Littleguy80

I've fallen out the habit of observing a bit. Partly due to weather and partly due to the general busyness of life plus enjoying other hobbies. That's not to say I've not been out at all but much less frequently. The clear forecast for last night had caught my eye. It was already pushing towards midnight by the time I got the 10" dob out, collimated it and aligned the finders. I used Betelgeuse for finder alignment. I remembered that there was a planetary nebula close by so I set off in search of NGC 2022. At low power I was initially struggling to spot it, most likely a combination of the scope still cooling and my eyes not yet being fully dark adapted. Soon though, I felt confident I had it. The 12.5mm eyepiece went in and things got clearer. The OIII filter made it much more prominent. The view through the 10mm Delos got my attention, the PN seemed to have a darker centre giving it a ring like appearance. The 5mm Pentax XW also showed this same structure. I hadn't expected it and spent sometime checking with averted vision that I wasn't imagining it. I felt confident of this observation so decided to check the SkySafari info and sure enough a ring structure is reported for this PN. I was so chuffed to have picked this feature out when I was expecting it. This inspired an observation of another PN, NGC 2371, in Gemini. I remembered this had an hour glass shape. The 5mm Pentax showed the top section to be brighter than the bottom. The comets 67P and C/2019 L3 came up next. I've always been fascinated by the comets. 67P appeared to have a small tail. C/2019 L3 seemed much clearer and slightly smaller though the clarity may reflect my improving dark adaption. I followed the comets with the Eskimo nebula. I challenged myself to align the 5mm eyepiece (240x) using only the 9x50 finder and got it first time! The PN nebula was simply stunning, good transparency allowed it to glow through looking as clear as a beautifully drawn sketch. Next came a small galaxy section. The Leo triplet squeezed into the FOV with NGC 3628 showing well even under my suburban skies. M51 was nice but not quite as good as I've seen it previously from home. I kept on with the bright galaxies, now observing M81 and M82, with the dark lane in M82 quite noticeable which was no doubt helped by it's favourable positioning. NGC 3077 close by was an easy pick and I surprised myself by also observing NGC 2976 which was larger and more diffuse in appearance than the other galaxies. Tired eyes were telling me it was time to call it a night but I couldn't resist picking up M97, the Owl Nebula, and it's galactic partner M108. I even got the OIII filter out to pick out the eyes of the Owl. It was nice to feel all the old enthusiasm coming back through unexpected observations and little challenges to test my skills and memory. Astronomy is a hobby that I think I will always come back to.

Thanks so much for the heads up on this. Had some really nice white views of this. Picked up all the spots and then checked Space Weather to see if I'd missed any. The large AR was particularly impressive. Lots of interesting detail to pick out.

Thanks for sharing, Mark. I’ll give it a go with the 10” dob. I quite agree that it’s great to find some new targets like this. Was out myself last night which was very enjoyable.

Hi James. Thanks so much for posting and sharing all these great resources. One thing I’d love to see is a really good guide to processing Milky Way images. This is something I’ve really struggled with. I’ve made some progress but I’m sure an expert could share all sorts of tips and tricks to help me and others along

Hi Mark. I have a 1.25" version of this filter and have used it with my 10" dob, mainly on Mars. It does add a yellowish tint which led me to prefer this Baader Neodymium for Jupiter. On Mars it gives a redder colour which is quite pleasing. Contrast wise, I didn't feel there was a great detail between that and the Neodymium. Like you, I've done a fair bit of reading around of reviews and it seems to be a case of personal preference.

Managed to take a photo of the Sun yesterday to try and capture the Wilson effect!

Fab report, Iain. So pleased that going out paid off for you. The VX14 proving it’s worth 😊

Not one I’ve ever seen. I have to admit I chad discounted them as visual targets. They don’t seem to be mentioned very often in reports. Will definitely give these a go this winter.

I've continued to play and watch various tutorials to try and get a decent result. I've used curves to increase contrast, HSL and selective colour to remove light pollution, shadows/highlights and brightness contrast adjustments to bring out additional detail. Any and all feedback greatly appreciated. The battle is brightening the Milky Way without highlighting the light pollution or messing up the overall colours.

Great result, Mark. I’m glad you were able to see it. Worth trying it with your 12” to see if you can spot the tail!

Thank you very much 😊

Thanks Mark. Really glad you enjoyed it. There’s some good fun to be had finding those comets right now

Great image, Tatyana. I never doubted your eyes. You’re one of the best observers I know

Thanks Tatyana. Leonard is continuing to brighten so hopefully will be visible soon despite being so low. 4P/Faye is well placed but faint. I’m sure you can get it though. I’ll be sure to post when I observe next

Hi Tatyana! Great sketch, thank you for sharing it! I didn’t notice a tail when I observed it but haven’t had an opportunity to revisit it since this report. I’ll take another look on the next clear night. If it’s brightened since I last observed it then there may be a chance of seeing the tail. Did you observe any of the other comets? I’ve had attempts to see C/2021 A1 Leonard which is expected to get very bright next month. It’s very low down in Ursa Major right now. I also tried for 4P/Faye which I was maybe picking up but not enough to feel confident in the observation. I’m sure it would have been observable from Seething.

It’s not the eyepieces, or even the telescope, that make the observer, Paul. I know from your reports that those eyepieces have served you well

I've have many attempts at Milky Way image processing using Affinity Photo and watched/read various guides and really struggle to get good results. There's not many specifically on Affinity Photo. I normally adjust white balance, play with contrast, highlights, shadows and curves. I can never seem to bring out much detail or colour in the Milky Way. As an example of the data I'm working with here's an unprocessed image below. I don't want to blame the data because I'm sure the problem is my poor processing skills! Any suggestions on some basic work flows for an image, such as the one below, would be greatly appreciated.

I revisited all three Comets this evening. 29P is still the largest and brightest. 67P and L3 both retained their small globular appearance. I found all three much more easily tonight. Not sure if that’s conditions or me regaining my observing skills a little more. Mirach’s ghost (NGC404) plus M33 with it’s bright nebula NGC604 capped off a very enjoyable short session.

Excellent! Well done 😊Thanks for the confirmation on the description, always good to know it wasn’t just my imagination 😂

Astronomy has taken a bit of back seat in recent months as I was training for the London Marathon which took place last weekend. With more free time on my hands I've been more inclined to get the 10" dob out. The skies were clear this evening when I looked out at 22:30. I went back and and forth on whether to go out with the scope or not. I did some quick research and using the excellent site, http://astro.vanbuitenen.nl/comets, I settled on trying to hunt down some comets. As a warm up, I briefly observed the Pleiades and then worked my way through the Auriga Messier clusters of M37, M36 and M38. All showed well and gave me some confidence that the transparency was quite good. Comet 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann was reported has having a large outburst on September 25th and having brightened enough to be visible in small scopes by October 1st. The comet is currently in Auriga and was placed very close to the star Al Kab. This made finding the comet very easy. It was immediately obvious in the eyepiece as an extended nebulous patch. I didn't notice a bright core to it. This really built my confidence to carry out and try for more comets! Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko is in Taurus and is quite close to the Crab Nebula (M1). I began with a slightly uncertain observation, much less obvious than 29P. I wandered off to M1, this was also a trickier spot. Both of these objects were lower down and not too far above the roof tops. Returning to 67P, I looked up at the sky briefly relaxing my eyes before returning to the eyepiece. Now using increased magnification, I started to see the comet more clearly with averted vision. Much smalerl than 29P but distinctly nebulous, like a small globular cluster where the stars cannot be resolved. I set about finding one final comet. This time my target, C/2019 L3 (ATLAS), was in Lynx. Initially there seemed to be no sign of the comet, increasing magnification also didn't help. Once again, I looked up and allowed my eyes to rest and relax for a minute. Looking through the eyepiece and I now picked up a hint of something. The 10mm Delos went into the focuser and now the comet was clearer. Very similar to 67P in appearance but slightly fainter. I moved away from the comet a couple of times to check I could successfully find it again. With all 3 comets, I used SkySafari as a means of verifying the observed object matched up with the expected location. With a hat trick of comets in the bag, I moved onto something different. Using the Astronomik HB filter with the APM UFF 30mm, I set out in search of the California nebula. As with most of these large diffuse nebulae, the key is to pick up an edge. It took a minute of two for my eye to really hone in on the nebula. Once it did, I began tracing up and down the length of the nebula. It became quite obvious as time went on. It gave me a strong desire to return to my dark site to pick out more detail. Although the SQM was reading 19.7 from my garden which isn’t bad at all when the transparency is good. As my eyes grew tired, I decided to move onto brighter targets. I enjoyed a brief check on Ceres progress through Taurus. After that I observed Uranus, which showed as a lovely small disc at 240x. Around half past midnight, I decided it was time to come in. Very pleased with my haul of 3 new comets!

Had a little peek at Ceres this evening, it’s already pretty close to Aldebaran so will be fun to track it as it moves closer.

Nice report, Mark. Got the 10” dob out this evening and successfully observed this intergalactic globular! I’ve seen it once before from my dark site in 2019. Really enjoyed hunting it down so thank you for the inspiration!

A variable polariser is a good choice to take the edge off the brightness for seeing the phase. Even a single polarising filter can help for this. For something a bit more specialised to spot cloud detail a number 47 Violet filter is the most recommended. Cloud detail is very difficult and with the filters above, the best I’ve managed is a maybe. Seeing the phase is much more achievable though. @mikeDnight has managed some stunning sketches of Venus and cloud detail. From memory, he uses a variable polariser.

I also think it’s like any skill and you need to keep doing it to maintain it. Opportunities have been more infrequent this year so I feel my observing skills are a bit more rusty. Transparency is king for faint objects and I’m not convinced that even on the clear nights we’ve had good transparency this year. It’s funny how you can do everything the same and fail on a target. Most times the difference is the transparency.

I remember this galaxy as, like you, I thought it was going to be easier than it was. It’s close to the little gem planetary nebula so I had several failed attempts at it. I only had one successful observation of it. Unfortunately I didn’t record the eyepiece but did say it was found through a bit of experimentation. From memory, it’s quite large, hence the low surface brightness. The trick is likely to be having an exit pupil around 2mm but with a wide enough FOV to give you some space around the galaxy. You need something so you can pick up the edge/contrast change. Here’s the report where I mention observing it.