timwetherell

13 hours ago, barkis said:

It may still be a bit presumptuous to expect the big fellow to go bang in the near future.
He could well hang about for a few hundred, if not thousands of years yet.
I'm not sure I want to see  Orion's right shoulder turn into a moon like object shining in our night,
or daylight sky. It would be a sight to behold for sure, but I'm not that eager for it happen .
Ron.

 

I know what you mean Ron, It would be interesting to see but orion is such an iconic constellation it would be sad to see it without Betelgeuse!

52 minutes ago, markse68 said:

The background of the current image is a bit lighter than the older image so it’s even dimmer?

Yes, I think it's a difference in sky brightness between the two nights perhaps - I didn't want to "massage" the images too much though for fear of changing the intensity of betelgeuse artificially  

Yes tricky from the UK - all comes down to seeing. I've done it with relative ease a couple of times using a 7" scope but dozens of other times it's simply not there. I have an atmospheric dispersion corrector which helps a bit in removing the vertical fringing

9 hours ago, Richard136 said:

The 66 was  / is on the list; however I couldn't find one anywhere. Think the 70 or 72 may be preferred over the ZS61 on balance

Yes I'm probably a bit out of date, haven't bought a scope in some years  Was it the 71 triplet you were thinking of? Looks quite expensive from my brief research! but yes, I think 70ish would be slightly better than 61 especially if you can source one second hand. I'm using a TMB 40mm widefield ortho as an eyepiece - again another piece of astro-kit from the long, long ago. It has the advantage of the field stop being outside the optics so it's easy to install a crosshair.

I use a WO66 and it's great - enough aperture to see most brighter Messiers and small enough to be able to achieve low magnification with normal EPs. It also has the advantage of accepting 2" EP,s  so with a 40mm ortho if gives almost 7 degree field which makes it an ideal finder. It's also a nice spotting scope in it's own right and a very capable wide angle astrophotography scope using the main scope as a guide. I actually use this scope as a visual instrument too, very large objects like M31 and the North America nebula look great - the latter especially with an OIII filter 

Best of luck with this project Helen

44 minutes ago, Nigella Bryant said:

Thanks Tim for the info, will take a look. Where do you meet?

The sitdown sessions are in the early evening at the Kildare Lodge Hotel in Minehead but we do observing sessions out at various places on Exmoor, North Hill and Webbers post being two favourites

Welcome to the West Country!  Lovely dark skies, lovely fluffy clouds, lots and lots of em  I think your nearest club will be the North Devon Astro. Soc, but if you're ever a few miles further east on Exmoor you'd be very welcome to drop in to one of our Exmoor StarGazers meetings too.

7 minutes ago, Skipper Billy said:

It would work but would need painting as epoxy is not UV stable - it will break down is sunshine (and its expensive!) 

With the kind of summers we get, UV isn't likely to be a problem!  But, you could maybe mix it with a pigment such as childrens black powder paint or as you say, paint over it anywhere it's exposed to a lot of light. It's not really much more expensive that most sealants, it's about £20 for half a litre on ebay

What about a two part epoxy? That can be brushed on, sticks like the proverbial to a blanket and unlike polyester resin, has a little give even when set which should suit a wooden floor?

On 11/11/2019 at 14:54, MoonNut said:

Well done, you got to see it, many people will not be so lucky today sadly.

I watched the first 50 mins or so before the sun set, nice sunny day here though.

Managed some images with my modest equipment.

 

Nice pics! You've captured the exact same prominence I saw through my H-alpha scope

Nice pics! And I know what you mean about the quick pack down, only in England do we need rain proof solar telescopes!  Our club had a session for the transit and we were literally watching mercury transit the sun and getting rained on at the same time

Morning observing can be very rewarding - though it's not something i generally do. I was able to see some surface features on mercury once with an 8" scope at 5am (An exceptionally cold still day with the slightest haze) On that occasion the scope had been in the house overnight so dew wasn't a problem for me. As a rule, I don't like mornings because your observing session is limited by it getting light whereas at night the longer you mess about the darker it gets

Yeah, my experience is similar. A 4" will begin to resolve globulars and give some quite decent views of brighter DSOs - I'm not saying an 80mm couldn't do that, but I've always found it much more of a struggle with a 3" refractor than a 4".  Back in the day when many of us had the ubiquitous 60mm,  a 4" refractor was classed as a "big" telescope!  

I use a 2x 2" barlow for imaging sometimes and a focus is achievable  but that's on a refractor with a long focuser range. I presume you're using your  200p Newtonian? which probably has a more limited focus travel. If the barlow is pushing the focus point further out you might be able to use an extension tube?

I have an esprit 100 but not the camera. If you tell me the weight of your camera I'd be happy to mock it up with  weights and tell you the balance point

6 hours ago, Mark at Beaufort said:

Tim well done picking up M7 in the UK. I have only seen M6 and M7 from Spain and California. It took me ages to see M69 and M70 in the UK and that was only once.

 

Thanks Mark  Yes, I had the same experience with M69 and M70. Really difficult unless the sky conditions are absolutely perfect. The slightest haze of any kind on the horizon will totally obscure them. I guess it's because they are extended fuzzy objects so super sensitive to contrast whereas M7 is a collection of brighter pinpoint stars which is a bit more forgiving of residual sky brightness.

I used a 31 Nagler in a Friend's 180 and didn't notice any obvious vignetting

What a cool project, that's made a nice little portable scope. Enjoy

If you're going to shorten the tube, might be worth considering fitting a 2" diagonal so you can use 2" EPs and get a huge field of view. My finder is a short focus 66mm and with a 2" 40mm ep has a field of view of almost 8 degrees. The downside is that it may introduce weight issues depending what your mount etc is

6 hours ago, Craney said:

Well done.      I was thinking about suggesting a competition  for  'Horizon-limited-DSO's'   ..... 3 degrees... crikey !!!!!

That's 3 degrees in Somerset, probably be lucky to have 1.5 up in Harrogate  However being discrete stars rather than a fuzzy, I rekon it would be possible. Visually I found M7 reasonably easy to see but the globulars nearby M69 and M70 were a real challenge. Totally impossible under all but the very clearest haze free skies and even then right on the limit of my vision.

Very pleased to have been able to capture M7 last night - only really visible for a couple of weeks in midsummer and even then only about 3° above the horizon. Stellarium suggests it should be possible for anyone south of Newcastle with a really good south horizon. 

My obsy is quite small so at the extremes there's only about 400mm between the EP and the circular wall. At first I was worried this would make it a bit tight but actually I really like it because I can lean on the wall when observing which really helps with comfort and steadiness at the EP - it also lessens the chance of spilling my brandy

For me it's blow any dust off with a hurricane blower, then gentle wipe with un-perfumed facial tissue moistened with pure ethanol. If there are any water soluble marks remaining I breathe on the lends to fog it and again wipe with tissue. My main rule is one wipe per tissue then get a new one so I can get through half a box cleaning the objective! Only needs doing about once every two years though.