RobertI

Should be a really nice scope for EAA.

Thanks for sharing, looks very promising, should look spectacular when focus sorted. What camera and scope are you using?

Does the app allow you to view the image in black and white? If so you might find the coloured noise less noticeable - that has certainly been my experience with my EAA camera, although very different setup. For galaxies it you don’t lose much by viewing in black and white imo.

Very useful table thanks. It’s interesting to note how the difference between the resolving powers is quite large for smaller apertures, but the difference is quite small for larger apertures, surprisingly the 150mm and 200mm are quite close, although I imagine there are some effects of rounding up and down of numbers.

Nice report, glad you enjoyed using your scope. 6” is a versatile size for a Newt, especially portable in F5 form - I was after the same scope recently, but ended up getting the F8 version, partly as homage to my old Fullerscopes 6” F8 from the 70’s and partly due to its potential for binaries splitting. I had a similar experience with you on Tegmine during a recent windy session and was surprised by its DSO capability.

Spectacular, thanks for taking the time to share Stu.

Perhaps you're worried that people will think you're boasting! That's a lovely selection of fracs.

I shall look forward to that! I guess the signature area will not accomodate your full list of equipment?

Lovely report Stu, the Zeiss sounds like a special scope. I also find it fun using and comparing different scopes on different objects, adds another dimension to our great hobby.

Very nice results, nice image scale for those galaxies, glad your managing to network and share the hobby with friends during lockdown.

A fascinating and useful introduction with some great resources, thank you Martin. You've definitely got some structure of the foreground galaxy, I had to look at a version of the Hubble image which has the nearby star in order to orient myself, but there's definitely some structure there.

Beautiful sketch, thanks.

Good news, looking forward to first light.

Thanks Alan, the sort of list which might encourage me out for some EEA again. Much appreciated.

It was extremely windy, well done for venturing out. Might not be perfect, but one for the scrapbook!

Astounding. Galaxies abound like water fleas in a pond. When I have some time I'd like to compare the map to the image in more detail.

A fair question. I bought the scope specifically for double star and planetary observing and from my research it seems that a fan can improve a newtonian's ability to resolve close doubles and fine planetary detail by removing the 'boundary layer' of warm air above the mirror. Apparently this boundary layer is always present to a greater or lesser extent, even if the mirror has cooled, and even on smaller scopes. The fan at low speed creates a gentle current of air up the tube which keeps the air moving over the mirror and removes the boundary layer problem. I've read it works well, but I have not had a chance to test it the difference with the fan on and off under different conditions.

Thanks Ed!

On a windy night with surprisingly steady skies, I chose my smallest scope to dart between the gusts. With my Williams Optics Zentithstar 66 mounted on a Giro-WR atop a Horizon tripod I ventured forth for a short session. Starting with Izar in Bootes, the star showed a lovely but slightly broken diffraction pattern. However no sign of its smaller companion even at the highest mag I could manage of x78, not even an elongation. No matter, perhaps a bit too challenging for this tiny scope and these lowish magnifications, so on to Pi Bootes. This was a lovely double of white stars of slightly unequal magnitude separated by 5.4" - an easy split. Next on to Xi Bootes, another pair separated by a similar distance to Pi, but with a brighter primary and fainter companion. 39 Bootes was much closer at 2.6", and I didn't expect to see anything given my failure with Izar, but surprisingly it was immediately obvious and between gusts I could fleetingly see a gap. Skysafari said the pair had a magnitude difference in brightness but to me they looked almost identical. Now my eye was 'in', I thought I'd have another go at Izar. Same result as last time, but this time I noticed a brightening of the diffraction ring in one area. Checking the positional angle it seemed to be in the right position for the companion. So I think definitely more power needed and possibly aperture....and possibly better seeing! I was getting really cold by this point, so thought I'd finish with some DSOs. M13 rising above the rooftops. I was expecting nothing but a blur with this aperture, but was amazed that, with averted vision, I could make out numerous stars on the periphery and could clearly see it was an object made up of thousands of stars rather than a faint haze. Finally a scan around the bowl of Virgo with the zoom eyepiece. I found two bright galaxies in the same FOV, I believe they were M59 and M60 but not confirmed. It was intesting to zoom in and out; at lowest power, with the brightest skies, the galaxies disappeared completely in the murk, but zooming in the skies became darker and the galaxies more and more evident. There were a number of other galaxies in the area but I was just too cold to try and identify them by this point. Time to pack away. I have been looking to get a higher power eyepiece to use with this scope anyway, so Izar will be my first target when I do!

Nice report Martin, some interesting objects. Also interesting to see the limiting magnitude in play, stopping you seeing q3 by just 0.6 mag. An interesting field to have a go at when I'm next out. Almost tried my first EAA session in a long time last night, but just too windy, so ended up with visual again!

Nicely done.

Sorry to keep quizzing you, I have a friend who is a relative noob, they currently have a very simple Celestron Travelscope 70 and want to upgrade and this setup seems ideal. I like the idea of the Az-Gti as, if they the find the goto a bit complicated at first, or just can’t be bothered with power, they can still use it manually (unlike the Celestron mounts). Do you think this is a good beginner setup? How easy do you find the app for aligning and finding stuff?

Thanks for reply, sound like a good combination of scope and mount. Am I right in thinking it is ‘freedom find’ so you can move the scope manually and still retain the alignment?

Nice report, looks like you have a good one there. How did you find the stability of the whole setup? Did you feel the AzGti mount head was man enough for the C6? What about the tripod - seems to be the weak link?

Personally I think 1.3 meg resolution is perfectly adequate for this kind of application and will be for years to come. I use a Lodestar for my EAA which is a mere 0.43 meg and it produces some pretty satisfying results (albiet black and white) - not mind blowing, but way more than eyeballing through a scope. Just my two cents.