Saganite

It is without doubt a superb time to observe, and, like yourself Dave, I have had stunning views of Jupiter and the Trapezium recently. I have even managed a couple of hours sleep afterwards.. The joys of retirement.

Very nice Garry ! If you decide to take that to Paxton Pits, give me a shout, I'll join you !.......

I have more or less completed my recent eyepiece reduction John, down from about 30 to 18 now which does include 6 pairs, and I am pretty certain that there will be no changes from here..

Agree with both of the above..... I stopped taking magazines years ago, they contain nothing that interests me that I cannot find on line or on this forum. Colleagues on SGL will often highlight double stars which I have not looked at before, so they become targets next time I am out, or I continue to pick off the The Messier objects on my wall chart, all highly enjoyable if the seeing prevents planetary or Lunar enjoyment. There is an abundance of grey smudges to find which always give me a thrill when located, even if I have done so in the past. It has been said many times before by many people , but I just love looking through a telescope, particularly a long white tubed refractor, and finding ' objects '.

Beautiful !!....👍

The clouds cleared sufficiently for me to get a clear view of Uranus for two or three minutes before it disappeared behind the Moon.

Same here, but scope is out ready under a cover, hoping for a break...🤞

Yes it includes VAT @ 20%. I just clicked the US box in the website and it comes up £912 plus delivery to the States

Thanks Stu...👍 My order is in !

Always a pleasure to read, keep 'em coming....👍

The 5mm is also a 5 element design, like all of them. I did have the 12.5mm and 18mm in pairs for binoviewing, but parted with them in favour of my UOVT's. I do wonder at times if I did the right thing.. Celestron Ultima eyepieces are excellent !

Top class optic Mark !

A Celestron Ultima 24mm to pair up with the one I have, for binoviewing. We are talking rare now ...

A strong possibility.....😂 After all it is a Tak, top notch shaving mirror !

I have one of these Dave, very useful.

Fine report as always Doug and keep them coming as you always provide a list of interesting doubles. I did grab Gamma Delphinus ( Al Salib ) on Wednesday/Thursday morning, a lovely double, but no others as I was hunting for M72...again. I did get it this time after some while,with averted vision , as it sits in the sky above the light pollution of Bedford.

I agree. After the Moon, Jupiter is always the highlight for me also.....👍

As do I........ Lovely scope Jeremy.

Hi Roy, Well done ! The year started well and I had probably a dozen sessions in January and then with the summer that we have had, it has been a good year so far for me. Nothing even close to 100 as I don't do Solar, but still the best for a very long time, and as you point out, being retired is a definite boon for this hobby....

Nice one Paul. Those early hours and particularly the last couple before dawn are the best times aren't they.

Unable to coax one from the used market, I found a local supplier with one.

I could not resist the pull of Jupiter at 3.15 am this morning as I looked through the bedroom curtains. I have enjoyed so many memorable outings with my APM ED 6" since the beginning of July, a really lovely scope, and this latest chance to observe Jupiter was impossible to resist. This scope had given me an image of the giant planet, on August 7th/8th , as good as any I have ever seen, both with Andromeda and my OOVX12 Dob with its 12" 1/8th wave mirror. On that occasion I had started observing at 4.15 am and continued into daybreak at about 5.30am. The creamy grey Jovian disc was dead sharp and there was detail of swirls and eddys in abundance, but the GRS above all stood out , a deepish orange in colour, and with the dark banding in the belt arching around it like a raised eyebrow, the whole appearing as a huge and baleful eye staring back at me. The image seemed to me to be calm and still, as though etched into a black background, and remained , with slight atmospheric disturbances like that until daybreak. This was what I anticipated this morning, but by 3.50am when the scope was assembled and cooled on the mount,it did not live up to expectation. At 166x the disc was soft and had the blue and red fringes of atmospheric dispersion showing top and bottom, so I backed off to 90x to achieve sharpness. At this mag, the disc showed pretty decent bands and with some detail, but of course the image scale was much less. However, I was out observing yet again, so it was good. By now, the great Constellation, our dear winter friend Orion was high enough in the East for me to split Rigel and Alnitak easily, but the Trapezium stars stubbornly stayed on four no matter what I tried. At that altitude I wasn't surprised, and that prize will wait for another day. Orion in all its glory will be the great feast of the winter season ! I finished the session with a star cluster tour of Auriga and Pleiades, and returned to my bed.

Nice images of Vega, Mizar, Arcturus and Polaris , in the gathering darkness with neat diffraction patterns promises well for tonight. It shows clear until 4 am. Hope the sky is good for you also. Enjoy !

I would love to split Antares, but it is barely above the rooftops here. It has not stopped me trying again this summer though, and tonight looks promising , so who knows. The AZ100 is nicely balanced, and both scopes are cooling.

He did, very much. I was using my APM ED 152, Bortle 4 sky, good transparency, and pretty good seeing, so the images of both clusters was excellent.