Les Ewan

A rare gap in the cloud at 01:30 showed brisk Geminid activity mainly in the Monoceros,Leo,Hydra area  of meteors between 1st and 3rd magnitude.As clouds invaded again I started a mini count between 02:00 and 02:15 in which I saw 8 Geminids three of which were of about zero magnitude the first was through Monoceros/Puppis,the second in the NE through Bootes and one in the bowl of Virgo.

It may be worth while checking for increased activity nearer dawn if clouds permit,unfortunately Atlantic fronts are on their way.😩

7 minutes ago, JeremyS said:

Unfortunately the Mars run was aborted as the seeing was terrible. Worst in ages. Good transparency for the CCD photometry, though 

Seeing for Mars was pretty awful here as well,started off OK in the early evening,but it clouded over and when it cleared a couple of hours later the disc was sheared by  horrible simmering horizontal streaks🤬.

Sigma Orionis never fails to impress no matter how many times I see it, saw it  for the first time of the season last night and was one the highlights of the night.😎

HI Richard,

I know Biggar well ,my brother lives just south of there. Has the hogmanay bonfire started to appear yet?! He stays near the Cornhouse Hotel where they think its a good idea to light up the trees at night.🤬 My brother and his wife are not bothered as they are not at all interested in astronomy ,but it really annoys me when I visit.

I have a flextube dob as well and also the optical finder and a telrad its a very handy combination(when the telrad isn't dewed up that is). We all know what a flextube dob looks like but it would be nice to see a image of it,good star watching and clear skies.

I remember back in the 70's seeing a hint of granulation with a 60mm refractor  using projection.

The usual rule of thumb is X2 the apature of the primery in millimetres this is also what is used by manufactures. This means your 250P's upper limit is 500X.As Spock says everything  depends on  seeing. I have the 400P which in theory goes up to 810X but Ive seldom gone over 300X with it,and this seems to be the upper limit of seeing the vast majority of the time. So the upshot of all of this is you get large telescope for resolution and light grasp not magnification and if a telescope provides a comforable image quality at 300X in good seing thats all thats required as far as magnification is concerned.

Its a pity you got the 6mm eyepiece because I would have recommended a good quaity 12mm Kellner which would be good for planets coupled with the 2X Barlow that would have the effect of 6mm as well,or if  a Kellner wasn't to your liking a 15mm plossl . If you have light pollution problems I would steer clear of the 32mm as it could brighten the background which will not help the visibility of  faint fuzzies.

My reasoning here is you could use the 25mm+ Barlow for DSO's and the 12.5mm Kellner or 15mm plossl + Barlow for planets.  I missed out the the 10mm as issued MA and Plossl eyepieces rightly or wrongly often get a bad press (I have a couple of such MA and Plossls and personally think their acceptable).

One point my Kellners are over 40 years old,I've seen new Kellners on sale on Ebay but I dont know how good the quality is on modern ones.

Back in  1972 I first saw Saturn's rings with a 40mm refractor using a power of 50X ,not very well even though the planet was riding high in Taurus at the time. Between 1974 and 1978 I had a 60mm refractor and got a lot better view of the rings,but It wasn't until I got a 150mm Newtonian did I first glimpse the Cassini Division.

Filters have long divided opinion,Im not too sure about them I tend to not use them as I cant usually detect any conclusive benifit ,plus I prefer the natural hues of the planets. I get your point about the brightness of Mars at the moment so an Neutral Density filter will help. I had some success recently in mediocre seeing with a ND filter and a 80A blue filter stacked which seemed to cut down glare and marginally improved the contrast of the surface markings and sharpen the ice cap.

I suppose others will have their own ideas but why not experiment with your own filter combination without over using them too much as in some conditions they may hamper rather than help things.

Seeing was not that good and 180X was about as far as I could go. Stu,there was no wind thankfully but it was crystal clear and frosty.Dan ,the scope is a driven Skywatcher 400P on a Dob mount.

Just spent the last few hours watching Syrtis Major swing round and disappear into the limb. The arm of Sinus Sabaeus  and its clenched fist Sinus Meridiani well in view as of 3am BST. I realise wishful thinking has been long notourious for anabling observerers to see things on Mars ,but I think I saw the fork of Meridiani for the first time using a 21mm Plossl and 2X Barlow(180X)  using my 16" Newtonian during the brief steady micro seconds!  I'm used to observing Mars with a 8" Newt in the past and always thought the vista of Syrtis Major,Mare Serpentis Sinus Sabaeus gave the appearance of a leaping cat but with the extra resolution of the 16" this illusion is largely lost in extra detail.😎

Started observing the planet with my Skywatcher 400p just after 23:00 BST on the 20th,seeing was not great but the polar cap was prominant and between the boiling Sinus Sabaeus,Margaritifer and Aurora Sinus all snapped into view. Lower down Niliacus Lacus looked roughly triangular in shape. At this stage I was restricted to a 12.5 Orthoscopic giving a power of 144X.

By 1am BST high cloud and thick haze advanced across the sky with only Mars and Vega visible,but on this occasion this was a good thing as the image of Mars settled right down so I could use my 9mm Orthoscopic ramping the power up to 200X( I tried a 6.3mm Plossl giving 288X but that was a step too far).

In the 9mm the surface details stood out plainly as did the polar cap,there was no more boiling of the image and the disc only gently undulated and even finer details came and went tantalizingly every few seconds. The haze and cloud got thicker and the planet was slowly lost from view.

My set up is in inaction at the moment. Had some great views of Mars earlier but the cloud has moved in.🤬

The observatory  roof is not completely shut and the wall flaps are still down just in case it should clear again before morning.

I've had Newtonians for over 40 years ranging from f4.8 to f 8 and managed perfectly well without a laser collimator in fact amateurs have managed for decades without them. Up to last year all I used was a simpe collimator eyepiece cap,I now have a non laser Cheshire collimator which in my opinion is all that is needed especially for short instruments.

The telescope should be pretty much collimated when it arrives unless it was severely bumped in transit but it will need attended to eventually.You may be lucky I used a Helios reflector for many years and it never needed collimated.

Collimation is nothing to be afraid of the biggest headache is if you unscrew a primary adjuster too far and it comes out, no damage is done but they can be a devil to get back in. What I usually do is screw them in as far as the will go then a back them off a turn or two and adjust from there using tiny increments. I know it sounds daunting but after doing it a few times you get the feel of it.

2 hours ago, mallorcasaint said:

New mount for the big Frac.

A lovely setup and a wonderful looking house.😍

Not very exciting I know but these items has made life a lot easier. I got a set of Bobs Knobs for my Skywatcher 400P and they are a boon,already while out observing Ive managed to simply collimate my secondary enough as do in total darkness after it misaligned for some reason. I also I invested in a mains cable for the drive so now more battery running low misery.

When I got this ultimate telescope a couple of years ago I thought I was done with spending on this hobby but not so (of course) and my next dream purchases are a hand control cover,a heater strip for the secondary and wait for it- a telrad cosy! I really must stop browsing on FLO!

I would suggest a Skywatcher as they usually have M42 threaded photo adaptors as standard on their focusers.Theres one smart looking telescope/mount setup at a very reasonable price that made me think to myself 'I wish I had that when I started out'.

Its the skywatcher 130P AZ Pronto Newtonian,its a altaz mount with a tripod and manual slow motion controls it also has a extention tube for extra height. The trouble with small dobs is that they can get a bit too low.

The Pronto is a shade under £200 which is, what, about 250 euro.

This I think would make a great beginners telescope that could be upgreaded onto a EQ mount at a later date after a year or two of honing you obsevation skills.

I really envy people with drawing abilities like this it must be very satifying. My twin sister is a great artist but non rubbed off on me.

Seeing here was not so good for Mars as yesterday morning but still managed to use my 9mm kellner for a descent view at 200X. I find the polar cap a bit difficult now.

I can split them with my 16" Newt with a 21mm plossl(86X),I cant recall ever splitting them with a 8"Newt with anything less than a barlowed 15mm giving a power of 133X. I've yet to split Epsilon 1 clearly with a 90mm refractor. I find Epsilon 1 awkward with moderate powers on various scopes  except with the 16".

HI Pixies,

Great drawing.Syrtis Minor appeared as a indistinct  blob  at about 04 hours near  the eastern  limb so had just came into veiw as my obsevation were about 2 hours after yours that would tie in. You may have recorded the first sign of it on your drawing as you made some shading there. As for Mare Tyrrhenium I always thought that it was the southern arm (top)where the two mare appear to split. You seem to have recorded the split in your drawing.

I dont pretend to be a Martian topography expert, a lot of us aren't especially from the British Isles when we only get about three or four good veiws every 2 years.🤬

This image of Mars was obtained at 04hrs using a Skywatcher 400P driven Dobsonian. The camera was a Nikon D3200SLR attached to a 10mm Celesstron  Ultima Duo Plossl and 2X barlow. 1/160sec at  100ISO. The conditions were excellent but it was raining within a half an hour of this image being taken!

Great views were to be had using my 16" Newt last night a brisk breeze seemed to have swept the atmosphere clear with very steady  seeing. So much so that I managed to employ my seldom used 4mm kellner giving a power of 450X . The beautiful subtle bluish green maria stood out with hardly a quiver. The Mare Cimmerium,Mare Tyrrhennium and Syrtis Minor were the main features that were well seen. Even the Mare Chronium was obvious ,pleasing because Ive always had trouble with this feature in the past usin a 8" Newt.

Hi There Kiki,

Thanks for the comment,no the photo was taken from my garden in southern Midlothian. My elavation is 210metres however which means I overlook Edinburgh, East Lothian Fife and beyond. When the conditions  are right Fife Ness is visiable (60km)and even the snowfields of the Grampian Mountains(100km) when visibility is good lit with a low winter sun.

The Pentlands are about 6km to my west well to the left of this image.

What else can I say! 🤩  Taken with a Nikon 3200 DSLR 3sec exposure at 400ISO with standard 16-55 lens on a undriven tripod. 00:45BST

I'll never forget the evening I went  out in August 1975  and saw Cygnus with two Denebs! No internet  those days so no warning  and it was a shock to see.Although this was 'just' a nova with a magnitude of 1.8 it was still impressive.