paulastro

Jeremy, dont tell my wife about this book or she'll be buying me a copy for Chistmas along with the usual socks. 🤒

Peter, I was going to suggest a course of action regarding the turbines, but I wont!! The last time I made a joke about what to do about intruding street lights, I was reprimanded by a moderator. Personally, I thought it was a good suggestion of mine - to write to the council's lighting dept and ask if they could kindly look into the matter. 🙂

Sorry to disappoint you Alan, but I'm truly lost for words. Anyway, I've known Mike for years, and I've always known he is far more intelligent than he actually looks. 😁. Regarding the books themselves. I love them, and I dont have any trouble finding the information I want in them. Mind you, in the light of other peoples comments, perhaps that says something about how my mind is organised 🥴.

Thanks John. I've only just come across this thread. I came in on page 6, and to be honest I was quite shocked with some comments about how poor the views some people were currently getting of Saturn, Jupiter and even Mars. Even to the extent of indicating it wasn't worth observing planets at all below certain altitudes. I was pleased to see your post. My latest observations of the above planets were made on the night of July 20th/21st and were very much like your own observing experiences. In fact they were so good, despite not getting into bed until 4am, I couldn't sleep for a while as I was thinking about how great the night had been!, including nice views of the GRS transit, and alovely wiew of Mars with Syrtis Major well placed as well as other features, Saturn was just fabulous. As you suggested all sorts of things could account for peoples viewing experiences. Local seeing conditions, using too large apertures for the conditions, the observers experience, the type and quality of the optics used, etc etc. I've never used an ADC, - from what people are saying it seems rather a hassle to me. I think I'd rather use the time observing and making the most of any periods of good seeing. For the record, I was also using a SW 120ED as well, but other telescopes are available 😀.

Thanks for posting Geoff. I was observing at the same time with my SW 120ED and the views I had were very similar to the details that your mono image shows.

A beautiful photo, thanks for posting.

Lovely photo Michael.

That's a beautiful picture.

What a fantastic first view of Comet Neowise, and probably the best display I've ever seen of Noctilucent Clouds. I was on site at Penistone Hill by midnight, and the comet was immediately visible. For the first hour or so it played hide and seek with various amounts of low cloud, but after that the sky was mostly clear. At it's best around 2 am before the sky lightened very much when it was a beautiful naked eye view. I first noticed the Noctilucent clouds about 2.14 am, a really magnificent display, my photos hardly do it credit. The dancing tendrils of the luminous NCs was a sight to behold. The photos are in the order I took them, and were taken from 2.09 to 3.23 am. The first and last were taken with my SW 72ED, and the others were with an Olympus 25mm f1.8 lens and the Olympus E-M5 Mk11. Visually I used the 72ED and my Nikon 10 x 50s. I finally packed up and left the site at 4.20am. What a night!

Really Stu, what, none at all? 😄

Ah, I deliberately didnt mention the dark arts 🙂. Everone to their own I suppose. It's so easy now with all the modern gizmos, I dont really understand why anyone bothers. Anyway, I think the HST has just about cornered the market in taking snaps of the cosmos 😄.

Well, I've enjoyed reading this thread, thank you all. In the early 1970s a 4 inch achromatic refractor or an 8 inch Newtonian were highly desired items by aspiring astronomers. If you did manage to purchase one, you might well have been happy to use it for years, many people did. They were, and still are, useful to see many things very well and make useful contributions to the observing sections of the BAA, JAS (as it was then) and the AAV S O etc should you be so inclined. Now you can buy either of these instruments for around £300 or less. A fraction of their equivalent costs in the 1970s. Not expensive for most people at all - and even less when bought on the used market. Now instead of people who are mostly interested in observing the wonders of the heavens, we have more collectors of telescopes as objects of desire fostered by manufacturers who bring out numerous new models every year that really offer us little new but will empty our bank accounts. The 4 inch achromat and 8 inch reflector are now described as beginners telescopes and we are encouraged to 'upgrade' as soon as possible. I remember when astronomers mostly talked about what they had observed, and far less time on the merits of the telescope used. An astronomers reputation was measured by their observations, not by the quantity, quality or cost of their equipment. If you want to observe the cosmos, it really doesn't cost that much!

Kerry, not to put a damper on your plans, but some time ago I was trying to look over my observatory wall with a pair of binocs and fell off. Ouch is an underestatment. Tomorrow morning I'll be driving to a hill a short drive away with a good NE horizon to look for the comet. Otherwise, I think your plan is pretty sound.

Hears a scree shot from spaceweather.com

Fred Espinak found Neowise to be easy in 7x40s on the morning of 4th, so well worth looking for in binoculars. See link below. https://www.spaceweather.com/

Latest from spaceweather.com Neowise at perihelion now and bright. Page contains links to charts and more photos.

Mike, I think my memory is playing tricks on me again. I was sure you have told me more than once that anyone who uses a reflector must be a right plonker. 🙂

Alan, you will know if I decide to follow your example - if you notice I have stopped posting on SGL 🥺.

I sympathise Kev. Experience has taught me that the 72ED can stay out longer than the 120ED before it's noticed. I just dont know what I'm going to do if I ever buy the 150ED - a camoflage net perhaps? 🤔

I often leave one of my refactors set up on a mount in the lounge - until my wife tells me I have to put it away somewhere out of sight 😥.

I would confirm what Mike says about my ex Astro -Tech above. I would also say similar about my present SW 72ED which isn't fpl53 either. I also have a SW 80ED and 120ED with fpl53 of course. All of these scopes are excellent and there is little, if anything, to judge between them. In my view, though fpl53 is the best glass, it's by no means the whole story as others have pointed out. I would certainly buy another non-fpl53 refractor if its performance was up to my expectations, and theres the rub. Unless you have some experience and can check any potential purchase before hand, you cannot be sure what you are getting - even different samples of the same make and model can vary - but this is less likely in more respected models by a reputable maker that have been in production a while. If you know personally someone experienced whose judgement is proven to you that's fine. Alas newcomers are unlikely to have such a useful person to hand.

Now come on Peter. Do you seriously think that anyone believes you've bought the 150ED as an upgraded finder for that SC on steroids? Everyone knows that you've lusted for a long time over a good size quality apo refractor that will give better planetary images for the Mars opposition than the 'jack of all trades' SC you've used up to now. Admit it, you've always wanted one 😄.

Comet Neowise now visible in the morning sky in Arizona. I'd urge everyone to look for it as soon as it comes into view for their location. As with any comet, you never know what's going to happen next - good or bad. Below courtesy of spaceweather.cm COMET NEOWISE SIGHTINGS: Comet NEOWISE (C/2020 F3) is brightening rapidly as it passes by the sun. On July 1st, Ray Brooks of the Arizona Sky Village near Tucson saw the comet through binoculars just before sunrise. "Wow-- it was very bright, near magnitude +1," he reports. "If the comet were in dark skies at a decent elevation, it would be a spectacular naked-eye object." It's even brighter today. "I estimate magnitude 0," says Petr Horálek of the Czech Republic, who spotted the comet this morning, July 2nd, beneath a rippling bank of noctilucent clouds (NLCs): "While watching these (spectacular!) NLCs over Proseč u Chrudimi, I began to wonder if Comet NEOWISE could be in the view--and my hopes were fulfilled!" says Horálek. "I was able to photograph the comet using a Canon 6D digital camera (Sigma 50mm, f1.4, ISO 400, 1/2sec) despite haze and clouds near the horizon." Oscar Martín Mesonero of Salamanca, Spain, also saw the comet in morning twilight: Mesonero's picture, taken through an ED80 Skywatcher telescope, shows a hint of a fan-shaped or split tail. The same shape was visible in SOHO images taken last week. "Fingers crossed that Comet NEOWISE will not die like Comets ATLAS and SWAN," says Horálek. "It could be something truly spectacular in the days ahead!"

More good news, if that's not tempting fate, from spaceweather,com THE RAPID BRIGHTENING OF COMET NEOWISE: Comet NEOWISE (C/2020 F3) is passing by the sun this week–and it’s looking good. The comet just experienced a sharp increase in brightness recorded by coronagraphs onboard the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). Click to play a 4-day movie of the surge: "During the transit, Comet NEOWISE increased in brightness from magnitude +4 to +1.8–an almost 8-fold jump," says planetary scientist Qicheng Zhang of Caltech, who analyzed the images. "If the comet maintains this brightness, it will be visible to the naked eye when it emerges from the sun’s glare in July." Zhang is a bit concerned, however, that the rapid brightening might be too much of a good thing. "When a comet brightens this quickly (2.2 magnitudes in only ~4 days) it could be a sign that the nucleus is unstable. Comet NEOWISE might yet disintegrate," he cautions. It wouldn't be the first time. Earlier this year two comets, ATLAS (C/2019 Y4) and SWAN (C/2020 F8), approached the sun with much fanfare, then disintegrated before they could become naked-eye objects. Above: The disintegration of Comet ATLAS. Credit: Hubble Space Telescope. [more] Will Comet NEOWISE end the same way? "I don’t think so," says Karl Battams of the Naval Research Lab in Washington DC. "Comet NEOWISE looks healthy to me. Throughout its passage across the coronagraph, the comet showed a smooth-and-steady brightness increase, perhaps a little steeper than we might like, but nothing that makes me enormously concerned for its health, as long as it has a reasonably large nucleus." We'll soon find out. "Later this week, around perihelion (closest approach to the sun) the comet may be observable by skilled astronomers low in the morning twilight," says Zhang. "If it maintains anything close to its brightness as it left SOHO’s field of view, it will most likely be recovered from the ground by then." Any sightings this week could be very good news, indeed. As July unfolds, the comet will swing around the sun and pop up in the evening sky–perfectly placed for casual sky watchers if anything remains to be seen. Stay tuned for updates. Share Tweet

A very impressive report Victor. The 72ED has really good optics and you have done a great job in showing how well it can perform, even on less easy subjects like Mars. Last November I used mine to observe the transit of Mercury across the sun and it was ideal as the wind was ferocious and it would have been difficult to hold down a larger scope. Though comparatively a small scope, it does many things very well. After all, it's not far off from a three inch refractor which at one time was a desired instrument for many amateurs.