Merak

Last night it stayed clear longer than the previous session of 5 minutes. Shifts had taken it out of me this week so was only going to stay out for 20-30 mins or so. Started of with The Moon, this time bumping up the magnification to 428x. First time I've actually tried such powers and on the limb, details took on a 3D type effect. Will certainly try it again. Went on to look at a few doubles and open clusters, one of which - NGC7610 would've been a nice (easy)one to sketch. Perhaps next time. Another one of note was NGC1502 in Camelopardalis, with 2 of the stars contained with it like a pair a celestial cats eyes. In the end, a 20-30 minute session turned in to over 1 and a half hours. Now to address the 8-13mm eyepiece gap....

Me "Ah it's clear, let's get the scope out for the first time in ages". Ten minutes later: it clouds over. Pic taken with phone through Svbony 3-8mm ep @ 8mm. Mark

Get both!

Apart from a quick look at Jupiter and Uranus, it was mostly open clusters for me. M48 was quite nice to look at, shame it was rather low down amongst the murk.

Have you had a look at the StellaMira 80mm f/6.25 from FLO? At 15" with the dewshield retracted it would fit in a reasonable sized backpack. I'm sure there must be someone on the forum who has used one? In any case, there are a few options out there. I guess if you're taking it out in a backpack, a smaller lighter scope would be handy because you could use a smaller and lighter mount + tripod. Mark

Yes, it seems in part to have turned in to an astro equivalent of bald men arguing over a comb. The mods/admin can close or delete the thread.

I have thought about getting a seestar but that'll have to wait because I've been told that we need a new sofa...

Thanks for the comments. Another thing is those of us working shifts - it seems that some of the decent nights have coincided with when I've had to work - most frustrating! Surely 2024 can't be any worse?

Has anyone kept a log of how many clear nights there have been versus previous years? Location might play a part but this year it seems that it hasn't been that great for clear nights. Cheers, Mark

I use the Skywatcher 6x30 finder and Tak diagonals with mine. On the other side of the cradle on the photo thread screw is a smartphone holder so I can use Astrohopper - this works quite well on a manual altaz mount. I had to add a washer to get the holder at the right angle. I use it on a az4 at the moment but in the future, a mount with slo-mo controls would be nice. I wouldn't mind a microfocuser and the baader clicklock back but I'm in no rush for those.

Just had a play with it in the 76 and as you've mentioned above, no issues with the tak diagonal. 3mm(190x) a bit too much magnification tonight on both Jupiter and Saturn, somewhere between 4mm(142.x5) and 5(114x) would've been the sweet spot on this occasion. I didn't spend too long looking because I was getting backache hunched over the eyepiece looking at Jupiter whilst it's up high - I need to either get an extension for the mount or an observing chair. Edit: I took another look at Jupiter and in the moments of steadier seeing Jupiter looked pretty good with a fair bit of detail. Unless my mind was playing tricks, the GRS had some subtle colour to it. I don't have any other eyepieces to directly compare it to in its range so I can't comment on how it fares against other. I can't rule out buying other eyepieces in the future but the 3-8 will do me for a while.

This arrived today. Even though 'her majesty' has been in all day, Royal Fail decided to leave it on the doorstep - she never heard anyone knock.

I have the Tak diagonal and I believe it may be an issue. In any case, the eyepiece has arrived, hopefully we'll have clear skies this year!

Scrolling through the thread again reminds me that I have to get a parfocal ring to prevent any risk of it hitting the prism in my diagonal......

You can never have too many refractors......

After thinking about getting one a while, I've finally joined the club and ordered one yesterday. With things like this I guess that having a realistic expectation will help. I know it won't match a fixed f/l ep such as a 5mm Delite but if it gets reasonably close then I'll be happy enough. I could always go down that avenue in the future if need be.

Going back a fair few years I had a little drive around Cranborne Chase - nice area. According to the calculator, my combo was a 2.33 deg fov so probably didn't fit it all in but it was good enough view for me. Amazing how that short drive shows an astronomical distance in what can been seen versus here in town.

Hi all, My son passed his driving test a few weeks back and had asked me couple of times to go stargazing with him. The previous couple of times I'd declined because the forecast wasn't great and it would just be a waste of petrol. Fast forward to Friday night and the forecast was promising - 0% percent cloud cover after 2200 and for once it was right! When I say a 'return to Turfhill' - going back a few years there used to be a South Coast Astronomers Group here on SGL and Turfhill was our meeting point. For old times sake as well - let's go there! Whilst we're at it, let's start on easier objects too... The same potholes were evident on the access road in to the parking but the skies... Flippin' eck! Seeing the Milky Way in all its glory put a smile on my face and to be honest I got somewhat lost in all the stars. I did bring a scope with me, I'd be foolish not to! So we had a look a look at Jupiter then Saturn and a quick look at Uranus but the real 'wow' moment was looking at the double cluster. It was like looking at a swarm of stars filling the eyepiece - even this invoked a 'wow' from my son, for me it was the best view ever of the double cluster. Seeing M31 and the companion galaxies was nice too. Astrohopper did make it easy to see things but even then I lost track of the open clusters observed because there were quite a few! I must make an attempt in future to log them all in future.... As for the pause for thought, I went out for a walk earlier and it was extremely sobering to see how a 20 minute drive can make that much of a difference to what can be seen in the sky here. At the moment I don't have a car but this may change......

I'm looking at getting the OVL Nirvana badged version of this eyepiece. Is the planetary views through the eyepiece satisfactory? Cheers.

Had a little play last night with a little bit of imaging on Saturn and decided to put it in to mono. Also tried a few vids on Jupiter but they were a bit meh. Meade LX90, Canon 70d dslr, processed in PIPP, AS3, Registax and GIMP. Also added are older images of Mars and Jupiter. Capture details of them are sketchy but same camera and scope. For Jupiter x3 focal extender, captured in Backyard EOS and further processed in AS3, Registax and GIMP. As for Mars x3 and x2 Barlow stacked and same processes. Maybe one day I'll buy a 'proper' astrocam for planetary imaging and get one of those ADC things...

Finished work at 0230 and it was one of those seemingly rare times that the weather forecast was actually correct! With the Moon and Jupiter well placed, they were the first targets. Seeing a lot better than earlier in the week with a bit of detail in the main bands of Jupiter and the GRS starting to emerge from the limb of the gas giant. Since I don't have any short f/l eyepieces(yet!) I was using a 13mm Nag with x3 focal extender combo, giving approx 146x and I feel I could've pushed things a bit further. I had a play with a couple of colour filters I bought a little while back(orange and light blue). For me, orange was a little 'meh' but I quite liked the view of The Moon through the light blue filter, knocking off some of the excessive brightness whilst keeping surface detail. As for Jupiter, it seems any difference with the light blue filter is marginal, it certainly didn't make it worse but further observation is required on this. After a look at the solar system entities, it was time to have a look deeper in to space at some open clusters with the aid of the phone app Astrohopper. Previously, I did think for a while where exactly I was going to attach the phone to the scope to use it but in a rare moment of enlightenment it occured to me that the scope cradle has a photothread screw, so I ordered a tripod phone adaptor and with the aid of a washer got the holder at the right angle. I'm sure some or most of those people still reading this(I'm sure one or two may have already scrolled on or fallen asleep) are aware what Astrohopper is. If you're not, well basically it's an app for the phone that can be used in conjunction with the scope to make it 'push to' - align it to a star near the intended target and then it should guide you to the target. Most of the time it does, not always in the the centre of fov but close enough so I'm happy enough to use it. There's a few open clusters in Taurus, including a few pretty close by Alderbaran, some of which I'm sure I've never observed before so it's nice to bag a few new objects. I also had a look at one of my favourite oc - M37, this one is quite tightly packed and I don't know if I'm the only one but it's as if you have 'zoomed in' on a globular cluster. I do like looking at open clusters so perhaps I'll make that that basis of my next session? Final target of the session was Comet Nishimura. Tried the previous morning and had failed thanks to the cloud, it was nice and clear above, but where the comet was - NOPE! I was discussing this with my mate previously and he said that if it was clear at 4am to ring him up to give it a bash. Well he had rung me earlier whilst I was looking at a few objects so he popped over and we went to a nearby bridge that gives a lower horizon compared to the garden. For the comet it was decided to start with some camera images and once it had risen out of the murk was easily seen in images. Visually, it was trickier with 8x42 binos but it's nice to bag another comet. It seems that for once, everything went to plan but I'll certainly be having an earlier one tonight!

I had a look at a few open clusters, M57 and a couple of galaxies because I was testing out Astrohopper to see how well it worked. I had bought a smartphone tripod adaptor which, with the help of a washer fitted at the right angle on the photothread of the tube cradle. It seemed to work quite well. The skies weren't great(cloud etc) and it was a short session because I'd been up since 4am because of work.

Perhaps Svbony will dip their toe into a 80-90degree line of eyepieces?

I'm mostly visual but have dabbled in a bit of rudimentary imaging with my sct. I can appreciate the time, patience and effort that goes in to getting decent images but it isn't for me. If I were to do more, it would be down the EAA route. It does seem that at times that astrophotography is one of those things you can swear by or swear at, sometimes both in the space of a few minutes! If it is 'worth it' is definitely a personal thing.

The poor weather, combined with my work shifts means my new scope hasn't been out much at all so I guess it is what it is. That time and weather equation is why I'm a mostly visual observer and why I wouldn't shell out for a dedicated astrophotography setup. Despite all those challenges, I'm still looking to get 2 or 3 more eyepieces.... It's also been a challenging year down the allotment - things not germinating and growing earlier in the year, seeing most of the indoor and outdoor crop being wiped out to blight has been two annoying things, so it's not just limited to astronomising.