Davesellars

It's "clear" out but pea-soup transparency... I'm giving it a miss after being out observing for 4 nights out the previous 5...

@Stephen Waldee The 80mm refractor is quite a workhorse... I bought in back in 2014 and It's probably my most used scope despite the aperture! It's very capable on a wide variety of objects and always ready to go. I assume that's an Orion (or similar) 80ST you have... those are very capable as well I gather - the main problem being for lunar and planetary it being f/5. I'd suggest really hunting around the used market for a long focal length achromatic as some real bargains can be had. Good luck and the most important thing is to keep observing!

Had almost an hour observing the Moon with the 80ED. Nice quick cooldown and not fussy about the seeing being brilliant. Some really nice views at 120x with the Pentax XW 5mm.

Pretty much the same... transparency was not good. Didn't really make too much judgement about seeing. I spent a good couple of hours and I did see NGC 2683 and NGC 2841 as well NGC 2903 but no detail in any of them. Spent some time on some open clusters instead.

Have a couple on my list for tonight... NGC 2683 & NGC 2841. I've seen these before but not really in depth. I'm trying to get into the habit of observing just a few objects for a longer period of time.

Dob's out yet again (3rd night running...) and cooling down. Moon's not up for a little while so hoping to get at least 8 until 10pm on some DSOs.

You have to in this country!!!

For the last couple of days, amazingly the UK seems to be currently bathed in sun during the day and crystal clear during the night... [i]Even [/i]more amazingly this looks to continue during the entire week (OK, I'll believe it when I've experienced it!!!) Friday night... cold and dewy. I was out early before 7pm with the 12" dob as twilight was still evident - mainly to try my luck on splitting Sirius. Unfortunately, Sirius (or rather the seeing between me and it) wasn't playing nice and a fuzz-ball of fire and colour greeted me. I think due to the cold and houses in that direction there was most likely significant thermal movement - I could almost see the vapour in the air. Elsewhere, the seeing looked pretty darned good. Orion generally suffered from the same thermal movement of air but in moments of calm I could easily discern E & F stars of the trapezium. By now almost proper darkness but with the Moon already just risen and full, there was now a general lightness to the entire sky. M42 became an interesting study into how to get the best from the nebula under less than ideal conditions. Using my normal power with 10mm (150x), while nice lost a considerable amount of nebulosity due to the lack of sky contrast. Also, the transparency didn't look to be that great. Though, at 300x with the 5mm Pentax the nebula was a different beast - the contrast now good and the centre of the nebula around the trapezium showing real depth and dimension in its clouds. I spent a good while taking this in as unfortunately it won't be too long until Orion is lost from the view until next winter. M36, M37 and M38 were still good viewing in the ever-growing moonlight. I stopped by the very light open cluster, NGC 1893 which with some averted vision game up considerable fine stars. Later on, after getting the kids into bed etc and once the Moon had risen properly I went out to the dob again... everything was now completely wet. Fortunately I'd covered up front and drapped a cover over the scope to avoid the secondary from dewing up while I was away. Going straight for 375x with the 4mm eyepiece the seeing was good and the image for the most part was holding still enough to make out 3 craterlets without too much effort in Plato. I spent a good couple of hours taking in the edges of the Moon which the 12" resolved so spectacularly paricularly on the western edge around Demonax with numerous craters and mountain areas rising from the surface. Saturday night... A bit more time to take advantage of before the Moonlight really kicked in. Once again the dob was hauled out and cooled a while before starting around 7:45. The conditions were very different from Friday night. The transparency looked very good and it was dry and no trace of humidity in the air like on Friday. I had a couple of targets in mind... NGC 2903 (spiral galaxy in Leo) which showed up exceptionally well in the 120ST a little while back on a dark very transparent night - I wanted go back to this and make a deeper observation with the 12" dob - but seeing the sky to where Leo was the upcoming (not quite risen) Moon seemed to already making its presence in that area of the sky. If I was guessing it probably made the sky more like bortle 6 rather than lower bortle 5 crossing into bortle 4 like I've experienced once most lights have been switched off after midnight + no Moon + great transparency... It was quite evident when I looked upon the galaxy with the 17.3 Delos that no real meaningful observation was going to take place tonight - however a decent size elongated area with a touch added brightness to the centre appeared - going deeper with the 10mm did not improve anything or make any further detail possible. It is quite incredible to think that a mere 4.75" scope in much better sky outdoes considerably 12". That difference from bortle 4/5 to 6 to me is more than 3x worth the aperture. M1 rather better placed a the time.. higher up and seemingly escaping any real lighting up of the sky at the moment, it surprised me intially with the Delos 17.3 of its sheer size appearing as an amorphous blob reminding me for some reason of an episode of Star Trek. It had quite reasonable brightness in its entire surface area. I attempted to pick out any strands of nebulosity within however I was unsuccessful this time. Strangely, going to 10mm entirely made the nebula disapppear almost altogether like I was suddenly looking through it rather than at it. Neither UHC nor OIII seemed to help with the UHC actually making things worse and the OIII giving about the same amount as without the filter. I think maybe on a darker night this may well give up its features. I repeated the observation of M37 in Auriga comparing from Friday night.. Considerably more contrast to the sky and better definition perhaps but it was not a stark difference to the cluster itself. M37 such is a great open cluster to view on those Moonlit nights. The Double cluster as ever was an awesome sight... By now the scope had fully cooled and brilliant pinpoints of light with various colours filled the entire view. Almost an hour was up and I had to go in to help put the (very tired) kids to bed... It had been a long day. By the time I came out again and hour and half later with the Moon well up, all the lovely stars had pretty much been lost to the brilliance of the moon-light. However, I had come out now to observe the Moon for a little while... This was indeed very short! I glance with the 10mm EP for only 150x showed a shimmering mess - the seeing was absolutely terrible! This proving to me that indeed nights of great transparency give rubbish seeing and vice-versa. I gave up after 5 minutes and packed up to head in and call it a night.

Looks like a nice location which will certainly be beneficial without the moon-light. Nice report! You should easily see M101 on a good transparent night (like it was last night...) from what sounds like a good potentially dark site.

Had 10 minutes viewing the Moon but the seeing is terrible with the 12" dob... Probably better with the refractor tonight. Brought everything in as have had a long day!

Had a bit under an hour with the dob taking advantage viewing before the Moon came up taking in M1, M42, Plieades (thought I could make out a touch of nebulosity), NGC 2903 and double cluster looking fantastic. Good transparency tonight.

Yep, looking great here...

Nice report! When I had my 8" SCT I always used the focal reducer unless I was doing planetary observation. To my eyes it made a considerable difference and made to scope more able for DSO observation - and of helps to use sensible eyepiece focal lengths! Sharper stars as well although still had to wait an hour or sometimes two...

Had a decent hour's viewing before the Moon had really risen. Mainly on M42 at high magnification and some doubles. Plieades looking nice as well. Waiting now for the Moon to come around into view properly.

Dob taking an age to cool... rapidly dropping temps don't help... Trying to split Sirius but it's a no go so far...

Beautifully clear here! Dob's out cooling... Hopefully the seeing will be better than last night.

I don't use a filter but last night I found it difficult as the seeing didn't really support using a high enough power to sufficiently dim the image with the 4" refractor. When the Moon is at this phase though you can also observe double stars!

Both looking forlorn at the sky last week as the clouds had just moved in...

Had a little while out with the 4" refractor. Some double stars and lunar - but the seeing wasn't very good at all.

Depends on a few other factors... Was the 80mm an achromatic and the 90mm an ED doublet / triplet? or are they both achromatics? The 90mm is a 25% increase in light gathering - this would be noticeable if you had tested both side by side on the same night and darkness. For example if you've just looked through the 90mm at DSOs while the Moon is in play whereas the 80mm previously while there was none.. you can hardly compare the two. I'd expect to see a difference in the same conditions especially if the 90mm has much better optics.

I don't know about the Morpheus. I thought that the Pentax XW 14mm and above may add to field curvature though in fast optics - so may not be suitable? The 14mm Delos is superb and is my main deep sky object eyepiece with my f7.5 and f7 refractors. At f/5 I use the 10mm Delos to get to the same exit pupil.

Thanks guys! That Meade 1.25" 2x barlow looks OK but also tempted by the new Stellalyra 2" ED - looks to be a bargain for £59.

Thanks Don. that may be useful. Do you have any recommendations on such a 1.25" barlow where the lens unscrews from the tube?

You're probably right... I have the 7mm and 5mm Pentax XW so a 2X Barlow would give 3.5mm and 2.5mm. I'm not keen on extending the optical train, but this may well be the better solution. Edit... Or even a 3X barlow with the Delos 10mm giving 214xmm (useful) and with the 7mm Pentax 306x (useful for double stars and Mars / Saturn?)

Thanks Louis. It's a bit difficult finding any information about someone using it with an f/7 ish refractor. f/5 is gets into the realm of many eyepieces not being ideal off-axis.