RobertI

10 hours ago, RobertI said:

11 hours ago, mikeDnight said:

Also, despite the magnification being lower, the planet looked larger. Not sure why!?

Interesting, I made a similar comment a while ago when using my 10x50 binocular and my 10x50 finder-scope, things just looked bigger through the binocular. I think it my be an illusion from using two eyes, but a nice one.

I tracked down the report where I originally noted this effect, this is what I wrote:

"I noticed that the view through the 60mm scope seemed to be much smaller (ie: lower mag) than the bins, even though they were both 10x. So I looked through the bins with one eye only, and the view was similarly small. But when opening the second eye to get stereo vision, the view suddenly increased in size dramatically, almost like doubling the magnification. I know this is a optical illusion, but just shows why bins provide such good views. Does the same hold true of binocular viewers for scopes, or is the effect less marked because there is only one objective?".

I'm surprised this is not a more commonly recognised effect?

That's too realistic, the only way to actually prove it's made of chocolate would be to eat it!

55 minutes ago, mikeDnight said:

Also, despite the magnification being lower, the planet looked larger. Not sure why!?

Interesting, I made a similar comment a while ago when using my 10x50 binocular and my 10x50 finder-scope, things just looked bigger through the binocular. I think it my be an illusion from using two eyes, but a nice one. 

Superb sketches. So the second sketch is at a lower magnification but with binoviewers?

26 minutes ago, icpn said:

Hi Robert. Without trying to dampen your enthusiasm I doubt very much whether people will be willing to share views through telescopes this year because of Covid. I suspect that there may well be something in place about that in the guide to  the star party. So if you ask and they are unwilling it will not be because they are unfriendly but because of the safety aspects. If you know somebody who is there they may be willing to let you leave your kit on their pitch however.

I suspected that would be the case, fortunately my main reason for attending is for the dark skies and the camaraderie, but thanks for pointing out. I think I might feel a little uncomfortable asking to use somebody else’s pitch, but I don’t know anyone that’s going anyway! 🙂 But again thanks for the thought. To be honest even it’s raining all weekend I’m still getting away for a break, so will happy. 👍

I actually don’t have a tent or caravan,  so I didn’t look at availability of pitches, but I did manage to find a privately owned lodge (static caravan!) for a couple of nights. Nice and comfortable I imagine, but the down side is I will have to trolley my stuff to the observing site, so need to keep weight/size down! I think that eliminates the 150PL! 

The flash appears to be moving in the opposite direction to Jupiter which suggests a reflection or ghost image to me? 

37 minutes ago, scarp15 said:

Hi Robert, see if you can get Mirach's Ghost in Pegasus. Might also be a consideration if you have a pair of binoculars to take along in case dew became late on a potential issue.

Dew control and binoculars - excellent suggestions, added to list.

I have booked a couple of nights at the Kelling Heath autumn star party in October and am really looking forward to it. If COVID restrictions and weather allow (a very big IF), I am planning to take some equipment and do some observing under lovely dark Norfolk skies. Also hoping to cadge a look through some light buckets while I'm there. So the questions are, what to observe, and what to take with me?

It's a new moon and the skies should be dark, so I guess the logical thing is to try and observe things I can't see so well from from my home. I'm thinking nebuae and galaxies. Obviously I'd also want to make the most of Mars while there too. And as for the mount, I'd like to keep it simple if possible. if I were to take one scope, I was thinking the non-goto, but driven CG5 (uses 4xD cell batteries which last forever). But if taking two scopes, perhaps the Skytee? My current feeling is that the Skytee with the C8 on one side and the 102ED-R on the other would be nice. I've had fun with this kind of setup in the past. But the 150PL is such a good all-round scope, and on the CG5 would be good for tracking Mars and also great for faint fuzzies. But I have the 102ED-R with a 38mm 2" eyepiece and UHC filter - fabulous for wide fiields under those dark skies. The simplicty of just a refractor on a simple mount really appeals. Of course I could squeeze everything into the car, but I don't want to spend all my time 'faffing' with equipment or make things too complicated.

I've not done a full scale observing weekend, so would appreciate the thoughts of those that have. What are your thoughts? What would you do? What have I missed? What SHOULDN'T I do? Thanks!

Equipment

Scopes - C8, 150PL, H130P, 102ED-R, Tal 100RS, WO 66SD

Mounts - CG5 Goto, CG5 non-goto, Skytee 2, SkyProdigy, Giro-WR

Eyepieces - 5mm, 10mm, 21mm, 8-24 Zoom, 2" 38mm, 2.25x barlow.

Filters - UHC (2" and 1.25") and OIII (1.25")

Great video Chris and a great result. That really is an amazing image for such a modest scope, and with a helical focuser! Nice display of the polar cap, various features and limb brightening (I assume that’s what it is, not clouds?). You must have been chuffed! 

21 hours ago, John said:

It is excellent advice - if possible always end a session on a positive note

I've observed through 20 inch scopes a few times. On one notable occasion, under dark skies, M13 and M51 were the targets. My goodness those views stayed with me for some years I can tell you

The slight downside was going back to view the same objects with my 10 inch scope from home - they seemed a little "lacking" for a while

It's a great experience to get even a moderate aperture scope under a really dark sky though. One year I had a 6 inch mak-newtonian at the SGL star party and had a fantastic night with my SGL friend Mark and his 6 inch newt going from galaxy, to galaxy to galaxy. 

I'm really excited to be going to Kelling Heath for a couple of days in October and I'm hoping for clear skies and the opportunity to look through a big dob (COVID rules permitting).   I'm also debating which scope(s) and mounts to take  - possibly one for a separate thread! 

13 minutes ago, jetstream said:

saving a favorite object that I'll be able to see easily for the conditions.

That’s a great piece of advice - I’ll remember that one! 🙂

The views sound fantastic Gerry. Those planetaries are tiny, literally the size of Mars, would love to see them through a big dob. I tried to recall the largest scope I have looked through - it was a large dob at a star party - I needed step ladder to get to the eyepiece so it must have been big. I think it was aimed at the Veil but I don’t think I appreciated how good the view was at the time! Apart from that, the largest scope I have viewed through is pretty much my 8” SCT - pretty poor state of affairs really. 

Fantastic sketch, superb detail and nice colour rendition. 👌 I too popped out for a super quick view with the 100ED-R and first glance was amazed at the detail, even upping to 320x the detail seemed intact (nice to know the scope is capable of this). I thought it was worth a closer look and a sketch, so swapped for the heavy duty mount and literally got two seconds of clear view before the clouds obscured the planet......permanently! So that was that. 😕

Nice catch. It’s a tricky one to be sure. With my 150PL I had to go to 540x to see it for sure!

If you can see clouds on Mars with your 72mm, then 190x will be more than enough in a 100mm with your eyes! 😆 I use the Panaview 38mm which has 70 degree FOV, it’s big but I don’t think it’s 900g, I’ll weigh it. It does have some distortion in the outer half of the FOV but it’s tolerable and would probably be much better in the F9 ED100 - one advantage of a ‘slower’ scope. 

So far the ED-R is great! My first couple of outings were not so good due to poor conditions, and I’ve only used it a couple of times since then but in better conditions. So early days, but I’ve had some nice detailed views of Mars and Jupiter at around 200x and some nice wide field views with my 2” 38mm eyepiece, which can fit the whole Veil complex, so it is versatile ! Build quality is excellent, really can’t fault it on that. I am still finding it’s strengths and weaknesses and it is a learning curve. Obviously 100mm of aperture has its limits but I expect it will surprise me! I’ve got the whole winter of observing to look forward to!  

21 hours ago, Victor Boesen said:

Instead I've basically decided that I'll go for the 100ED,

A great choice Victor and your reasoning is very sound. Another advantage is you’ll never have trouble selling it should you wish to. I had an ED100 on order from a UK supplier back in June, but there was a severe lack of stock of Skywatcher products everywhere (at least in the UK) and after two months of waiting  I cancelled my order and bought an Altair Astro ED120ED-R which was delivered in a couple of days! But it was only down to the stock situation, I would still like to have a go with an ED100. 🙂. 

Nice report, must have looked good through the 15”. I saw an identical aspect through my 4” the other day - the ‘notch’ between Margaritifer Sinus and Sinus Meridiani was clearly visible, but not much else! Would love to see Mars through a big scope. 

11 minutes ago, markse68 said:

It’s a shame the SS mars globe isn’t better labelled and more detailed- the identifiers they use are huge circles that encompass vast areas so it’s not very useful. Hope they update/upgrade if at some point

Yes I found the same. And I have  also found that different maps/globes give a very different rendition of the same view (especially in terms of light and dark) , despite the fact they are showing the same things. Sometimes I can’t match the map to what I have sketched, and then when switching to a different map it looks very similar to my sketch!

5 hours ago, mikeDnight said:

A nice sketch Rob,

Mars can be confusing because the names of features have changed over the years. Also, its the dark albedo features that were thought to be seas, hence the terms Mare and sinus etc. So you may find the same area with a different name to the one you're used to, but don't let it bother you too much, just enjoy observing and sketching as much of the subtle detail as you can, and posting them of course. They are greatly encouraging.☺

Ah that explains some of the confusion, thanks Mike. I will carry on sketching (sounds like a movie!)

13 minutes ago, CraigT82 said:

Nice sketch. I agree it can be hard to put a name to a feature, some maps flat out contradict each other!

These are two I've found online that I use regularly, I think the colour one is credit to Damian Peach but can't for the life of me find who did the b/w one.

Very useful Maps, thanks Craig, might print these.

3 hours ago, markse68 said:

Hi Robert, nice sketch  When I saw it though I figured you must be in a different country as it is rotated far from what I was seeing last night- what time were you looking at it?

Mark

Thanks Mark. I was observing at around midnight, the orientation was different (I flipped it to match the Mars Mapper image), but the same details. What equipment were you using?

I think you've had some great advice there Victor - it sounds like you're closer to your answer. I certainly haven't had the variety of telescopes of many people here, but my recent experience of refractors is that an F7 100mm frac is much easier to use than a F10 equivalent, less wobble in wind, less wobble when focussing at high power, less need to have a really tall tripod becasue the tube is shorter, and easier to get wider fields whilst still allowing high power. I know the SW 100ED is F9 so may not be as bad as F10 but it's still long.  For portable solar system the Mak 127 does sound like a great choice and nice complement to the 72ED, and a modest mount could accomodate both.    

Another quick session with my new 102ED-R mounted the altaz SkyTee2 and my second attempt at a sketch of Mars. I found #12 filter helped to improve contrast a little....possibly. The rough sketch was from around 30 minutes of observing with Mars at an altitude of 35 - 40 degrees. I think with a driven mount and more time I would have been able to tease out a lot more detail. I've rotated the sketch to compare against a map from Mars Mapper - I can see a vague similarity between the two! Magnification was upto x200.

I think the 'notch' in my sketch is the area between Sinus Margaritifer and Sinus Meridiani. These sketches are certainly making me learn the features of Mars but I am finding it quite difficult to find a Map which allows me to clearly identify them. I am also finding the naming conventions for features a bit counterintuitive (eg: unlike the moon, a sinus does not look like a 'bay' at all to me) and the names are slightly different on different maps. Also it's not always clear whether the feature label is referring to the bright feature or the dark feature. I've read a lot of resources on observing Mars, but still no clearer to a solution, although Mars Mapper is probably the best I've come accross so far.