Nyctimene

I'm quite pleased with the ES 26 mmf/62° LER together with the 5.1" Heritage Flextube (giving a TFoV of 2.5°). Very clear, neutral coloured and sharp view, flat field, and a really relaxed, natural viewing, no "kidney beaning", or searching the correct eye position. No Edge-of-field brightening.The sharpness deteriorates from about 80% of the field diameter, somehow like an old fashioned Erfle, but that's not annoying, at least for me. Rather lightweight and cheaper, compared to it's rival, the highly praised ES 24mmf/68°. Lots of eye relief - no problem to use it with glasses.

There was a discussion on CloudyNights Sept. 2017 in the Eyepiece section

Stephan

Hello, Alex_o0,

I cannot open the links, but I guess, johninderby above will be right. Scope with two single struts to extend, 3-vane plastic spider, helical focuser, single-arm Dobsonian mount.

Someone in this forum posted a positive review; cannot find it atm (I'm in a hurry).

Stephan

Wobbly mount - spherical primary mirror - I'd avoid such a scope at any rate. A Dobsonian telescope will give you a sturdy mount, and, with a parabolic primary, crisp images. I'd suggest the Skywatcher Heritage 150 P Flextube, or an 8". Handling is intuitively, as will be tracking after a short time.

Only my 8" is tracked (EQ platform), all the other scopes are tracked manually, and I'm observing with the 18 " with magnifications from 150 up up to 400+ (Luna) quite regularly and enjoy it.

Stephan

Hallo, und willkommen, Jeff, here in Southern Germany!

Location:The Sudelfeld in the Prealpes region, near Bayrischzell, about one hour by car, is one of the very popular sites; about 1100 m asl (the lower Sudelfeld). (I've never observed there).

Another location: the Taubenberg near Holzkirchen; 900 m asl.

I'd suggest that you contact the people of the Volkssternwarte München; they will give you a lot of advice.

Enjoy the journey!

Stephan (45km NE of Heidelberg)

Blessed with Bortle 3 skies, and a south-east view, you will have not to shy away from observing through your window.

German amateur (semi - professional) Klaus Wenzel, in Wenigumstadt (near Frankfurt) is observing with his 12" Dobsonian very successfully DSO's, Quasars and variable stars, through his roof-window, have a look:

Stephan

The Meteoblue forecast had promised good seeing conditions, and the terminator was close to the Messier double impact crater this morning, so I tried once again to spot the elusive rille Rima Messier, that I've observed only twice up to now. The 18" Obsession was at ambient temperature at 02.30 CEST; the seeing was variable, mostly Antoniadi 2 - 3, and, with a 10 mm Ortho, giving 205x mag, I could make out the Messier craters, the double "tail", and the small craters Secchi A and X, quite distinct. The rille itself, 100 km long, starts from Messier A and extends NW between the Secchis, touching a smaller, unnamed craterlet S of them (all three shown in the picture below). For 10 mins, the rille remained invisible; with improving seeing conditions, I was able to make out repeatedly for 2 or 3 seconds it's fine, sharp, rather straight line to almost it's full extent. Switching to a 6 mmf Ortho gave only a little improvement. The Rimae Secchi, N of it and at right angles, were, in contrast, visible more easily and appearing as rather "broad" lines. Just for fun, I switched to the trusted Seben 8-24 mmf zoom eyepiece, and was very surprised, as it delivered an almost equal view - very sharp, clear, without reflections. I compared it at the 10 mmf setting to the top notch 10 mmf Zeiss ortho, and found very little difference between them; just a little loss of brightness, and the sharp views of the Rima Messiers appeared to be a tad shorter in duration. Very astonishing for a 60€ eyepiece, that's not laid out for a f/4.5 aperture ratio. - The gibbous Mars showed it's already smaller ice cap, and a few darker shades; my usual disappointment with my nemesis. But very pleased having spotted the Rima for the third time, and so to bed at 03.45.

Attached a picture (from the net):

Thanks for reading

Stephan

1 hour ago, Stardaze said:

I'll try around the Gulf of Mexico bit

The asterism Leiter 9, "Little Orion", is a good pointer to the Gulf region, and easy to spot in small scopes and medium-sized binos; have a look:

Stephan

Hello, and welcome, ashish83, to this friendly forum!

You have chosen a very capable and versatile telescope - I'm very pleased with mine; it's for good reasons my most used grab-and-go scope. The optics are excellent and will show you a lot of detail on planets and the moon, already with the stock eyepieces. A decent barlow will be useful to get higher magnifications; I'm using this one (small, lightweight and sharp):

https://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/product_info.php/info/p5503_Baader-1-25--Q-Turret-Barlow-and-photo-converter---2-25x-und-1-3x.html

You'll find a lot of information here (a huge thread!); the AWB One Sky Newtonian is just the US brand of the 130 P Flextube:

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/463109-onesky-newtonian-astronomers-without-borders/

Take yourself time, enjoy each step of learning; start an astro diary, and have fun!

Stephan

Have a look here:

https://r-sky.org/en/products/observing-hood

Very pleased with it, no strain, no need to swap the eyepatch location.

Sometimes slight fogging on the eyepiece.

Stephan

Spotted the comet for the first time this morning from 03.45 to 04.15 CEST. With the 1979 vintage 14x100 Wachter Gigant binoculars a quite impressive sight! Brightness about 2.5 mag (compared to Theta Auriga); a tiny head/ inner coma, yellow-golden coloured. The narrow parabola of the tail was visible in the dawn twilight for 1.5 to 2°, the edges slightly brighter. The bright head was visible with the binos even through a thin cloud layer, but not by naked eye. Readily visible with the 7X50 Fuji, and even the 1965 vintage 8x30 Hertel+Reuss. Finally a "typical" comet after years; IMO the best since Hale-Bopp.

Stephan

1 minute ago, DeathWarpedUp said:

With phone apps these days, star hopping isnt as daunting as it used to be.

My thoughts just this moment - using a Red Dot Finder, a RACI finderscope and  a wide field eyepiece of 1° up to 2° true  field of view (my 8" f/4 with a 24mmf/82° shows even 2.5°) is much more intuitive and hassle-free (and for faint DSO's, found with a GoTo, you'll need a detailed map anyway).

Stephan

Hello and welcome from a German stargazer.

According to this, Romford lies in a yellow-orange zone:

https://www.lightpollutionmap.info/#zoom=9.446882553798206&lat=6738650&lon=32670&layers=B0TFFFFFFFFFFFFFF,

so, if you are interested in Deep Sky objects, transportability of the scope will be an issue.

Some nice dark areas 30 kms NW.

Enjoy the journey!

Stephan

Was out last evening with the 18" "grab-and-go" Obsession for checking some minor technical improvements with a look at Luna. The seeing was rather bad, allowing only magnifications of 128x.To my surprise and completely unexpected, I spotted close to the terminator the crater ray phenomenon "Hesiodus ray" at an advanced stage. A gap in the western crater wall of adjacent Pitatus was casting a light cone on the still mostly dark floor of Hesiodus, broadening to the west, with a light point at it's tip, resembling an exclamation mark. I've seen this light phenomenon only once many years ago (it's lasting only a few hours), and was very pleased to get the view again. I was even able to capture it with the smartphone - my first astro picture since decades! You can spot it quite well - look at the crater Pitatus, located north (above) Mare Nubium (with the Straight Wall); adjacent to it's western (right) crater wall the light cone on Hesiodus' floor can be seen.

Has anyone else observed the Hesiodus ray yesterday?

Attached a useful tool for such phenomena:

http://www.lunar-occultations.com/rlo/rays/rays.htm

Thanks for reading

Stephan

No artefact - its the Straight Wall (Rupes Recta) under a low sun. One of the prominent lunar structures (No. 15 of the Lunar 100); you will revisit it quite often...

Stephan

I'd vote for one of the Skywatcher Heritage P Flextube scopes - the 130 P, or it's younger and slightly larger brother, the150 P. The 130 P is lightweight (6.5 kgs, the tube 3.1), compact, and easy to handle, almost intuitively. Your 10 year old daughter can manage it completely on her own - very important. The optics are excellent, and hold collimation well. It's easily transportable to dark sky areas or during holidays. For good reasons, it's my most used grab-and-go scope. I've added a ES 26mmf/62° LER eyepiece for widefield, a 8-24 zoom (Seben; or Celestron), and a shorty Baader 2.25x Turret Barlow to cover a range of magnifications from 25x to 183x. That's all you need (-ok, the Pocket Sky Atlas ,and the apps SkySafari 6 Plus, along with LunarMap HD). Years of observing pleasure guaranteed - for both daughter and father!

Many pleased owners on here; and, for good reasons, the CloudyNights thread on this scope is humongous (the AWB  Ons Sky Newtonian scope is the US brand; same specifications):

OneSky Newtonian - Astronomers without borders - Beginners Forum - Cloudy Nights

Stephan

Here, in SW Germany, latitude 49°36', the sun descends in the midsummer nights down to 16.1° below the N horizon, so the conditions are almost the same as during astronomical darkness. During the last years, I've learned to make use of these beautiful and warm nights even for DSO observing, for about an hour to 90 mins. This morning, I put out the 8"f/4 Hofheim Instruments traveldob and started, under 5.5 mag/SQM-L 20.84 skies and excellent seeing, with the 24 mmf/82° Maxvision to chase two asterisms new to me, that Sue French mentions in "Deep-Sky Wonders" (pg.166-168). The first one, 6° W of Rasalhaguae, named "Sudor Ophiuchi" ("Sweat of Ophiuchus", who wrestles with a giant snake) presented as a 2.5° extended integral-sign "S", starting at 60 Her and extending SE-NW, with a "box" at it's NW end, somewhat similar to Ursa minor. An orange star in the middle of the chain, and the nice double Struve I 33 close by were distinct. Over to Harrington 7; a 1.5° zigzag chain of 8.5-9.5 mag stars, nicely framed by the 2.5° TFoV. WSW in the same field, the first planetary, IC 4593 (10.8 mag), the "White-eyed Pea" could be made out with 80x mag as a slightly diffuse star. With a 6 mmf Ortho, giving 133x and an O III, the faint halo and the central star were visible quite well. Brighter (8.8 mag) was the planetary NGC 6210 "Turtle Nebula", at 133x a very obvious green-blue round disc, the central star not visible. Doubling the mag to 266x and using the O III didn't add more to the view. The sky was now slowly brightening, so I finished with a short look at Jupiter (4 moons; equatorial and tropical bands) and Saturn (the Cassini readily visible at the ansae). After 11/2 hours, I ended the midsummer session at 02.45. No glow-worms up to now - I hope to have their company during the next promising nights.

Thanks for reading

Stephan

On 21/06/2020 at 14:30, Dannomiss said:

red dot finder doesn't align.

If it's a problem with the RDF's altitude adjustment, this might help:

stargazerslounge.com/topic/318162-skymax-127-or-heritage-130p-or/?tab=comments#comment-3482644

Stephan

+1 for the combo Gary suggested above - a non magnifying pointing device as the Telrad, the Rigel Quikfinder or a basic Red Dot Finder (RDF), and an optical finderscope. The RACI version, which I prefer, allows finding your target without neck distortions at higher altitudes of the objects (and without brain distortions around 02.30 AM). A reticle is fine, but, IME, has not necessarily to be illuminated. Given the usual amount of light pollution, and the low magnification, the crosshairs stand out quite well against the finderscope's rather bright field of view. Moreover, some of the illuminated reticles are too bright, even at the lowest setting, and somewhat disturbing  night vision. Even my "luxury" Baader 10x60 isn't better,so it's illumination is  mostly switched off.

Stephan

The "Interstellarum Deep Sky Guide" presents an overview map of M 31 globulars ( labeled "G"), star associations ("A") and clusters (C"); have a look:

Stephan

I've found Hesiodus A quite useful to determine the visibility limitations due to seeing quality. There are nights, when I can make out it's  concentricity clearly with the 5.1" Heritage Flextube, and other ones, when it remains almost invisible even with the 18". Detecting the concentricity means for me, that a rewarding session can be expected.

I prefer the app LunarMap HD over the SkySafari Pro moon display for several reasons. Set to the hi-res LRO mode, LunarMap HD shows more details and has sharper images. More important, the light-shadow line, the terminator, is clearly shown as a white line, whereas in SkySafari the terminator is invisible (or I have not yet found out where the function can be activated-?), and the whole region is shown in a dull-soft view - in reality, the terminator is the most contrasty region of the moon's image. The LunarMap HD features are easily accessible and can be used intuitively (-nice at 02.30); and there is no movement, as it is shown (due to the earth's rotation) in SkySafari.

If you want to go really deep, have a look at this - a fascinating tool, that displays even the debris on the floor of the Messier double crater:

https://quickmap.lroc.asu.edu/?extent=37.7911356,-5.5239976,59.7415111,1.6467554&proj=10&layers=NrBsFYBoAZIRnpEoAsjYIHYFcA2vIBvAXwF1SizSg

Stephan

Spotted the same phenomenon yesterday evening with the 18", mag 128x (seeing rather poor) for the first time, IIRC, and was reminded of it's description in an ancient, but still very recommendable book by G.P Serviss, "Astronomy with an Opera-glass"; a vivid observing report by Neison is quoted:

https://archive.org/details/astronomywithope00servuoft/page/132/mode/2

Stephan

Absolutely.  I can get down to mag 12. objects with it, so several thousands of targets are within your reach. Very good for widefield views (add an Astronomik UHC filter for the Cirrus nebula in Cygnus etc.).

Stephan

If weight/bulk/storage are issues, I'd stick to a 130/650 dobsonian scope. It would moreover serve as a travel scope to escape the light-polluted areas of Belgium. As a seasoned observer and owner of several scopes from 3" to 18", I am very pleased with the Skywatcher Heritage 130 P Flextube. Very versatile, compact, excellent optics, that allow magnifications from 25x up to 180x. Holds collimation well, cools down rapidly. Together with a shorty Barlow, as the Baader 2.25x Turret barlow, it would be well within your budget. I'd avoid the AZI Goto bundle mentioned above, as the primary mirror is not collimatable (and, IMHO, it's better to "learn the ropes" traditionally, without GoTo).

I've added a ES 26mmf/62° LER eyepiece for wide field views ( giving 2.5° True Field of View), the Barlow mentioned above, and a 8-24 Zoom (Seben, Celestron), and it's one of my most used scopes, for good reasons.

Have a read on this (the One Sky Newtonian of the AWB is the same scope, just the US brand):

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/463109-onesky-newtonian-astronomers-without-borders/

Stephan

Was out yesterday morning with the freshly fine-tuned  (barlowed laser method) 18" f/4.5 Obsession in Canes Venatici. Sue French's book "Deep-Sky Wonders" had pointed me to Hickson 68 (pg.148), and described another interesting object close by, the edge-on galaxy NGC 5023 (12.2 mag, 6,2x0.8 arc min) as visible in her 4". It's not listed in the Night Sky Observers Guide, and not plotted in the Interstellarum Deep Sky Atlas/Guide, so I was curious and paid M 51 and it's spiral galore only a short visit. With the 24mmf/82° ES, better with a 16 mmf Ortho, the galaxy displayed, faintly visible directly, more extended with AV, an extremely, N-S orientated streak,without a central bulge or dust lane. Steve Gottlieb, DSO doyen, mentions the galaxy as one of the flattest in the NGC. To spot it with 4" needs real owl eyes. Over, under 5.6 mag/21.2 SQM-L skies, but excellent seeing, to Hickson 68, a lovely and bright group of 5 members (observed by several members of this forum). The brightest, 5353 (10.9) was seen in the 10 mmf Ortho (205x mag) as a 3:1 oval,N-S, close by N it's companion 5354 was contrasting round(er), with a bright core region. 5350 (11.4) appeared fainter, slightly elongated. 5355 (14.0), NE,small, round, could be made out well with direct vision, 5358 (14.8), close to a pair of stars was even smaller, but still visible directly, elongated. All members were visible in the same field of view; a splendid sight together with a yellow-white 6.5 star to the west.  5371 showed diffuse, without structure.

Next was the nice pair Arp 84 ("The Heron", from it's photographic shape). 5395,(11.5; 3:1) was easy; the interacting 5394 (12.9) NW of it fainter; the tidal arms between them could not be made out - beginning dawn at 02.35 CEST. Rewarding targets; pleased with the scope's collimation and so to bed after two hours.

Thanks for reading

Edit: picture of 5023 added (GALEX; Wikimedia)

Hickson 68:

Stephan

Another vote for the Skywatcher Heritage 130 P Flextube. Very easy to handle, compact, excellent optics, decent mount.

Have a look here https://www.cloudynights.com/3109-onesky-newtonian-astronomers-without-borders/page-173#entry10198084

(the One Sky Newtonian is the same scope)

Stephan