Paul M

No idea when it was (decades ago) but I've seen naked eye sunspots at sunset. I've also seen them in the projected image of the Sun on the bedroom wall, created by sunlight entering through a hole in the bedroom window blind. So no instrument involved

Still lens flare. At that image scale the "object" is probably many tens or even hundreds of times larger than Venus would appear. Venus would also be a solid white colour and crescent shaped. You'd need a good telescope to see Venus that size and it would be the only thing in the frame at the required magnification.

Annoyingly the beautiful clear evening has been infested with the high cirrus ahead of the incoming rain for tomorrow. So my west and south horizons are busted even before dark. I was looking forward to getting some Jupiter action on my newly acquired NexStar 127 SLT

Great, When's launch date? And do the empties return themselves?

It was 2006. I was in Turkey too. Another great decision. Perfect conditions!

We traveled to the Bulgarian Black Sea resort of Golden sands. Made a 2 week holiday of it and on eclipse day got a tour bus to a coastal promontory on the eclipse center line. Specifically here: http://xjubier.free.fr/en/site_pages/solar_eclipses/TSE_1999_GoogleMapFull.html?Lat=43.54768&Lng=28.60651&Zoom=8&LC=1 Perfect conditions on the day. We (Myself, MD and our son who was 8 at the time) had only eclipse glasses for viewing and the only record is a photo of us taken pre-totality at the site. That and some fond memories! I'd planned it years before but could only book it when bookings started being taken about a 9 months before. I wasn't the only one with that idea. Eclipse fever grew in town as the day approached.

Having got round to unboxing my recently acquired grab and go Celestron 127SLT I found 2 books included. Turn left at Orion is not too much use to me but I'll keep it just in case. The Mars book is from the early 90's and very outdated. Inside the front cover is a note: Maybe someone remembers buying this? Anyway, it'll be on its way to the charity shop. See if they can get a quid for it.

That content looks interesting. I just dipped into a couple of lectures. My problem is in having effectively, for the purposes of QM, zero mathematics. I fell behind in junior school on multiplication tables and never caught up! I find it's possible to watch some highly technical lectures and leave the math(s) to wash over my head! Clearly I'm missing some very important detail but the principals usually carry themselves as physical concepts that I can grasp.

Maybe not the best young Moon spotting opportunity for my latitude (53deg) as the Moon will only be 3 deg above the horizon after the Sun disappears the on the 1st of August! I'll have wait for the ecliptic angle to increase to get within a couple of days of New Moon Hope someone bags it on the 1st and gets a picture. It's great fun looking for young Moons!

I seem to have mislaid my Fullerscope catalogue But sill got my 6.25 in f6 "Export" Newtonian and mk3 mount. Not been looked through for some time but still serviceable. The mount would benefit from an overhaul but its still more sturdy than some modern offerings!

Nice! I was surprised at the detail you captured. I guess it was still below final orbital altitude. I was working a night shift last night and got a heads-up from youtube about the launch so watched it live. I saw the track heading our way and got a bit excited until I saw there was still a solid overcast

Well it is partially correct. The Great Andromeda Galaxy ("Andromeda" is a constellation, not a galaxy! ) will be closer in August and it will be apparently bigger than the Moon!

Nice! I was surprised at the detail you captured. I guess it was still below final orbital altitude. I was working a night shift last night and got a heads-up from youtube about the launch so watched it live. I saw the track heading our way and got a bit excited until I saw there was still a solid overcast

You can never have too many scopes, I've heard said. So not wanting to be left behind, this was delivered by internal mail. An unwanted gift for a friend from his wife. Used only 2 times, both by me! The MD bought from them as a combined Birthday/Christmas present! Grab and go, innit I wrote about its first light here:

I feel ashamed now, that my Olde Fullerscope is currently working as a clothes rack, stood on end along side my bed at our Luxury Cumbrian Villa! It's covered by a thick polythene bag but I'm sure that it's out of collimation with all the disturbance it gets. Luckily it only takes 10 minutes, rack-of-the-eye to get it good. But still it's no way to treat the old chap!

Love your enthusiasm! That's a great scope you have there. It was every aspiring astronomers dream to own an 8in Newt. Now they are so affordable and available that they are taken for granted. But that aint no starter scope you have there. It is a serious instrument. It will serve you well, Enjoy!

Repeat after me: "I won't be going down the imaging route!"

Just to bang the flying ant drum again.. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-49023143

Well our sky is full of flying ants today so maybe some of them?

I spotted this display developing early on so kept an eye on it. It became quite impressive from my viewpoint overlooking the river Ribble near Clitheroe. Didn't get any pictures as I was attending my son's wedding function at the time!

I think orbital calculations usually start from a point in an orbit called the ascending node and from there you will need to know the angular distance to the orbits perihelion point. The angle between the two is called the argument of perihelion. These values can be found in an orbiting body's orbital elements. They are different for each body and change with time! Given a start point for each planet a simple set of orbital period ratios will get you what you want but for accuracy there is a lot to consider. See the works of Jan Meeus for guidance of calculating orbital mechanics.

I'm sure his name must have passed my brain cell at some point in the past! What I like about hand figured mirrors is that well, they were hand figured and nurtured by a craftsman. The mirror in my 250mm skyeatcher seems to be very nice. But I only ever boast about ownig a David Hinds mirror I have the utmost regard for craftsmanship.

Ah, maybe you are right my memory is telling me something too. I know the tablet can be set up to prevent sleep or adjust the sreen idle time, I will have a look to see if Skysafari has a prevent sleep function, that would be better for my use. EDIT: I've found "prevent sleep" option in SkySafari. Settings : Appearance & Behavior : Behavior : Prevent Sleep

Unfortunately progress isn't always improvement! I have a big Newt on an NEQ6 mount which as we all know includes a Synscan handset. Easy to use, particularly if you are lazy like me and have the GPS module too. Anyway, a while ago I decided I'd like to control it via SkySafari on my cheap, old Android tablet. With the help of a few Linux gurus here on SGL I used a RasPi I had lying around waiting for a purpose to act as a WiFi interface to the mount. I got it working and it works a treat. Bit of a nuisance with getting it all talking nicely before a session but makes GoTo an absolute dream. But there are downsides. Handling a big touchscreen takes two hands and unintended contact with the screen can have very undesired consequences! The tablet also sleeps after a short while requiring constantly re-entering the pin number (all internet capable devices in the house are strictly password/pin protected for child safeguarding reasons). I agree that some of the complications of WiFi connectivity and 3rd party apps might be too much for beginners. But I think that electronic GoTo mounts are too much for many beginners anyway! I've lost count of the number of threads regarding novices struggling to set up GoTo mounts. When I was starting out I learned the basics of equatorial mounts long before I owned one. I already understood the need for polar alignment and knew all about RA and DEC. I knew all about the sky and planetarium apps before I tried marrying my tablet to my mount. It's a lot for novices to take in all at once!