jetstream

5 minutes ago, vineyard said:

Wow!  If ever there was a legitimate reason to have night-vision monoculars  Stay safe & looking fwd to reading more sightings of all kinds.

The skies here are dark 21.6 avg but oddly enough I can see very well in it after dark adaptation.I don't use torches or anything to swap eyepieces and such as I can see everything nicely.One flick of my headlamp and the sky turns inky black until re adapting. Jupiter and bright stars wreck my adaptation after viewing through the scopes as does M42. The faster f ratios really knock the eyes about.

However I can't see much in the balsams or spruce- they really absorb light- in the open on my ridge my night sight is vg, espc with snow. I saw the bear as a black shape right near me but it wandered off as it was looking for berries I think. They can be curious.

Thankfully wolves don't like humans...

2 hours ago, vineyard said:

I have to say I'm enjoying this thread as much for the observations on nature (wolves loping, owls, easterly wind bringing motorway noises) as the skies.  Thank you!

Glad you like nature, me too. For me astronomy is being part of nature at night- pitch black with the sound of animals at times. Mind you there has been times I ran for my "walking stick" lol!  We had bear issues last year with one hanging around for a month. You really get in tune with things- one out of place twig "snap" and all the attention goes there!

Mind you one of those snaps resulted in a face to face with the bear for a bit

One of the coolest thing I saw recently was a large owl fly across the road but with the wings pulled back? unless I didn't see the wings but I'm positive it kind of darted through the air to a tree about 30 ft away. Still puzzled with this one.

9 hours ago, Ships and Stars said:

PS the wolves must be incredible to see.

Observing them is a hobby of mine in the winter. This bay has a large wolf and deer population- right now the deer are struggling on the snow crust and today sloppy snow. These timber wolves have paws about the size of the palm of my hand letting them run on top of the crust. There is a kill at the end of the bay where the whole pack must have been involved, the snow was tramped about 50 meters in diameter.

I took a picture of another kill last week.

They seem to use roughly the same places to chase their prey out every winter. Now I kinda want to know why. Previously I have watched (from a distance) a pair run about 10 miles down the ice effortlessly, using their odd "lope", not a run or trot but a strange lope. Man can these animals cover ground.

Back to NGC 2403- for sure give this one many tries, it will open up for you at your dark sites. These big dobs show detail in the brighter galaxies- I even had some structure in one of Markarians Chain galaxies last night. And then there was the Needle and the Hamburger and... I observed hundreds of galaxies last night Robert.

Another hobby- listening and observing owls lol! they were calling back and forth last night as I observed the cosmos, it doesn't get much better than that IMHO.

6 hours ago, scarp15 said:

I do as you refer to look forward to M3 though.

Sometimes I go on cluster observing "sprees", they are always there and always good. I actually spent a fair bit of time on it this session, coming back to it as the transparency went south. Another thing I get into are double stars espc color doubles- we are eagerly waiting reports from you Iain!

ps the owls were really hooting the other night lol!

Just sitting here with a VG cup of coffee this morning, watching a timber wolf run across the ice about 400 yards way- the deer are getting decimated out there, I viewed 2 more kill remains on the ice yesterday. Oddly enough this pack is not solely nocturnal.

Anyway, on to last night.

There is a renewed interest in NGC 2403 with the 15" performing remarkably well on it, so well in fact I wheeled the 24" behemoth out last night to view it.  The 15" revealed delicate arms, some popping in and out, while the 24" revealed a mass of galactic glow with many faint and delicate spiral arms in direct vision. Amazingly there seemed to be "bright" knots" in the spiral arms- HII regions?

The added features in the 24" really brought NGC 2403 alive but the 15" also gave an excellent, smaller presentation albeit without some features. This one is well worth getting to know with your dob.

Observing galaxies is a fun challenge but observing unusual ones or formations are very rewarding to me. A couple of Hicksons provided satisfaction last night- HCG 44 -the Leo Quartet- and also HCG 61 - the "Box". These similar groups are very fine objects to observe.

So, I'm wondering if others have chosen to observe NGC 2403 ? what details can you see?

Btw, M3 was stunning last night, getting very close to rivaling M13 for presentation. The 10mm Delos/PCII was king here. All observing done with the 24"/PCII and 2 eyepieces, the superlative 20mm Lunt HDC and the top tier 10mm Delos.

1 hour ago, Stu said:

Glad you ate getting out Gerry, always enjoy reading your reports.

The forecast looks promising for the next few days so I should be able to get out there too. Am working from home now for at least three weeks which is good.

Eagerly waiting reports Stu!

1 hour ago, Silent Running said:

Although not in your big scope league, I will try and get it up and running for visual use.

Thanks to you and all for the support on reporting, I'll keep writing them given clear skies.

I observe with everything from MK1 eyeballs, to the H130 to the bigger scopes- it doesn't matter what scope it is as long as your enjoying being out there IMHO. The other night I did some lawn chair observing of naked eye DSO and also studied the constellations.

8 hours ago, jetstream said:

I really wish the Bortle scale is scrapped- I just can't relate to it. Bortle 1, Bortle 2 ... I can see M33 naked eye here but some of the parameters don't jive IMHO.

Again, the Bortle scale says M33 is visible in Bortle 3 and 4 ..... yeah right. I often wonder if some mistake NGC 752 for it.

3 minutes ago, DanyalAG said:

In dark skies, I think Mizar and Alcor would be easier. However from my light-polluted skies, Mizar's glare makes it nearly impossible to see Alcor. On the other hand, the components of Epsilon Lyrae are almost equal magnitude. I find them much easier to focus on both of them.( I live in NELM 4 -4.5 skies )

Could be, not sure about how your skies affect this.

1 minute ago, Sunshine said:

I really wish they would replace the word bortle, I refuse to say it. 

I really wish the Bortle scale is scrapped- I just can't relate to it. Bortle 1, Bortle 2 ... I can see M33 naked eye here but some of the parameters don't jive IMHO.

12 hours ago, DanyalAG said:

I have seen it naked eye on a couple of occasions, but it requires dark skies.However, in my opinion Mizar and Alcor is a finer test of visual acuity(at least for me).

Ok, I was puzzled by your answer that Mizar and Alcor are harder to split than the Double Double Epsilon Lyrae.

I just went outside not dark adapted in avg skies and find this extremely easy, but I had to check. It is nowhere near as hard as splitting Epsilon Lyrae into "2" stars.

Did you mean the Double Cluster in Perseus by chance?

4 hours ago, Ships and Stars said:

I want to try Ursa Minor tonight i

Try 20 Umi at 6.4ish and if trans is top at 21.8mag 17 Umi should be visible or 8 Umi. Good luck!

3 hours ago, John said:

Sounds like the Aero ED 40mm. Its surprisingly good

I guess the 41mm Panoptic would be slightly better in the F/5.3 dob but a used one of those would cost me 7x what I paid for the Aero ED.

 

Does the Aero do well on the Merope John? I'm curious about scatter control. The 42mm LVW has eye placement issues and to some astigmatism. This eyepieces has shown me the Vega and Double Double IFN however.

For some reason the Panoptic series has never really piqued my interest. BTW the 17.3 Delos is fantastic in its role as galaxy finder- and also pulling those extra, faint stars out of the trapezium.

A good test of the eyes is the Double Double- I easily see it as 2 stars naked eye- anyone else?

Using Umi for NELM is easy and is what I use but when the bowl is low I think the NELM understates the true limiting mag. If I was better at this I would know stars to use at zenith, which is worth a bit more IMHO.

Personally, once a dark site is established not much time is spent (wasted) on this- its right to the scope. The appearance of the Milky Way is the fastest best guide IMHO.

10 hours ago, Graham Darke said:

Very low power wide field observing is great for dark nebulae observation too. The summer Milky Way particularly is awash with these.

A favorite of mine too those dark nebs and in particular around Aquila and M24. In the f7- f7.5mm refractors I use the Vixen 42mm LVW, which is a nice but not perfect eyepiece. It is good enough for its intended use that I see no reason to replace it. It works well on the Pleiades as well.

4 hours ago, Ships and Stars said:

I then went to Ursa Major and NGC 3998, a 13.01 mag surface brightness galaxy in UMa that @Jetstream recently mentioned to me. Found that easily along with the smaller NGC 3990 and think there might be a tiny, and I mean tiny galaxy in between that went in and out of vision,  but could have been a very faint star. I then started following two more pairs of galaxies in the area, some on the fainter side, but all easily visible with direct vision. UMa is a whole new kettle of fish, I’m still trying to get my head around Virgo cluster!

Excellent!

You should see 2 pairs plus a" lone" straggler + 3 PGC... I see 5 with my 15", no PGC.

PGC 37442,PGC 37341 and PGC 37532

You might need to try on the PGC, the 10 BCO will help.IMHO.

I can see mag 6.8 NELM from my homes skies under the best conditions.

2 hours ago, Mr niall said:

Have you considered exit pupil as well?

I would say no eyepiece collection is complete without at least something in the 5-6mm range

2 hours ago, Ships and Stars said:

Regarding seeing, do you mean seeing vs transparency for PN and fainter galaxies?

Not seeing vs transparency but seeing itself seems to play a role in observing these small faint PN's and objects like Hickson 55 as we have to use such high mag on some of them. In this sense some small faint galaxy galaxy cores espc the "round" ones and also small PN's can benefit from good seeing-but- VG transparency is also needed IMHO. These rare nights of good seeing and great transparency really open up the skies. I have tried the seemingly impossible Einsteins Cross numerous times but I need a night of very dark skies with great seeing and top transparency.

Observing some of the PN's I mentioned in previous posts can be seen with almost unlimited mag but the detail I describe  is seeing and therefore mag limited. You are going to benefit from the 10BCO and I'm curious how the 9mm Lunt compares. Uma is a great testing ground.

Eagerly waiting reports!

10 minutes ago, Ships and Stars said:

I'm really curious to see how the 9mm does hunting galaxies, and whether or not it's a bit too much mag for most nights. It might work better in the 300p since that's less mag and more nudging around to track small objects. Might be good for PN too?

Yes, but more mag might be needed on some PN's as well as Hickson 55 and some Arps. These eyepieces will work well for you. Question : does seeing play a role for some extended objects such as PN and some galaxies?

3 minutes ago, Ships and Stars said:

Hope to report back soon on these.

I'm interested in how many galaxies you see in UMa starting with NGC 3998 in your 300mm dob with the 13mm Lunt.

1 hour ago, Ships and Stars said:

Finally received these 20mm/13mm/9mm APM/Lunt XWA 100 degree beauties after a major revamp of my eyepiece collection. The XWAs should be excellent in both my dobs, but particularly for watching DSOs float past in my undriven 300p flextube.

Excellent!

20 minutes ago, Ships and Stars said:

I'll be opening Stellarium soon to start an end of season list, hoping to have a nice happy Synscan alignment soon and get back to business.

Thanks S&S, we'll see how  it goes- one thing- I'm going to observe as much as circumstance allows and right now galaxies are the top priority. The list is an easy one with a few of the "associates" a bit harder. I do like the SC list as it pre plans my observing session and with targets in an order (close) where the SC maintains extreme accuracy, using the re align on object feature ( a third, close reference input).

I hope you can observe soon!

Thankfully another brief clear spell opened up last night with above avg transparency for a bit. The 15" is just so much faster to set up, use and find objects than the 24" and as such was enlisted again. The 21E set the PCII and focuser, which was the locked and the 17.3 Delos and Docter 12.5mm UWA were the mainstays.

Before the trio report I must relate how NGC 2403 in Cam presented itself- a bright but delicate object with not just 2 spirals but others flicking in and out of view! this one is a great object to learn and spend time on IMHO. Just fantastic!

NGC 2769 is a nice "trio" of galaxies in UMa (theres 4 actually) and was one of my serious targets of the evening. The 17.3 Delos located the brightest member NGC 2769 and be danged if there wasn't another one or 2 flicking in and out- in with the Docter and all three showed in direct vision- NGC 2767 at 13.7 mag and NGC 2771 at 14 mag. I might have had a chance on mag 15.7 NGC 2762 with high power orthos but I wanted to continue on with other targets.

Off to NGC 3163- no issues here with the 17.3 Delos and again the Docter brought mag 14 NGC 3161 into view as well as mag 14.9 NGC 3159 into view for the second trio. Many other galaxies about in this area.

My Sky Commander list for the night was set to:M81,NGC 2403,M108,NGC 3756,NGC 3448,NGC 3180,NGC 2903,M66,NGC 3163,NGC 2841 and NGC 2769.

All were found with ease relatively speaking- no orthos required.

As we sit here doing our social distancing I sure hope the sky is clear, today looks very nice actually as I write. I'm not sure if its appropriate to write reports when so many cannot observe- if this is the case just let me know- no offense will be taken,

Clear Skies

Gerry

58 minutes ago, Piero said:

I just put your data in my calculator. 

So the Docter with your 15" w/ PC2 gives 168.25x and 2.26mm e.p. 

In my dob w/o PC2, the Docter gives 145.04x and 2.03mm e.p. W/ PC2, these # become 166.80x and 1.77mm e.p. 

The advantage to fast f ratios is eye illumination as you know and the larger aperture adds focal length. I like more eye illumination than f4.8 gives so for me on many galaxies I like 2mm-3mm but to pull cores out I go much lower.

If I were going to buy another bigish dob it would be f3.5 and 18"-20"- so I could stand -no ladder. There would be much flexibility with such a scope and within Naglers PCII design specs. if money was no object Mike Lockwood would craft the mirror- this is his specialty and is perhaps the best at it. A JP Astrocraft cell would be enlisted as well.

As always, astronomy has learning curves lol!

You did well in designing your scope Piero.