Bill S

Alan - an interesting set of reports. Thanks for sharing them with us.

I had a look at this last night and managed to get a snap. Here's a before (when it looked like it could be promising later in the year - in May) followed by an after (the snapshot last night). an last night: The Wikipedia page has quite a lot of background information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C/2019_Y4_(ATLAS) and some recent discussion on the BAA forum: https://britastro.org/node/21397 It's definitely not looking promising! Best regards

Some very satisfying snaps you've got there. I like the civilized observing from inside. Bill

Good ones, Mike. Really clear look at NGC 2276. I find it quite a hypnotic object to gaze at in your image. The more you look the more you see. You did very well to find and snap SHK 175. I will have to have a go at some of the ones you've told us about recently. They'll be a bit of a challenge. I've been looking at various objects over the last few days. (Lots and lots ) These have also included some objects in Ursa Minor. One object I looked at was NGC 3172 because I came across it Harrington's Cosmic Challenge book. It's in there as Challenge 135 mainly becasue it's the closest NGC object to Polaris. He says that John Herschel named it Polarissima. I've also seen it called Polarissima Borealis. It's classified as S?. Not a very photogenic object. Bill

Mike, that's an impressive haul of interesting objects you've looked at there.

OK. I decided to post my snapshot of NGC 3044. I've oriented it the same as Martin's negative image and it's about the same field of view. I keep having a look and a tinker with the stretch etc. in Jocular and using a bit of averted wishful thinking I sometimes think I just might maybe see q3, but then again no. I reckon the total stacking time probably disqualifies it from EEVA. More like not really near real time viewing. Here's my snap of NGC 3115. Using Martin's shot above as a guide it's possible to pick out the very faint fuzzy of the dwarf galaxy. Anyway, thanks for looking.

Had quite a good session last night and started off with these two to see what I could see. Managed to make out the dwarf galaxy neighbouring NGC 3115 and the features that you (Martin) have drawn attention to in your snapshot of NGC 3044. I'm sure that the missing q3 is not to be found on my observation. I also had a look at integral and percentage signs (new to me) and snapped them but nothing obvious to add to your (Martin and Mike's) reports. I had a look at or look for fifteen objects in total. I'll have a trawl through to see if there is anything worth sharing. I had to call it a day when the transparency of the apparently clear sky got so poor I was not seeing much. (I was also getting rather cold.)

Alan - that's an impressive haul of observations. With clear nights being so rare it's so useful to have techniques such as night vision to make the most of the opportunities. Let's keep our fingers crossed for some more clear nights soon.

Excellent. Outstanding detail for EEVA.

Excellent shots. Very interesting structure to NGC 2535 (Arp 82). There's a lot going on in that galaxy. UGC 4856 really is very thin/flat from the angle we see it. There's some more background on the Webb Deep Sky Society's site. Hickson 37 was the Galaxy of the Month for February 2013. https://www.webbdeepsky.com/galaxies/archive/galaxy/2013/Feb You certainly need to push things to see that SHK. I'm sure I'd struggle.

Taking advantage of a few hours of clear sky last night before the clouds rolled in I had a look at a couple of comets. The best snapshot was C/2017 T2 PanSTARRS. It is holding up quite well but I don't think it's going to get a lot brighter. I have seen an estimate of +7 in May. It's about +9 at the moment. I did manage to observe C/2019 Y4 Atlas but I did not have a clear view of it. The edge of my observatory was slightly occluding the scope. Its magnitude is around +8.5. I also had a look for C/2020 A2 Iwamoto and could not see anything. However since this is reported as around mag +13.5 in February and fading I was being a bit optimistic. Clear skies!

Had a bit of look at these and some other SHK groups in Hydra (151, 152, 344 and 348). I could only make out what the groups were in the two you've posted - SHK 280 and 346. I wasn't helped by the cloud coming in. Just for completeness here they are: I have not looked at much in Hydra, although I notice I did have look at Hickson 39 and 40 last year. It's a bit low down for me.

I thought I would have a look and see if I could see these two thin galaxies using my 200 mm Newtonian based set up. As you said, Mike, some interesting patterns of stars. That V shape you drew attention to pointing towards UGC 3489 (inverted in my snapshot) draws my eye now I know it's there. I had a few duff subs in while doing these observations so Jocular's facility for excluding them from the live stacks was useful. Also used the 90% stack to try and get reasonable results.

Excellent observations Mike and Martin. I'll have to give these and some other Shakhbazian groups a bit of attention when I get the chance. There's just so much out there!

Yep! I too decided to look at the Bear's Paw and some thin and ring galaxies. Here's my effort on Arp 6. I didn't look at IC2233 but I did look at IC610, and three other thin galaxies. I'm still following up the background information to these and may post them later. Also took the opportunity to look at two comets (C/2019 Y4 ATLAS and C/2018 N2 ASSASN). Neither were very spectacular but again I may post snapshots later. Best regards

An amazingly productive session. With the slim pickings you mention, it's great to have a technique to make the most of rare opportunities. Excellent that you have developed a method that works with such a bright moon. Bill

I had a look at this last night too. I can see the frogspawn. It also looks a bit like a spotty bow tie. Over five minutes of subs because I was looking things up while it was coming in.

Yes, the hyperstretch (my favourite) does bring out the tail. Reading up about this comet it does not look like it is going to get a lot brighter. It's still on its way to perihelion (May) and has passed its closest to the earth. It's about time we had a good naked eye comet. Still, The wonders of EEVA do help keep the interest up. Mike - do you need to go down the Jocular route? I certainly like it a lot. If you have any questions let me know. Obviously Martin is the best for most things but I am using on Windows. Best regards

Hello Mike - This is very useful. It draws attention to the amazing number of interesting objects in Orion. I'm sure you really want to do a few more constellations...

Here's my observation of Arp 165. I looked back through my previous observations (courtesy of Jocular's earlier observations feature) and this is the only one I have. The stacked image does show something sticking out. (The stars.) I cannot see any filaments as such. Needless to say I was unaware of this until you (Mike and Martin) referred to it. I May well be worth another look sometime. Best regards

Actually clear last night for a change. Had a ramble around some Arps in Leo (5, 87, 301 and 320) and Gemini (Arp 165). Also had a look at Comet C/2017 T2 Panstarrs, which is holding up well and visible all night. It's in Cassiopeia and around magnitude 9. Another transient object holding up well is supernova SN2020ue in NGC 4636. It's in Virgo and is magnitude 11.8. Discovered 12 January it is a Type 1a (the ones involving material accreting on to a white dwarf from its binary companion until the white dwarf gets so massive it collapses to give the supernova). Because it's this type, which has a standard brightness is useful as a 'standard candle' distance measure. Let's hope for some more clear skies! Best regards

I’m having a problem with using a Starlight Xpress filter wheel with Starlight Live. I recently bought a new laptop and have installed Starlight Live on it. It works fine with my Lodestar X2 for mono imaging but when I connect the filter wheel it does not detect it. (Or more correctly it has only detected it once.) The filter wheel is detected OK on my older laptop. Also on the new laptop I can see and control the filter wheel with APT instead of Starlight Live (using the filter wheel’s ASCOM driver.) My new laptop only has USB 3.1 ports. The old one only has USB 2.0. So, I’m wondering if this could be part of the problem. If I connect a USB C to USB 2.0 adaptor and then connect the wheel this does not improve matters. The filter wheel makes all the right noises and goes for a circuit when I connect it to the laptop. When I look in Device Manager the wheel can be seen as USB input device under Human Interface Devices. I've tried with both SLL v3.3 and v3.4. Any ideas? Best regards Bill

Martin That's strikingly beautiful. Very well described by Magda Streicher in the article that is your reference [4]. Not impossible for me so perhaps one night.

Looking at background information about your targets I see that Stephen J O'Meara gave NGC 2301 the nickname 'Hagrid's Dragon'. Does a dragon class as a great bird? http://www.astronomy.com/observing/observing-podcasts/2014/02/m48-hagrids-dragon-and-ngc-2832 Best regards

Excellent colours, Martin. Real beauties.