Swoop1

Very nice

Pleased to be of assistance!

Very nice Gav. Unlike Mr niall, on seeing the thread title, my first thoughts were Valerie Singleton and Leslie Judd (I know, showing my age....) On my MacBook, I find that tilting the screen away from me darkens the screen, reducing the prominence of some of the stars but really bringing out the contrast and detail in the nebulosity.

What would that be then Dirk?

I have just returned from a 2 week holiday in Africa- Zimbabwe and South Africa. I took my binoculars with me as I know the skies in the part of SA I visit are dark. The first outing was at the hotel in Victoria Falls. I found an area outside where I could hide from the uplighters and pointed the bins at the sky. Straight onto a globular cluster! I cast about for a bit enjoying the view- open clusters, at least one other globular. Heaven. I tried for some DSLR images and will have to wait to see how the raw data looks when i have had the chance to upload it. In SA, I stayed at a Cheetah sanctuary- a farm in the middle of nowhere with little light pollution- Uitenhage/ Port Elizabeth in the distance over the hills. The Milky Way was gorgeous once my eyes had adapted. Lots of bino action with more clusters than a box of breakfast cereal and very pleasant to see Jupiter so high early in the evening. Once again, i will have to wait to see what the images look like once raw is uploaded. I think I need a travel scope........

Hi Austin and welcome to the Lounge. Have you gone round the mount and tripod once you have done a set up and checked all the adjustment knobs and locks are tight?

But she lets you wear the trousers?

I'm just thinking it is either the Chuck Norris of space probes or, for the cycling initiated, the Jens Voigt of the space exploration community. Like you charl, I can't wait to start seeing the product of this project.

This bit didn't make sense to me until I saw this bit A good lesson indeed

Cracking images. I'm glad you didn't delete! I find these images particularly pleasing as M13 is the first globular cluster I observed on my own kit as a result of my own work.

Galaxy wise, not a lot of luck. I have observed Andromeda and, I believe at least two of the Leo triplets. I have however had luck with the Orion Nebula (though not difficult really!) and the Great Globular Cluster in Hercules. What made it easier for the Globular Cluster was acquiring a 40mm eyepiece of good quality which made locating the object much easier. The next acquisition will be a Telrad or Rigel Quickfinder. I find the supplied finder scope on the 150P awkward to use at times, depending on where I have the scope pointing.

A lot of towns have places that can refurbish furniture. A piece of foam from one of them will do. Either 8" foam or 2 X 4" bits (or 4 X 2" bits etc. etc.)

I like them- I like them a lot! The capture of Io makes it look like someone left a little ball bearing laid on a photograph of Jupiter. Very nice.

Another shortish session tonight as the alarm will be going off at 07:15 tomorrow this morning. Scope set up at 22:30 and Jupiter in the cross hairs. As others have mentioned elsewhere, seeing tonight was not as stable as last night so the definition in the banding was not as clear. The moons were still quite sharp however. After last nights failure to locate M5, I thought I would try elsewhere this evening. I decided M13, the Great Globular Cluster in Hercules would be a worthy target. One thing I learned tonight- I am far better at reading Ordnance Survey maps than star charts! I spent 10 minutes or so breaking my neck trying to centre the finder on what I thought was The Keystone but, having referenced Starlight, I was way out..... Once I ceased being positionally challenged I decided to pop in the 40mm EP and start casting about. Before too long I spied a milky blob floating in the FOV so moved on the the 10mm EP and confirmed that I had located M13. A beautiful sight which, after upping the magnification utilising the X2 Barlow, I started to resolve individual stars as a dusting of light. The only blot on the session was the impact of light pollution from nearby street lighting. This find would have been almost exquisite had I been at my dark(ish) site. I stayed with M13 for 20 minutes or so before I decided that it was time to pack up. I have a diabetic cat to inject at just after 7:00 a.m. and, she draws blood if I'm not careful so, best I get to sleep to steady my hand.

Thats a better look than I have had.....