Les Ewan

18 hours ago, Roy Challen said:

And let's not forget, a small scope is usually a portable one, so it'll likely get used more.

Quite right you can see more with a 3" scope that is easy to use and used often than a 16"scope that's big and bulky and spends most of the time gathering dust!😆

Nice to here such support for smaller scopes.Although I now own a large Dob I don't think I can be precluded from this discussion because for nearly half of my astronomical life I've only used small telescopes.Most of my most vivid memories were with a 60mm refractor.

Everyone should start with a small scope,serve their apprenticeship if you like.As long as the optics and mount are of good quality of course and that the user is fully aware of the telescopes limitations.

Recently I tried to discourage someone who didn't have a permanent site from purchasing a Skywatcher 16" Flextube Dobsonian despite what the catalogues say this instrument is NOT portable,and if someone struggles to lug it about for long enough disaster is bond to ensue.

I suggested the 10" version instead.I don't know if he took my advice,but I think I was right.

The trouble is as scopes get larger,bulkier and more awkward you are dealing with diminishing returns. The difference between the 10" and the 16" is only about 0.8 magnitude and 0.2 arc seconds resolution and the difference of 800X and 500X.

Not only that sub arc second resolution is very much a rarity and because of seeing conditions 300X-350X is a rarity also so if a scope is capable of comfortably giving 300X that's the main thing.

Obviously this doesn't include observers using starter scopes which although much better now than in the past should be practicing on lower powers anyway.

Yes its sometimes nice to just take a few moments to admire the colours and count how many you can see.I like the occasional green flashes.😎

19 minutes ago, jibinjmannoor said:

Yes, I just shot this with my camera ...and it was handheld that is why lot of shake....it was nice to watch changing the colors..

Sirius is actually pure white and appears so when high in the sky in tropical regions.

Its a out of focus star (probably Sirius)and atmospheric turbulence.

Gassendi was prominent rising into the sunlight yesterday evening. A thin layer of cloud but the seeing was fairly steady. Taken through a Skywatcher 400P and Canon 1100D,200 ISO exposure 1/125sec.

3 minutes ago, Philip R said:

I made an error in this reply, so here is the corrected version.

The 'Skyhawk 114 Newtonian' does not mention a built-in Barlow lens... https://www.firstlightoptics.com/reflectors/sky-watcher-skyhawk-1145ps-az-pronto.html - those that do are the classic 'Bird-Jones' design and are the ones that best avoided.

Apologies in advance for the confusion.

My only concern is the quote from @FLO: "NOTE: The 1145PS telescope has a non-collimateable primary mirror which is collimated during manufacturing. Some adjustment can be made to collimation with the secondary mirror but we have found, as long as the scope arrives to you in collimation then it holds collimation very well over time."

Hi Phillip,

Oooops! I didn't know that this OTA was non collimateable😩. That kinda sends alarm bell to me also. There must be people out there with these scopes any complaints I wonder.

Yes the set up I meant was  the 500mm fl. Incidentally with this scope being such a short focal length it would be greatly enhanced with a X2 barlow  for the Moon and planets and perhaps a plossl around the 15mm mark. Its a pity a X2 barlow isn't supplied with all low power instruments like this one.

The scope set up I would suggest is the Skyhawk 114 Newt on the Pronto mount. The main reason for saying this is that when I first saw it I said to myself I wish I had that when I started out.  Not only does it look simple and easy to use it looks great. It is a altaz but it has slow motion hand controls. I know many will disagree with this but I would not recommend a refractor especially for a beginner as they are unwieldy and awkward to use . Small dobs  have the problem of  being a bit too low to the ground.

Regular telescopic observations  are more encouraged by a comfortable observer and a Newt with its higher viewing profile offers that especially on a decent sized mount.

The 114 Pronto is offered by FLO for £180 roughly just over 200 Euro so any money left over can be used for 10X50 bins and a star atlas.

18 hours ago, F15Rules said:

Yes, Les, I'm old enough! (65 2 days ago😱).

I learned quite a lot of star names from almost memorising Patrick Moore's "Observers Book of Astronomy", a little pocket gem of a book back in the 1960's👍.

I actually picked one up on eBay a few years ago for about £2!

Dave 

Another star that seems to have changed its name over years is Alkaid I knew it as Benetnasch in the 70's. Regarding the Observers books I have two editions the 4th issued in 1973 which I inscribed 20th April 1974. I have also have the 6th edition which I didn't inscribe which is the 1978 revision. The 6th has particularly beautiful plates-drawings of Jupiter and Saturn by LF Ball. Another original book I have is Dr HC King's Book Of Astronomy(1966) which I've had since 1972 (which is now more than a little bit dog eared). As far as I know no further editions of this book were printed .

The sky cleared for a couple of hours between 1am and 3am,and the seeing was quite good.With my 400mm Newt the Whirlpool galaxy's spiral structure was easily discernible  using a 20mm Kellner giving a power of 90X.Other galaxies stood out well too but as the clouds approached I ramped up to a 144X with a 12.5mm Orthoscopic  and took in couple of binaries, first Porrima (anyone else old enough to remember when it was called Arich😆1?),and then Izar(which also used to be called something else) Both binaries were well seen Izar the slightly clearer of the two.

The temperature was around 4C with a light breeze,this is not that warm but after a few sessions since Christmas in sub zero conditions it felt positively balmy.😎

Cant pretend to know what you done technically I'm chiefly a visual observer, but never ceases to amaze me how often things go wrong in this hobby hardly a session goes by without some sort of irritating mishap.

The closest thing to your experience that happened to me is during the Leonid fireballs in 1999(film camera) I discovered later in the darkroom all my shots were hopelessly out of focus.😩

Still a lot better than the astronomical world I started out in the early 70's. My first full time job in early 1975 was £15 ppw at that time a Dixons special 60mm refractor was close on £30,there really nothing much else at the time without going to specialist dealers mail order costing a  fortune . A short time prior the miners were thought to be unreasonable wanting a £40 pw pay deal.

When I bought my first 'big',scope in 1978 a very basic 6" altaz Newtonian  it cost £200 but my wage at the time was only about £50 so I got a bank loan.It had to be made so I had to wait weeks for delivery.

I don't want  to sound like a old codger but young newcomers today don't know their living with all the technology bells and whistles, large apertures and next day deliveries.

Wasn't out Wednesday/Thursday mainly due to my observatory roof being welded shut by ice. I suppose if I really tried I could of released it but what with the snow showers and a temperature of -11C I decided to give it a miss. I managed to brush the snow off the roof and release it in the afternoon while the sun was out.

Conditions this morning were a bit weird ,things were normal in the late evening but later most of the sky had a background milky glow which made the fainter DSO's difficult.Even my southern aspect which looked fairly dark there was no inkiness with the fainter galaxies invisible.

My theory for the reason is fronts in the west have extended a haze across the sky and it has been made more visible by the albedo of the snow cover.I also think the jet stream may have started to return as seeing for binaries has also deteriorated.

To make matters worse a breeze with gusts up to 18mph has sprung up which is unpleasant in itself also started blowing snow into the observatory.😡

Street lighting is not the main problem for me as street lighting technology has reduced pollution markedly over the last few years even though my local village 4kms away has almost doubled in size since 2000 .No it's tall pole floodlighting from the car parks of recently built  shopping centres, conference complexes and sports fields that   have increased without any apparent restriction . Even a new school car park 8km away has several of these beacons visible from my site all night. I consider myself lucky however as my southern,eastern and most of the west has no pollution and I can see the Milky Way.I also have established hedging and bushes that helps screen a lot of light. I do feel for observers in Fife having Edinburgh and its conurbations ruining their Southern aspect.

48 minutes ago, John said:

I got it setup last Summer and had a couple of sessions with it. It's wobbly on the alt-az mount and the .965 eyepieces seemed minute but the optics are really quite good

 

Looks a lot like my old 60mm but the Prinz had a wooden tripod. If I remember right it had a 710mm fl. The yoke and slow motions are very familiar .Mine had 3  0.96" Huygen eyepieces and a useless barlow. I agree for all its faults it gave reasonable views. I remember fondly  seeing the Ring Nebula with this scope despite living only about 1km of the centre of Edinburgh at the time. Along with doubles it gave memorable views of Venus,Jupiter and Saturn. I remember vividly observing the Moon occulting Saturn through it on March 2nd 1974.😎

2 minutes ago, John said:

My first one (with an old Tasco 60mm refractor) was Algieba (Gamma Leonis). I was really amazed when I saw those two golden yellow disks almost touching at 60x or so. One of those "blink in disbelief" moments 

I do still enjoy looking at that one and occasionally dust down the old Tasco to re-live my first sighting.

 

Glad you still have your old 60mm. My Prinz is long gone. I saw one on Ebay with the complete kit still boxed a couple of years ago I was very tempted but I really didn't have the space.

45 minutes ago, Ande said:

Mizar doesn’t seem to get a lot of love, but it is one of my favourite sights to seek out. I cannot let the Big Dipper rise without a cheeky peep

Your actually right at least in my case.Mizar was the first telescopic double I resolved with my first proper telescope,which was a Prinz 60mm refractor( the type that were all the rage in the early 70's) the same evening I first saw Cor Caroli. Funny how early observations stick in the mind more than the more recent 'first see's with much better equipment. For example I cant ever remember my first view of say Epsilon 1 and 2 Lyrae, or Ras Algethi or even Albireo. It's strange then that I very seldom even glance either Mizar or Cor Caroli  these days,but I will rectify that next time I'm out.

Thanks for the likes and comments,😃.

Technically lights can stay up until Candlemass in early February but when I did bother I normally took  them down around January 3rd. Don't actually see the point of them after 12th night as if they are kept up too long you'd get used to them and lose the magic the following  Christmas.

Having said that I'm not into Christmas these days and have not had a tree up for several years and private household outdoor displays have always really annoyed me.😡

Welcome,

You'll find no matter how long you've been in this game there's always something new to learn and something new to spend your money on!

I've been using telescopes for nearly 50 years and I think I'm fairly adapt at it but even I get frustrated at times. Cold, damp and dark conditions is a perfect recipe for awkwardness and mishaps , if something can possibly go wrong it probably will. I often use   ungentlmanly language under my breath (and sometimes out loud in the wee small hours). The biggest frustration (apart from cold hands dropping eyepieces) is dew.  Get a hair dryer for finders and eyepieces on bad nights they can dew up within minutes and sometimes it can reach the telescope optics. Beware a hair dryer can be as loud as a jet taking off in the middle of the night,(and use a contact breaker even though I don't).

I've spent many hours over the years to  spot the Pup with 8" and 12" Newts. Over the last couple of years I've tried even with a 16" and failed. Conditions were close to ideal last night for binaries  and spent twenty minutes trying last night still failed. Tried different filters even stacked filters still nothing. I'm starting to give up hope of ever seeing it with the conditions at 56degrees north despite and equipment I've got. 😡

In the early hours this morning I couldn't resist the view of Orion descending in the west appearing to be walking on the farm track that passes my house.

After being out under the open sky for five hours with temperatures down to -5C the dob was about ready.😁

I was out from 10pm until 5am.The Moon was the main  target in the late evening then in the early hours I had a few great views of double triple stars using my 16" Dob. Usually clear frosty nights are too unstable for the closer binaries but last night there was sub arc second seeing with the main star of Tegmine Zeta 1 easily resolvable using a 9mm Orthoscopic  and 2X barlow giving a power of 400X. I think the reason for the good seeing is the thick blanket of snow cover preventing the usually ruinous thermals from radiating,something I've noticed before in such conditions..After the Moon went down the sky darkened enough to catch The Ghost Of Jupiter and few Spring galaxies.😎