Littleguy80

Thanks Mike. Good point on aperture. Hadn’t considered that. I wonder whether sticking with the Equinox 80 unfiltered on Venus may prove as effective as using a filter with the 10” dob?

Thank John. Are you able to see any cloud detail on Venus without a filter? Perhaps a similar experience to Mike. Once you’ve seen it with a filter it becomes easier to see without?

I’ve never been a fan of coloured filters for planetary observing. I just prefer a more natural look. I like the Baader Neodymium for Jupiter. I also have the Baader Contrast Booster but there does add some false colour. However, I find myself contemplating a #47 Violet filter to try and see some cloud details on Venus. Has anyone else tried this? Are there other coloured filters that really stand out? I read some very positive comments on magenta for Mars.

The clouds briefly parted so I managed a brief look in WL. It’s quite an interesting spot. It appears to be a group of smaller spots in a circular formation. The centre is definitely brighter. Many thanks for the heads up @astro_al. I would certainly have missed this otherwise.

Excellent heads up. Thanks Paul. The three peaks in photo are a real stand out. One much brighter then the other two. The Marius hills are also making captivating viewing. Equinox 80 paired with Vixen HR 3.4mm proving to be a top notch Lunar setup!

As I sit here on a cloudy and rainy Friday night, I look back on a happy Thursday night with the stars. I was a weary stargazer, having risen at 5am for work. A restful afternoon had given me enough energy though to wander out under the clear skies. The Moon and Venus in the early evening had lit the fire inside me. The fire was needed as it was bloomin’ cold outside. The words and sketches of a fellow stargazer named Nick filled my mind. You may know him as @cotterless45. Nick had written of a Constellation named Puppis and that is where I directed my telescope. The planetary nebula NGC2440 blinked in and out view, just as Nick promised. More magnification showed an irregular shaped nebula. At first I thought it’s stat could be seen but, alas, it was simply a brighter region within the nebula. Nick’s trail led to a spectacular pair of clusters, M46 and M47. The bright binary in M47 was eye catching. Nick described M46 as delicate and I cannot top his words. Adding an OIII filer, elevated the view as the planetary nebula NGC 2438 grew in prominence within the nebula. With greater magnification, the PN took on an annulus structure to my eye. Nick knows just where to find the most stunning double stars. The winter Albireo, h3945, more than lived up to its name. Carbon stars followed. For these I retrieved my refractor. Hind’s Crimson Star and La Superba showed amazing colours. The first like the red of a traffic light and La Superba, a deep orange. The colour rendition of the frac surpassing my reflector on these targets. I parted ways with Nick at this point and started to collect galaxies. The superb irregular galaxy, NGC 4449, led me onto the Cocoon galaxy (NGC 4490) and its smaller and fainter companion (NGC 4485). The bright Messier galaxy M106 followed. The pairing of M97 (Owl Nebula) and M108 was intended to be my final flourish but I decided on just one more target. I’ve clocked up 13 observations of the wandering comet know as C/2017 T2 (Panstarrs). Observation number 14 was a memorable one. The icy visitor is currently travelling through Cassiopeia giving a wonderful starry backdrop. Using a simple but very sharp orthoscopic eyepiece, I marvelled at the hazy glow of the comet. It seemed to hint at its tail. As I started to clear my stargazing tools away, I kept coming back for just “one more look”. A view worthy of a sketch by Nick who inspired this session with his words and sketches.

Great sketch Does the UHC filter help? I've only ever observed comets unfiltered. I know Lumicon produced the SWAN specifically for comets but I've not tried one of those.

I was observing from home, so not under the best skies, but I did think there were signs of a tail. It would be interesting to see some recent images to see what they show.

My final target observed tonight was this superb comet. Set amongst the star fields of Cassiopeia now, it’s a real treat. I was observing it with my 10” dob and 12.5mm BGO. As I packed up, I went back for about six “one last look”s before coming in to thaw out. Be sure to catch this comet while it’s around

Just in from a lovely session. Spent the first half following your targets from this report. I observed Hind’s Crimson star and La Superba through my frac for the first. Wow! The colour rendition is a real step up from the dob. Hind’s Crimson star is traffic light red and La Superba a deeper orange through the frac. Thank you for posting your reports, Nick. A constant source of inspiration...under clear skies

Looked lovely this evening with lots of earthshine. Venus sitting pretty up high

With my 130M I only ever used a collimation cap. Cost about £5 and was plenty good enough to keep it collimated. I did put a centre spot on the mirror to help with this.

This was my first telescope. I had many happy hours with it. Learning to find targets is tricky with the EQ2 mount. I replaced the red dot finder with a Telrad. A Rigel Quickfinder may be a better sized option. I highly recommend the BST Starguiders. The 8mm was the first one I purchased for mine. For a Barlow look for the Baader Q Barlow 2.25x. These often come up second hand for a good price. Same with the BST Starguiders. Don’t be disheartened if you struggle to find things to start with. I found it difficult to align on the Moon when I first got it but with practise I was soon star hopping my way around. Lots of experienced and helpful people on here so feel free to ask all the questions you want I should add that it’s worth spending time using it with the stock eyepieces while you get used to it. Better to be comfortable with using the scope before spending lots on upgrades.

It’s been very similar here, John. It was nice to be out but transparency just wasn’t that good. Did pick up the SN in NGC4636 again which was fun. Seems to have faded a bit based on comparison to a nearby star. As I was looking at M51 a thin layer of cloud added to the haze so called it a night. Good job on Sirius B by the way. Tried and failed to see it again. Quite windy which didn’t help. I’ll get it one day.

This has faded quite a bit now. There’s a mag 12.7 star close to it that I could see comfortably. The SN needed 200x with my 6mm BGO for me to feel confident of my observation in averted vision. Must be down to mag 13 or so.

It’s also a non detection for Neil’s 10” scope in Norwich. I know M66 a little better now though.

Another non detection added. Looks like a false alarm

Here are the pictures from the report showing M66 pre supernova and then with supernova. Clear skies currently forecast here tonight. The hunt begins

Thanks Mike. I’ll admit that I could have gone out the previous night but I choose my warm bed instead 😉 It was a lovely session this morning though and well worth the effort of getting up

When the alarm went off at 4:30 AM this morning and my first look out the window showed a fair bit of cloud, I almost went back to bed. 10 minutes later, with the clouds clearing, I had the dob outside ready to go. My first target was NGC4636 in Virgo. I located the galaxy fairly easily and spent 20 minutes or so trying to locate the supernova within it. It was much trickier than my previous observation of it. Transparency was relatively poor and I suspect the SN has faded a little. A few glimpses in averted vision was enough to satisfy though. I walked round to the front of the house and scanned the horizon. Eventually I spotted my target... Mars. I moved the dob around and aligned on the red planet. I took the unusual step of putting in a UHC filter. With my 20mm APM HDC, I could see some faint nebulosity to the left of Mars. Changing eyepieces to my ES82 30mm and Mars' companion became clearer. The Lagoon nebula sat clearly in the field of view with Mars. Even with the low position of both, it was an impressive sight. I switched to my 40mm Aero eyepiece which enhanced the view even further, thanks to the large exit pupil through the filter. It then occurred to me that the Triffid may also be possible. It wasn't clear with the UHC so I tried an OIII. The red planet became the turquoise planet. The Triffid was still very difficult to spot. I returned to enjoying the Lagoon and Mars on their own. The Lagoon responding magnificently to the OIII filter. Looking up, I spotted the crescent moon had now risen and looked stunning with earthshine. A little while later, Jupiter joined the parade. The two planets and Moon sat in a line across the sky. Ganymede was the only one of Jupiter's moons that could be seen at the eyepiece in the early dawn sky. Around 6:15 AM, I returned indoors for a quick snooze before work. A lovely start to the day.

You’re more than welcome to join us at Norwich Astro Society. The skies are certainly dark enough, people of all abilities and everyone helping each other out. Breckland Astro society have a nice site and are also a helpful bunch. I think they might be a bit closer to you. Drop me a PM if you’d like to visit either of these societies’ sites. With regards the 32mm Celestron Plossl, I had one of these and used it to see the Veil with my 130mm reflector and a good quality Astronomik OIII filter. This was from my back garden in the suburbs of Norwich so probably a bit worse than your skies. Based on that, I’d say your filter is the only question mark.

Nothing more than good luck

A big part of the appeal of astronomy for me is the challenge. I thinks that’s why I love deep sky observing the most. Trying to see fainter and fainter objects. However, when the moon is bright or a dark site trip isn’t possible, I have to find challenges in different ways. This evening it’s clear with a near full moon but it’s very windy outside. I set my 80mm refractor up in my front bay window for a quick look at the moon. I spotted Arcturus and wondered if I could see M3. Under normal circumstances M3 is an easy spot. Tonight I had to carefully star hop my way there and then slowly increase magnification with the Baader zoom until I was certain that I had the bright globular cluster. As my eyes adjusted it became clearer. I felt very engaged doing this and it was satisfying to achieve me goal. I do this type of thing quite a lot. Recently I tried to view as many solar system objects as I could in a short early evening session. Sometimes I’ll pick a particular object type such as planetary nebula and try to see as many as I can. On other occasions, the challenge will be using a single eyepiece/scope combination for a session, such as my 40mm eyepiece in my frac, and seeing what objects I can pick up. These little challenges keep astronomy alive for me when I can’t go chasing the faint DSO’s. I really think that this has helped with training my eye and brain for seeing fainter objects through continued practise. Does anyone else set themselves similar challenges and if so what are they? I’d love to add some new ones to the list!

Thanks Baz. Kids keep life interesting for sure My eldest and youngest were on the trampoline practicing their acrobatics while I was out so “doing cartwheels” wasn’t far off my experience either! Neptune is quite tricky at the moment as it’s low down. When it’s higher and you can throw some magnification at it, it will show as small blue disc. The emphasis on small! Have a google on the phases of Venus. I think you’ll be amazed at how much it appearance changes

Arriving home from the grocery store around 5:30 to a wonderfully bright Venus but a bank of cloud around the horizon, I thought that Mercury may be lost already. Stepping into the garden, I quickly located the little planet above the clouds. I popped inside to grab the Equinox 80. With the help of the Nagler zoom, I was able to see the phase, around half, of the planet. Moving up much higher to see the glistening diamond that is Venus. Here I could see a planet that is starting to resemble a small moon. Again it’s phase was clear to see. In between these two planets was a third planet. To see this planet, I would need to bring out my 10” dob. The key to finding the ice giant would be identifying Phi Aquarii. SkySafari and the view through my 9x50 RACI helped to find the star. At 133x, I was confident that the pale blue dot that could be seen was Neptune. My 5 year old daughter had come outside and asked to have a look. She knows her planets and was pleased to see Neptune. However, her priorities were now on drawing with chalk on the path. I was requested to lend my artistic skills to this endeavour. “Just one more planet” I replied. Before long a pale green disc was floating through the eyepiece. Father and daughter enjoyed this sight before moving onto pavement decorations. After some time, I was left alone as it was time for the children to eat. The grown ups enjoy a date night on a Saturday night. I set my sights on another solar system target, the comet C/2017 T2 (PANSTARRS). I left the solar system briefly through using the double cluster as a starting point. Just as I was trying to spot the comet, light cloud arrived obscuring my view. After a few minutes, I decided to pass some time putting bikes and various other items away. Despite a light haze, I thought the big bright Moon would be worth a look. The terminator revealed a distinct mountain peek. Very cool. I couldn’t help but wonder if it would be possible to view Earth’s mountains from the Moon in a similar fashion. Looking up, I noticed that the skies above had cleared. Resuming my search for the comet, I was surprised by how difficult it was to find. I have seen it many times before but the bright moon was making it quite tricky. Eventually the right magnification/exit pupil was found and the comet revealed itself in averted vision. It was nearly time for bedtime stories before the grown up meal. For a final flourish, I quickly sought and found the asteroid, Vesta. It shone brightly and clearly among the stars. Four planets, a comet and an asteroid all before tea. I came inside with that wonderful energised feeling that a good session can bring.