jonathan

I have a 3.5mm Pentax, how does that compare to those eyepieces (which I have no idea about)?

What scope / eyepiece is that with? I'm hoping to point my 102 refractor at it probably this evening.

It has to be aliens... or just one, called Elon.

Venus is a good evening object, see if you can observe just after sundown. Currently just passed through the Pleiades so there's a bit of interest there as it moves away from them each night.

The nearby golf range no longer has their floodlights on half of the night, though with lighter evenings and summer approaching the impact of that will be less noticeable. I think the sudden clear skies night after night seems like too much of a coincidence after most air traffic (and cars too) ceased around the world. It hasn't been 100% clear and transparent all of the time here, perhaps it will take longer for all of the pollution etc to dissipate, we will see what happens.

I managed to observe this last night for about ten minutes before the cloud mass rolled in, took out my 70mm travel scope on a simple alt-az camera tripod for a quick setup. Opening just the small cap on the objective I was able to see the crescent of Venus and the surrounding cluster's brighter stars, dimmer objects were washed out by the still brilliant Venus and also the almost 2/3 moon. With a moon filter Venus was a tiny bit clearer but the surrounding stars almost disappeared so it was perhaps best without the moon filter and my trusty old Celestron Plossl 25mm eyepiece. I'm sure had I the time to set up my larger refractor I could have eliminated some of the colour fringing and other artefacts that the simpler 70mm travel scope introduced, but there will hopefully be plenty of opportunities to observe Venus through April and into the summer. The Celestron 70mm travel scope continues to impress me, it's simplicity and ease of use combined with very sharp visuals make it a much appreciated piece of kit, I'd recommend it to anyone, although a beefy tripod is a must as the supplied one is far too flimsy (the scope comes with a vixen dovetail attached so could also be fitted to an EQ mount), also a simple right angle star diagonal is a good optional extra. I've also tried some bird spotting and this scope does a very decent job of that too with the 45 degree erecting prism.

On the subject of aliens, I tend to think that the statistics are against them. Statistically speaking they should exist, yet statistically speaking they should probably also have been wiped out by some natural or self-inflicted disaster, so by the time we turn up in our fancy faster-than-light ships they'll probably just be dust. We're apparently overdue a killer asteroid ourselves, or an extinction super volcano, that is if human incompetence doesn't get us first.

I liked the original film too, but the Tom Cruise version seemed much closer to the original story and also the Jeff Wayne musical. Can't beat a bit of Richard Burton though... Who would've believed....

I watched the first episode at the weekend, looks promising, let's hope it's more sci-fi than Eastenders (as seems to be the case with Dr Who at the moment - in a TV guide it was listed as "Drama" which is not what I want from a sci-fi programme), and any political messages are subtle and in the background.

I just had a look for this comet tonight (before the clouds rolled in), it's currently in Cassiopeia so ought to be easy to find but I suspect it's gone to ground. Has anyone managed to observe it visually? I thought it might be a binocular or small telescope object, but maybe not now.

Looking at the bright moon surface through just about any telescope is glaring for me, like looking at a dim light bulb or car headlights - can stand it briefly but any more than a few seconds and I'm left with a purple blob in my vision for quite a few minutes afterwards. So, I always use a filter if I'm planning on looking at a bright object such as the Moon or Venus.

This sounds like something I could get into, I am curious about all the different versions though (USB, LAN, etc) - are they mostly for automation, the only one I would need for handheld use being the -L (lens) version? What about things like firmware - does it have such a thing, and is there any chance of it being outdated (or is it possible to update for better readings, etc)?

So what you're saying here is that we should just bypass the 10" and go straight for the 15"? Had thought about that myself a few years back, and unfortunately the dilemma is almost the same - I wouldn't store it in the shed for the same reasons, and we'd have to step over / around the thing every time we wanted to get out of the house. My compromise was an 8SE, I suppose I could stretch to a 12" SCT, still storable in the house!

At my local society there seems to be a regular bunch who attend the scheduled meetings (usually there's a guest speaker on some astronomy topic they're involved with, I've found them all very interesting - kind of like attending a live Sky At Night feature) and plenty more members who I apparently never see, presumably they just like the sense of belonging. As members they would have access to the society's loan equipment which can be very useful if you can't afford to splurge or are unsure what to buy, it's a good way to really try out a certain type or size of telescope and mount to see if it's something you could use. I'm not on the committee but I could be if I wanted, my knowledge of the stars is rather sketchy but that doesn't matter, it's just a hobby after all and there are people of all different levels who attend. Perhaps if you want your local society to do more then you should get involved, propose what you'd like to see the group doing, join the committee if you like (it's not a big commitment). If they're not into that sort of thing then maybe that group isn't for you, maybe if you're motivated enough you could start your own group to run alongside the existing one that does the things they don't. I learned a lot from these forums but joining my local society allowed me to share my hobby and learn a lot more.

Jupiter and the asteroid are the only ones I really like from that selection, seen the lander / rover stuff so many times now it's nothing new.

I haven't been out in the back garden with a scope for what feels like a very long time, certainly not been a regular at it anyway, so with it being so clear and feeling a surge of renewed interest I headed out with a binocular and naked eye tour guide, bagged quite a lot of nice stuff around Auriga, Pegasus, and Orion (mainly clusters and a few galaxies). Pleased to find that my averted vision still works pretty well in the cold! I could only stand it for about an hour, mind you, before my toes and fingers began to pack their bags for the trip back inside. Good practice for when I get a real telescope out, I'm planning to look at Auriga and clusters in more detail seeing as that's up and looking great in the evenings right now.

Absolutely, I've only worn my waterproof when the coldest and strongest winds are blowing, it's literally too cold to sweat on those days so the waterproof makes sense (windproofs have their limit, no matter how expensive they are). I've only done that maybe two or three times, once was when the temperature was literally -5 when I set off, probably got colder up on the high forest plateau, that place was frozen solid with several inches of snow (the bike stood up in it without aid), and because the going was so difficult it wasn't possible to get warmed up, just keeping stopping and putting feet in deep frozen snow sapped the warmth away even through thick shoes. I wouldn't attempt to get a scope out in conditions like that, but if clear then it might be fun to go out with just the mk 1 eyeball or binoculars for 30 minutes or so.

If that is the double star in the Trapezium then I'm fairly certain I managed to split that in my 8SE, probably using a 10mm eyepiece (it would have been several years ago, I could be getting confused with just splitting the trapezium). Seeing conditions might just have been a fluke for me on that night. I would say that a decent fixed eyepiece ought to give you a better view than a similar or better quality zoom eyepiece, that's been my experience anyway. The 8SE is such a slow scope though that I find it's really affected by seeing conditions, much more so than my refractors or reflectors (both faster scopes).

Oh, one body blow was the discovery just the other day that my SkyScout is officially defunct as of December 31st 2015, since I've hardly been out in recent years I never noticed! The GPS works but the unit itself refuses to set any date beyond 2015 (even manually, due to some very poor programming in the firmware), the GPS gets confused since the rollover and sets the date to April 13th 2002 or something like that. The unit should still work for deep sky objects if I can work out the best date to set it to (in order to fool it into giving the correct positions) but solar system objects are right out. I still like the audio tour and text descriptions it gives so I'll be keeping hold of it for sure.

I've had some things to contend with over the past few years (work, depression, personal carp) so it's very possible I haven't actually been paying that much attention to the night skies, but I seem to recall times about five or six years ago were much better in general for getting out with scopes, night or day (for solar observing). Is it just possible that the solar minimum has brought much more unsettled (i.e. wet / changeable) weather patterns to the UK and probably many other places in the world, resulting in fewer ideal observing days per season? I have been trying to think recently why I haven't been out much over the past few years, is it just that I didn't have any enthusiasm for it or was it really poor observing conditions? I remember back a few years ago, maybe 2012 or so, having a great time observing the Great Red Spot on Jupiter, but this year Jupiter seems to be hiding away so trying to get a glimpse of the GRS is nigh impossible unless one wants to go out at around 4am (not my cup of tea, I'm an evening astronomer). So many wet weeks too, November this year has been almost constant rain here, though (fingers crossed) now that December is almost upon us we finally have a few clear days forecase. Solar observing has taken a nose-dive in recent years too, there's just nothing to see most days. When I first started I think it was during the last solar maximum, every day had interesting sunspots, filaments and prominances, it really was worth getting the solar scope out for a few hours on a warm sunny day. Roll on the next solar maximum, bring back the stable weather and long observing sessions that gave me that 'Wow!' factor I enjoyed so much! EDIT: I should add that I haven't been totally idle while not doing much in terms of observing, I've been tinkering and perfecting my setup, adding bits and pieces, figuring out things, and trying to work out sensible observing session plans (making plans to do things can be quite theraputic!) I flocked my 6" Skywatcher Reflector and made sure I attended as many events and meetings as I could from my local astronomy society.

When I've cycled in very cold conditions (down to around -5C) it's usually around the two hour mark that's my limit, despite wearing many layers and keeping moving. The simple action of breathing ends up being a big drain on heat and warm moisture from my lungs, the same probably applies in astronomy although I'd expect the breathing rate to be much less. Probably the ideal temperature for visual observing will be around 5- 10C for me, comfortable enough to stay out well wrapped up and mild enough that the dew heaters can do their job, but when those clear skies beckon it's so tempting to set up even if I spend the same amount of time observing as I do setting up / taking down!

I like it, however how do you carry a few at once securely, how do you store them, and how do you know what's in each bag?

I bought it from a car boot sale for about £5, bought the foam for £8, bargain. Just need to decide on layout now. I may just put in the eyepieces, filters and star diagonal for now.

My current eyepiece case has become rather crowded, the other day I came across a potential replacement case which I thought looked slightly larger so bought some new foam for it, now I have the opportunity to lay out my eyepiece collection in a more organised manner, just thought I'd run this past my fellow eyepiece case owners for a bit of advice. The new case came with a foam flap in the lid which I thought I might be able to use for observing notes, instruction manuals, maybe a few tools. I'll probably need to cut the foam to fit my A4 documents or small books. I can't decide whether I should put some bits that I wouldn't use at most observing sessions such as the extension tube in a different case (maybe the old case with new foam), or try to squeeze it all into one case. I would likely place the dew controller vertical which would save some space, maybe the smaller black cable could go next to it. The foam isn't pluck or cubed, I'll be cutting out the shapes all the way through as there is a separate 20mm layer of foam underneath this one.

13mm you say? I have the Celestron 8SE and many a time my 10mm is unusable with it, 13mm maybe a better choice although I already have a Baader Zoom, would it be worth me getting a 13mm or similar size? Should not need to be anything super duper for this scope, or would there be zero difference between a fixed eyepiece and the Baader Zoom?