procky1845

8 minutes ago, mikeDnight said:

That's a great sketch Lee and you've caught some interesting detail, depicted very subtly within the darker albedo features. I can see in your sketch that you've recorded a perfect outline of Solis Lacus ( the Eye of Mars) right on the central meridian. Along the bright limb you have undoubtedly included the bright cloud around Olympus Mons, shown as a brighter indent at around 2 o'clock, and there are bright regions coming onto the disk that when combined with the morning haze and thin cloud in Mars' atmosphere creates the bright limb. You have a very keen observing eye. Thanks for posting your sketch!

Attached is a 2016 cylidrical grid map of Mars showing the latitude and longitude of Martian features with the same reversed orientation as in your telescope which you may find helpful. You can see some bright regions i mentioned to the right of Solis Lacus, and Olympus Mons at 130° visible close to the limb in your sketch.

Thanks for your help, thats really interesting, I hadn't identified those features. (Also thank you for the map, it is difficult constantly having to do the mental flip with the standard maps).

I find it really tricky to identify the features as different maps seem to depict them in different orientations and configurations. For example Mare Erythraeum on the map I was looking at when I tried to label the sketch (first pic below) seems to depict it as a large darker area, where as on the map from the BAA website (second pic below) it seems to be depicted as a smaller horizontal dark region. 

Hi,

Observation of Saturn on Friday (7th Aug) attached.

Are there any seasoned Saturn observers who can help me identify the shaded feature just above the rings at the front? I noted in my logbook that this was the shadow of the rings on the globe, but in hindsight that would probably have been much darker I suspect (similar to the shadow of globe on the rings top right). So maybe that is either the C ring or the SEB? I had noted that I couldn't see the C ring (which is why its shaded out with X's) but maybe it was visible just in front of the globe?

Thanks again,

Lee

51 minutes ago, dweller25 said:

I have seen that too - I think it’s morning mist/dew/fog/frost.

Very good observation and drawing 👍

Oh wow, that's quite cool.

I was confused by your statement at first but the terminator we see would be the night time terminator wouldn't it so that does make a lot of sense!

Thanks!

Hi,

Was out observing Mars on Friday night (7th Aug) and noticed that the West limb was particularly bright, I was wondering if anybody knew the reason for this i.e. is it just the reflection of sunlight or is there some other reason? I haven't noticed this before but the last time I observed Mars was a few months ago in the morning twilight.

I've attached my sketch from the evening (admittedly not the best, sorry) which does show the brightness at the limb.

Thanks,

Lee

Ah right I see, so the left right is reversed in both scenarios. The diagonal simply "fixes" the up down.

Thanks that's very helpful.

So without the diagonal it would effectively be the same as my 200p? I assume that it's just too difficult to use without hence the diagonal. Can you get diagonals that don't flip the image left to right? Presumably this would involve extra mirrors and loss of light transmission?

Hi,

Posting in the beginner forum as I didn't know the answer and may be useful for somebody considering a first scope.

I've been into astronomy for the past 5 years, for the most part using a Skyliner 200p which I absolutely love. However, after moving house a year ago I am now aware that my current location isn't conducive to doing any kind of planetary observing due to the north facing garden, hill to the South and general obstruction of views where I need to be looking.

I have no intention of parting with my beloved 200p but would like something lightweight I can carry to the top of a hill easily to do some planetary.

Anyway, more or less set at this point on a Skymax 127 which ticks all the boxes for me but having only used a Newtonian I don't know much about Maks.

So my question is, what is the image orientation when looking through the Mak both with and without the star diagonal? (I'm assuming you can use it with and without?) My 200p is as I would describe it rotated 180° but assume it will be different for the mak?

Thanks.

Ah yes, I should have said in my other post, I'm on a Google Nexus 6P

Hi,

I seem to be having some issues scrolling on the Android app after one of the recent updates. If I scroll right to left it only scrolls a very minimal amount and then stops. In order to scroll through the entire week I then have to swipe repeatedly from right to left.

Interestingly though if I swipe right to left on the header part where it shows the day and solar/lunar info, it seems to scroll overly quickly.

Is anybody else having the same issue?

Thanks

I've just checked and the data is up to date, this isn't the same issue as yesterday this is literally just our data giving different information vs the data used in those other sources.

I'll check it later and see if it changes nearer the time and what the other places do as well...

Hi Grant. No problem, thanks for looking.

Cheers.

It's also worth just mentioning - there could still be differences between the forecasts - we use different data sources, different models and probably update at different time intervals to other forecast sites but in particular, with the two forecasts you mention above - if you check the coordinates of the Met Check forecast, it is 5.37 miles (approximately) from the forecast linked to on the Clear Outside website....

Hi Grant. Yes you are correct the metcheck one is a slightly different location so I would expect to see some variation. The Astro Planner application uses the exact coordinates though so this should be similar, probably not exactly the same because as you mentioned it's likely using a different data source.

I seem to be having the same issue again today, it looks like the forecast is now cached from yesterday? Clear Outside is reporting 0% cloud coverage, the other two sources are reporting between 45-60% cloud coverage.

Thanks.

I don't normally check peoples forecast reports/observations (good or bad) because it would be a limitless task that changes constantly but in this case, I did notice an issue with the cached cloud data which was stuck from a day or so ago. I found the bug and have now fixed it (something had changed in one of our external data sources as of around 2 days ago). This has refreshed the data for your location, and it now broadly matches the other forecasts, i.e. clear until Midnightish and then clouding up afterwards.

This issue could potentially have affected other people in the past 24 hours or so - apologies if that is the case but the bug is now fixed and the data should be refreshing correctly again.

We already have various monitoring tools in place to look for issues like this, but this particular bug had escaped these monitors so as well as fixing the underlying issue, which is now done I will also look to add some additional monitoring to ensure things like this don't slip through again.

Thank you for mentioning it as this could've taken several more days to have become apparent otherwise

Brilliant. Thanks so much for this. Its much more useful now!

Its not often you can report a software issue and get it resolved within an hour!

Cheers.

Hi,

The Clear Outside website always seems to give me different information to other weather forecasts, and by that I mean that generally the clear outside forecast seems to be incorrect for where I live? I've checked it on a number of occasions and something just doesn't add up.

Wondering if somebody could help as it may be that I'm just doing something wrong.

As an example, for tonight clear outside is showing midnight as orange with 45% coverage of cloud.

looking at the other two services I use regularly, which are usually quite accurate:

Metcheck.com shows 8% cloud coverage.

Astro Panel shows 0-6% cloud coverage.

I live in Middlestown in Wakefield, (53.65,-1.60) which is what it says at the top of the forecast. Can anybody shed any light on this, its not an isolated incident.

Theres a link to the clear outside forecast and the metcheck forecast for my location below.

http://clearoutside.com/forecast/53.65/-1.6?view=midday

http://www.metcheck.com/HOBBIES/astronomy_forecast.asp?location=WF4&locationID=60836

Thanks.