looked right from wallpaper to furniture, all it lacked was the lingering cigarette smoke.

 

Ha, yes the cigarette smoke! In my first job there were some heavy smokers in the office. I remember going into a meeting and I put my files down on the table near an ashtray and sent up a cloud of ash. For some reason everyone blamed me, rather than the people who had setting fire to pieces of paper all day!! 

Great report of a very nice haul of DSOs. I think if you’ve caught M1 you’ll be able to see M81 and M82, trouble is they are in an area devoid of bright stars so it’s not easy to find them. You’ll get them. 🙂

What a great day out Alan, I must do the same sometime, they look really interesting. Last time I went shopping in Cambridge there was a shop full of various vintage computers, running classic games, which you could play for a modest fee. Pretty cool. 

The Vaonis and Unistellar (not on your list) scopes led the ‘robot’ telescope revolution, and are relatively small startup companies. ZWO, who are a large company that have a long track record producing astro-imaging products, have obviously seen the potential and now come in with a product with similar capabilities, at a much lower price. So personally I would discount the Vaonis on price alone. I think if you are going to really get into the imaging of deep sky objects, then the larger aperture and longer focal length of the SeeStar will take you further along that journey than the Dwarf. I’ve been seriously tempted by a SeeStar myself. Here is a thread showing what can be achieved with the SeeStar:

My opinion of course, others may see it differently. 

The newsletter will be greatly missed, it’s been part of the amateur astronomy landscape for a long time. I hope Steve (@BinocularSky) remains active and continues to educate us all! 

I may be way off here, but I think many of the stars in the picture have a similar but much fainter and smaller ‘glow’ -  the only thing different about this star that I can see is that it is very red M class, but not sure why it would generate a significantly greater ‘glow’ than other stars in the frame? 

Excellent Nick, welcome back. 

19 minutes ago, Zermelo said:

That's interesting, Rob - I'd not thought of taking binoviewers to an outreach session.
Which eyepieces were you using, and what TFOV were you getting?
Did you find that many people were needing to adjust the gap between the EPs to suit their face profiles?

I was using the WO 20mm eyepieces with the 1.6 GPC giving just over one degree FOV. I did let people know that they could adjust the inter-pupillary distance, but most people seemed happy with the way it was - I did adjust it for a couple of the younger visitors though. I think your average member of the public is not so bothered by perfect focus and inter-eyepiece distance as us fussy astronomers! I also suggested people remove glasses if they were struggling which seemed to help. What I did find is that people spent longer at the eyepiece with the BVs. Previously with a single eyepiece, people just tended to dip their eye to the eyepiece very briefly, too briefly, but with BVs people were really LOOKING. Definitely worked better than expected. 

Another successful outreach event last night organized by the Dedham Vale Society, the third outreach session in a row with clear skies! This time the location was a field behind the Anchor Inn in Nayland.

As it was solar system only due to the bright moon, I took my 102ED Starwave with binoviewers, and left the C8 behind. The use of BVs was a bit of an experiment and I was not sure how well it would work for outreach. The upshot was that the setup went down extremely well, with the low power views (57x) of the moon drawing gasps from many there, and I have to say seeing the full disc of the moon through BVs is quite something. Only a couple of people struggled with the BVs, and the workaround was to just close one eye! I think even a couple of the experienced astronomers became BV converts.

Surprisingly, low power views of Jupiter and Saturn were also really nice through the BVs and much easier to manage on my manual setup. I’ve found that two eyed viewing makes everything look bigger anyway, so 57x seemed more like 80-100x in cyclops mode, so perhaps that’s why it worked.

There was a good range of scopes there, including a CPC11 and 10” Newt for eyepiece viewing, and a 5” Newt and Askar lens showing real time images. It was a good couple of hours, despite the cold (frost on the scope by the end) and it was nice to meet with the gang and share our skies with around forty people. A hot meal in the pub afterwards was just the ticket. 

Great report, glad you got some good seeing. 👍