Les Ewan

A magical summer night among the planets even though it still doesn't get properly dark here yet. Jupiter,Saturn the Moon and Mars and comet NEOWISE. Then adding to the mix at 03:20BST Venus rising in the NE less than a degree from Aldebaran. Image was taken with a Canon EOS 1100D and Sigma DG telephoto on a undriven tripod ,1.6sec ex at 200ISO.

d Its said that William Herschel was so paranoid about dark adaption that if he accidentally viewed so much as a 3rd magnitude star through his telescope he considered his dark adaption ruined.

A postie visit was not involved with this one but a visit to the Co-op today. I'm not a great wine buff but I think you know why I couldn't resist investing in this bottle of Australian red. If I were to open this tonight I would think it would double the number of star I could see!

Its not just GOTO's I had a Meade ETX twenty years ago which made a dreadful din even when tracking,living in the country it didn't bother anyone but it was very annoying . The external motor units that can be fitted to the old EQ1 and EQ2 mounts are a lot quiter but still make a whirring sound which at night can be heard from a surprising distance.The first 'silent' drive i ever had was on my Helios 200 Explorer on a EQ5 this drive was only detectable when you put your ear onto the tube giving nothing more than a light ticking when tracking. The Dobsonian mounts GOTO on the Skywatcher Flextube telescopes are noisy when at top slewing speed but is virtually silent when tracking. A lot of noise can be avoided in the case of the Flextube scopes by manually moving the tube to targets which is possible becase they are fitted with duel encoders. Although these mount are designed for the manual slewing action I tend to avoid it because I find if you do it too often Ifind you slowly lose the GOTO and tracking accuracy. The EQ6 R is also noisy when slewing but cant be slewed manually as it disturbs the GOTO function.

I heard on the radio the other day that many residents of Delhi are amazed how blue the sky is.Pollution over the city has reduced because of the lockdown even to the point that the distant snowy peaks of the Himalayas are again visible from the city. Even here I notice the differance,I could see Venus with the naked eye easily at 3:15pm without my glasses,something I've never managed before, at least not clearly.The crescent moon also looked unusally clear no doubt due to the lack of dispursed contrails that normally blight the blue skies. The images were taken with a Canon 1100D and 500mm fl telephoto.

Poor thing looks like its been through the wars. It needs a assessory tray for a start and the focuser seems to be missing.

The thing is seeing faint things through a telescope with a pencil narrow field of view is not easy, its a skill.Its a skill that anyone can master but it takes perseverance and patience. The trouble is starter scopes are more difficult to use than more advanced ones putting the newbie at a further disdvantage. If your not used to using a telescope the objects you mention are quite difficult ones and you are perhaps jumping in at the deep end with them even without light pollution.Stick to the brighter easier objects with your lowest power to start with. There is a limit to what can be seen with a 70mm be in no doubt but its worth considering lot of observers of my generation back in the 60's and early 70' started with smaller instuments than yours. Many here will know what I mean ,those chronic cheap 60mm Japanese refractors on rickety mounts and tiny Huygen eyepieces that were borderline adversion therapy but who's interest and entusiasm has survived up to this day.

Hi Rob, Every ones eye are differant,but I've always had difficulty with Izar even with a 200mm Newt.Of course usually I've managed to split them with a 300mm reflector when conditions are favourable,but my new 400mm Dob splits them with ease under most conditions on all but the lowest powers. Its worth remembering that the very clear skies over the last few days that have been so awesome for fuzzies does not necessarily mean that its all that great for doubles more often than not it wont be due to turbalance,more likely have more luck with still slightly misty skies.

Taken this morningat 00:35BST. I use a 16"f1800 f4.4 Skywatcher driven Dob.The camera was a Canon 1100D 45second exposue ISO1600. I also done some tweaking with Faststone to bring out the eyes and rotated the image 90 deg.

2007 had two great comets the first was in January with Mc Naught. On the evening of the 10th I saw it low in the SW just after sunset some estimates put it at magnitude -6 at the time,it certainly looked brighter than Venus and it had a impressive tail at a angle to the horizon. I saw it only once(then only briefly) as it was racing into the southern hemisphere. The second comet in the autumn was Holmes a puff ball which was bright in binoculars and easily visible with the naked eye.This comet hardly moved for weeks in Perseus and it swelled out larger than the Sun.😲

Yet another ideal night for DSO's.😎 This time I took some time out to image this galaxy in Coma. I had to give a fairly long exposure to bring out the spiral. My Skywatcher 400P drive is not really up to exposures beyond about 30 seconds but on this occasion it did not too bad. The camera was a Canon 1100D at prime focus 40 second exposure at 1600ISO

Thanks for all the likes!

Another fine night for fuzzies but yet again as yesterday it clouded over at 2am.😠 One of the best types of DSO's for simple DSLR's and limited processing are Globular Clusters,imaging these with simple equipment is easy as falling off a log.They are tolerant of high ISO's with short exposure times. This capture of M 3 in Canes Venatici was obtained with a Nikon 3200 DSLR 1600ISO exposure of 15 seconds. The telescope was a driven 400P Flextube Dobsonian at prime focus.

Last night up to 2am was great for DSO's so took the oppertunity to image the M64 Black Eye Galaxy for the first time. It was taken with a Nikon 3200 DSLR attached at the prime focus of a Skywatcher 16" 1,800mm fl driven Dobsonian. Exposure was 25 seconds at 1800ISO and a few nips and tucks using Faststone

I once saw Scorpius out of season(the bit I can see) before dawn in late February with ice and crunchy snow underfoot. Ive also observed Orion completly above the horizon in late August (but being in Scotland it felt cold then too)!

It wont be long now till Orion is again lost in the glare of the summer Sun,not to return until late August. This Image was taken at around 22:00 BST. Betelgeuse has almost returned to its former glory in fact I spotted it while walking the dog while the sky was still quite bright. Its now noticably brighter than both Pollux and Aldebaran,but fainter than Procyon. I estimate it to be magnitude 0.6 , which is within about half a magnitude of its historic maximum brightness. The image was taken with a Canon 1100D fitted with a old M42 Chinon 28fl wide angle lens. Exposure was 5 seconds at 800ISO

Conditions were very steady for observing Venus this afternoon no sign of any shading except the darkening towards the terminator. The scope used was a Skywatcher 400P Dobsonian and a Nikon 3200D DSLR attached to a Celestron ULTIMA duo eyepiece (21mm) .1/640th sec exp,100 ISO.

I love looking at landing sites at high power, Hadley is a particularly interesting one.

Schickard crater still full of shadow at Lunar sunrise seemed to take a small bite of the Moon's terminator around 3am.It was well seen in 10X60 binoculars. The image was taken through a 90mm f10 Skywatcher refractor.The camera was a Nikon Coolpix L29 compact digiscoped to a 15mm eyepiece.

I got my first telescope back in 1972(a Tasco 40mm refractor),and with it came a Rand McNally Moon map, a colourful Solar System poster and 62 page booklet. Of course the years passed by and the scope was long gone as were the posters. A few years ago with a yearning nostalgia I went on Ebay and managed to pick up the Tasco ,then later I managed to acquire the booklet 'A Key To The Worlds Beyond'. Over last couple of years or so I have searched in vein for the poster and Moon map that came with the kit. Then about three weeks ago I came across an American company that does reproductions calling it Space Art. They both arrived a couple of days ago and although very expensive they transported me back in time and at last completed the set. They are made of a plastic material and I'm going to frame them after the lockdown has ended. They are guarenteed not to fade for 200 years🤣,and the reproduction is so good that the original folds are visible.

HI Chris, Welcome from The Central Belt.

Funny I diden't mind the Iridium satellites but I find Starstink(not a typo) really annoying, maybe its partly due to the fact I cant stand Musk.

Certainly a beautiful sight in my 7X50's a lot of cloud here as well unfortunatly .

The close conjunction of Venus and the Pleiades is almost a carbon copy of the one on the same evening of 2012.Venus is just 14' further east this time. The first image was 2012 taken by a Pentax DSLR this evenings was taken with a Canon 1100D Ex 0.8sec at 1600ISO.Both images were taken with a old M45 Tokina telepho lens.

This image of the Whirpool Galaxy was taken this morning using a Canon 1100D attached to a 21mm eyepiece and a driven 16" Dob. 60 second exposure 1600ISO