Ratlet

Thanks mate.  Would be interested in seeing the control box also, or rather how you've mounted the box that controls the focuser 

I think like a lot of things in astronomy they either bug you or you don't really notice them.  Generally I don't notice them, but I really started with a newt and moved onto a dob.  Just started with a refractor so check back with me in a year and see how I feel (assuming the clouds part at some point).

To be clear, they are there, but i don't find they interfere (I've not had one cover a double star yet).

I also grew up with Hubble and for me DSO images look more authentic with the spikes.  It wouldn't surprise me if there is a trend in a decade or so for spiders making the JWST diffraction pattern.

You can't get rid of them but you can make them worse by not having the spider aligned.

Stu beat me to some of the links.  More discussion here:

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/495707-spider-and-secondary-diffraction-what-to-do-what-to-avoid/

11 hours ago, Mr Spock said:

I would say a slight shift in focal length and the Svbony 7-21 is one of the sharpest out there - if you can stand the narrow field of view.

That's what did me in for a lot of zooms.  The fov generally is quite tight and only gets tighter as you zoom.  One of the reasons I like the 3-8mm is it doesn't change.

I've got the 8-24mm zoom.  Good views but tight fov.  Quite a heavy eyepiece though.

1 minute ago, Nik271 said:

Mars is small but very bright, it may appear colourless initially under low magnification becauseof this excessive brightness. I sometimes experience this with Jupiter using a large scope. If you allow more time for your eye to adapt you should start to see red hues. Otherwise something is wrong with the scope.

I suspect it's too bright as well.  Had this for the longest time in 2022 with all the planets when viewing through the 130pds.  Any and all contrast was gone and it was almost like someone was shining a light through a picture of the planets.

I found that higher power could help, however the eyepiece made a difference.  My BST 8mm is great for DSO but for some reason the image it produced for planets has terrible contrast and is 'over exposed'.  My 3-8mm svbony at 8mm produced a much better image.

I also found that using a cheap yellow and moon and sky glow filter helped, it gives a similar 'cut' to a baader contrast booster but with a yellow cast (it also costs about £10 for both filters.  Just get cheap ones).

You can also use a variable polarising filter which will dim the view.  If you're using a Barlow put one bit in the Barlow and the other on the eyepiece and you just need to rotate the eyepiece to dim the view.

9 hours ago, SwiMatt said:

Just came back from my observation spot in the woods where I had a session of a  couple of hours with tons of objects of all sorts. Transparency was bad, only Alpha and Beta Ursae Minori were visible.

Started by trying out to see Sirius' pup... impossible task, but Sirius looked like a twinkling caleidoscope, which was fun! So, seeing wasn't great either! I spent some time on Orion: beautiful M42 with trapezium with only 4 stars at 100-150x; then NGC 1981 and Collinder 69 (around Lambda Orionis). Sigma Orionis is a beautiful triple easy to split, and with averted vision I could split in 3 components also Struve 761 in the same FOV. Great great view.

Next area was Gemini and Auriga, I looked at the clusters M35, M36, M37 and M38, all beautiful. I had a tougher time to find M37, since I keep forgetting how much dimmer than M36 it is! M38 is my fav of the four with its cross pattern. Turn towards Perseus and the double cluster just fits the FOV at 60x.

Finally I swung around to find some fuzzies: M3 was underwhelming, but that's also the worse side of the sky in terms of sky pollution. M94 in Canes Venaticii looks almost stellar at 60x and shows some fuzziness at higher magnification (by comparison with the only star in the field of view, which came into focus easily even at 150x). I finally looked at a couple of double stars, namely Cor Caroli and Algieba.

I finished the night with a look at some fun objects in the 10x50 binoculars: Beehive, Pleiades, Kemble's cascade, double cluster, Stock 2 (barely visible) and the funny Cheshire Cat in Auriga. Fun fact, tonight I split Mizar for the first time without visual aid.

It was a fun (and cold) night! And realized that the best astronomy buy of 2024 was the string to hold my glasses around my neck... it makes me 40 years wiser

I love my glasses string.  I wear a fishing vest when I'm out and if my glasses go in one of those pockets they're effectively gone forever.

2 hours ago, wookie1965 said:

All excited when this arrived until I unpacked it there are smudges on the inside of the optical cell maybe I can clean that

Worse is it won't take 1.25mm eyepieces and the vixen plates I have don't fit it needs narrower ones. 

Did they clean it with a banana peel?

Do you have any pictures of the finished unit?  Are you still using it?  I'm thinking of building one myself...

My absolute top tip is to either scan or photograph them and upload them here.  I love seeing sketches.  You'll get good feedback and often people will see things in your sketch that you didn't realise was significant.

The cloudy nights sketching sub forum is also pretty positive and a good place to post them.

11 minutes ago, Elp said:

Don't worry, it's not Tak related. Actually it is, a different sort of Tak.

Tak-umar?

41 minutes ago, pipnina said:

I think if this image were any better it might make Hubble blush!

I did a quick google to check that statement.  Honestly I think it already does!

https://hubblesite.org/contents/media/images/2006/14/1876-Image.html

If it weren't for the diffraction spikes I think you'd struggle to tell them apart.

8 minutes ago, mikeDnight said:

Truly awesome Alan. Thanks for sharing it, it really makes observing it visually so much more fascinating. Your image is exactly how I see it visually through my 4" refractor! With a large dose of imagination of course!! 

Averted imagination is it mike?

I use a Uni POSCA pen for my white stars.  It's got a fibre tip.  I've sometimes found that ballpoint style can leave a sort of ring instead of a dot.

Some cheap black card stock can be a bit of a mare for blending. It doesn't seem to want to play ball and the pencil/pastel just dusts off.

I also second Mary McIntyre on youtube.  She also presents the Radio Astronomy Podcast from Sky at night.  Her youtube channel is here: https://www.youtube.com/user/Spiceyspiney

I'd also suggest going for normal pencil on paper.   It's a bit harder I guess to relate to what you see to what you sketch, but you can invert the image in basically any photoediting software and it's like hitting a bit I WIN button.  Makes them look awesome.

Sketching from photos is good practice, but you end up with LOADS more stars in a photo than you'd see through an eyepiece which can complicate matters.  Using other people's sketches as a reference can sometimes be easier, or some really old astro photos done with film/.

I really need to get out sketching again

You might want to consider some 90 degree elbow connectors if going for super short cables.  I had a near miss last year with my camera where the mount rotated too much and put a fair bit of strain on the cable.  A 90 degree connector would just pull the cable out if there was too much tension.  

What angle do you have the scope at when you collimate?  I made the mistake of collimating with it flat when I tilted it up to observe the mirror would shift slightly and affect the collimation.  Now I collimate at 45°.

I'm not doubting Mr Spock's diagnosis (he knows far more than me) and is probably correct, it's just afaik there is nothing to be done about astigmatism, so I'm grasping at straws.  Also I think the GIFs you post have a fair bit of seeing going on and there are bits in the second gif that makes the star look out of alignment from the diffraction rings.

Lot of great comments here but one thing I found is that observing is a skill that you'll learn.  How much power to use, how to discern detail amongst the brightness.  It all comes with time.  Don't be surprised if your first looks don't seem impressive.

One weird thing though is once you 'see' something it becomes easier to see the next time.  It's like your brain pump has been primed.

At least that's my experience as a very green observer.

What scope is it?

I've been pleasantly surprised with both items that have been sent my way first class or next day arriving next day.

Seems common theme that the posties are awesome, but the system has issues.  Both our posties are legends.

Amazing images mate.

30 minutes ago, F15Rules said:

Achtung!! Du bist ein cheapskate, mein freund!! 😅🤣😂

What you save on food you lose on the middle aisle...

You could do a mini all sky survey.

I feel your pain (a bit).  I work rotation, 12 hour shifts 0600 to 1800 or 1800 to 0600 with a 1 hour commute each way, so I have to be up about 0400. On the plus side I get 2 weeks off completely between shifts.

I'll often get up early (around 0200) for a quick session, but that relies on me getting to be early that night and the next night to recover. 

My observing style when I'm on shift is basically an astronomical scavenger.  And clear and hopefully dark skies are worth a punt even if I only get one object in.

Finding a good pace is key imo.  Sometimes I get up and check and just go back to bed.  Viewing through sucker holes at 0200 is not fun.  If you are getting up early have a peep and make sure it's worth it.

Don't get greedy though.  Burn the candle at both ends too long and you'll burn out.

19 minutes ago, callisto said:

You took the words right out my mouth 

I just want to spread his love lol

All the talk of 24mm Vs 30mm in one of the threads got me wanting to test it out (as well as wanting wide field views from the new scope).

Saw this maxvision 24mm 82° on the for sale section and pulled the trigger.  No beans for scale but have some more of the bunny my daughter made me.  Just need a diagonal to take it, though I will give it a burl in the dob if the skies clear.

Actual Astronomy Podcast did a recent episode on aurora.  I think one of the presenters mentioned something about seeing an arc.  Don't think his was red, but that wouldn't be too surprising as the camera will be more sensitive than the eye to red.

Clocked Jupiter in the twilight and through a crafty asking if the bairn wanted to look managed to get out for 10-15 minutes.

Seeing was excellent, with some very light high altitude clouds providing a bit of a glow but not much interference, and I quickly ramped the power up on the 3-8mm zoom in the star field 102.  There was intermittent moments where the 3mm gave some good views but 4-5mm was better. The wee man did well and correctly counted the number of moons again and unlike dad did not think that callisto was a field star...

The AZ5 did pretty well at the high powers.  Very much a 'dont touch anything' setup but the vibrations dampen down quickly and I'm getting the hang of using the slow mo with the refractor and letting the planet drift through the fov.

One of the nice things compared to the dob is that I know the collimation is good.  It's always a niggling doubt with the dob (In fact it's only since having the 102ed to compare to that I've been able to say my collimation is good).

I'm currently rocking a 1.25" amici prism diagonal and the svbony bottoms out on it so I've ordered a 2" from svbony (their click lock variant) to see how that performs.  Also so I can use some honking large wide field eyepieces which is the main reason I bought the scope.

It's a real boon having a grab and go ready to go.  I can get the dob setup pretty quick but I don't think I would if I was out for less than an hour, but the 102 is bringing the magic of a cheeky 10 minutes back.