Paz

I've had plenty, one example was excitedly and carefully mapping out a bunch of the less frequently observed galaxies around Ursa Major for observing one night from my light polluted back garden. It was a total failure, I didnt see a single thing on my target list even though I hunted them all down one at a time to the right spots, my excitement meaning I failed to spot the emerging pattern. None of them were realistically doable in those conditions but I didn't know that back then.

I've just seen it naked eye through a gap in the clouds, it looked like 2 airplanes coming in to land one behing the other, but its too cloudy/rainy here to get a scope on it.

That is a great arrangement!

I think you are right about people keeping warm. I didn't take any out, I just sat down with a few books(astro and non astro) for a couple of hours and had a read. Ian Ridpath's Astronomy - A Visual Guide was a well organised and accessible guide to the sky and observing, but these days there is a lot of competition in that space. Lawrence Weschler's Waves Passing In the Night was more unusual, a different take from the norm on astronomy and physics and I would have borrowed that one if I had my library card, but I'm far too disorganised to think to take my library card to a library.

I've got a rare day off work and had no idea what to do. I've ended up in a local library (that's how exciting I am!). Obviously I searched for astronomy books and was surprised to find a whole couple of rows of astronomy books. This is just a small town library, I guess it shows the popularity of the subject. I was only expecting one or two books. The other interesting observation is that it's mid week morning but this library is packed, and with people of all ages, literally every table is taken, most seats are taken.

Some finders have pairs of parallel lines that cross over forming a tiny box in the centre so you can see the object dead centre. Some of my finders are like this, if my memory is correct I think I got these from Orion (the USA company).

I find things manually, originally using maps and later moving to using sky safari. The only electronics in my set ups are using a RA motor on my equatorial mount and a heater for my Quark. I enjoy finding things and I try to build my knowledge of the sky over time. Sometimes I've done epic star hops across barren parts of the sky that take quite some time to navigate to observe something like an obscure double star that nobody cares about and I get a fine sense of achievement. I have seen goto in action at outreach events and meet ups and I have been very impressed at how you can hit any target quickly. Yes I can go straight to quite a few objects from memory but not hundreds or thousands of them! At the moment I am still happy with manual but I would not rule goto out in the future.

I agree once at the eyepiece longer controls are easier to reach but how I store my mounts would mean put them on and taking them off every session so I prefer to trade off a bit of benefit in use for a bit of benefit in set up time.

I've thought now and again about getting a computer controlled alt az scope for the best of both worlds, I.e. simplicity when you want it and tracking when you want it but I've gotten used to my gear and try to bury such thoughts!

An extended handle sounds good, is that like the az4 design that moves with the scope and stays in the same relative place? Sometimes I end up is some contorted positions trying to have an eye at the eyepiece and moving the slow motion controls, I swapped out all the extended slow motion controls on my mounts for stubby ones just to make my kit easier to set up and take down as I can leave them on all the time, but sometimes it is a stretch to get to them.

I mostly observe dsos these days with a ed102r and skytee 2 mount or a VX14 and dobsonian base, finding things manually and tracking manually. I only use an EQ5 on occasion for solar/lunar/planets to benefit from tracking due to the higher magnifications and these things being in the fastest part of the sky. However last night I set up the EQ5 and ed102r for some dsos for the first time in a while. It is more of a faff even though I just plonk the tripod down pointing roughly north and the altitude is pre-set near enough and doesn't get checked, but it is plenty good enough for tracking. Once at the eyepiece it is so much easier, I had forgotten the joy of changing eyepieces and it not being a race against time, being able to have a break and come back to see the target still there, and most of all, being able to sit and observe a target without the constant distraction of nudging or twiddling slow motion controls etc. I observed Stock 2 with a 17.3mm Delos and stayed on it for ages, it was just an even sprinkling of cold points of light frozen across the eyepiece and after a while I start to get the floating-in-space feeling alternating with the floating-in-a swimming pool feeling that I don't get so much when the view is moving. A super-pretty and under rated star cluster I have always thought. I moved over to the double cluster and although both clusters were in the field of view I was fpocused on that little ring in the middle of NGC869 and spent a long time on this also. A great session, only 2/3 objects observed and only one eyepiece used but that's often how my sessions go and very enjoyable. I am sure that on balance I'll still do more alt/az session than equatorial sessions for dsos but the EQ5 is going to be seeing more action than it has of late.

I use a quark with 72mm f6 and 102mm f7 scopes. The views I get are not perfectly consistent across the field but are in line with expectations and I have had lots of good times so far with it. I understand that solar observing perfection comes at a much higher price.

When I started out observing my expectations were set by reading posts over on CN by observers going for exotic dso's with huge scopes and perfect skies, then reality bit and I acclimatised to what is realistically possible over here with normal gear. I have always enjoyed the moon to be honest, there's so much to see and in comparison to most other targets that can often disappoint, the moon almost always delivers! A couple of years ago I was totting up all the different objects I had seen to date and while I was expecting double stars or dsos to be the most numerous it was in fact lunar targets, and by a big margin.

I mostly refer to the Messier objects and Caldwell objects books as I don't often go far off the beaten path when it comes to dsos, but The Secret Deep and Hidden Treasures cover a lot more ground. The other set I refer to all the time are Burnhams Celestial Handbooks.

I still check out books for ideas of what to look at and when I come in form a session to understand something I was looking at. Probably the most common combination is the Cambridge Double Star Atlas which I refer to to help learn and remember where things are in the sky (it covers the main DSOs as well as doubles) and I'll read up in O'Meara's books on DSOs, pretty much all of the DSOs I observe will be in one of his books.

Great report - I look forward to hearing about your future sessions with this scope.

You are right about that, I'm not sure which is more epic - the scope or the location!

For a light grab and go setup mine is a 72mm refractor on a skinny tripod. At home the whole set up it can be lifted outside with one hand, going anywhere else it's a small tripod bag and a small scope bag to carry the lot. Here's a solar observing permutation of it...

Great report, updates like these make want to get out there and do more observing.

Once lenses need cleaning there's various options but my advice for keeping your bins clean is don't don't allow any particles to settle on them for long. I always blow the lenses (with a manual hand blower) front and rear every time I take the caps off and before I put the caps back on, as particles will blow off most easily when they haven't been on for long. The longer they are there the harder they stick and the worst thing is allowing a lense to dew up as that cements any bits of crud onto the surfaces even harder.

I use binoviewers with a Quark to observe in Ha, its a much better viewing experience with binoviewers but slightly more hassle to use the binoviewers, so if time is short I'll go cyclops.

I don't know the answer to this but am interested in the discussion. I'll have a look at this the next time I'm out and see if I notice the same thing. I guess one thing to do to that might eliminate the eyepieces themselves as suspects would be to rotate the eyepiece 90 degrees and repeat the test, then if the result is the same then it would suggest the eyepiece is not the issue.

Yes I use it with both, I'll use the 72mm if the seeing is not so good to keep the magnification down. I think I get comparable views to the observing write ups and descriptions I read from others and I'm happy with it but it's the only Ha set up I've looked through myself so I can't compare it to anything else directly.

I think a 4" would be a good idea. I've had a ed102r for a few years and use it for all kinds of targets including solar with a quark chromosphere, it's a great eneral purpose scope. My main scopes are a 72mm f6 refractor for travel, 102mm f7 for grab and go, and 14" reflector for epic sessions. These 3 work well as they don't compete each each other.

Great post, I really enjoy doing outreach, although the opportunity doesn't arise much. I can remember well the times I have shown others the sights, and I think its an experience kids (and grown ups) will remember.