Littleguy80

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.

Excellent post, Iain. I particularly enjoyed Barnard 86 (Ink spot nebula) in Sagittarius. It’s next to the open cluster NGC 6520. A tricky one for UK observers due to being quite low. A nice target if you can get on it though. B92 and B93 are both great targets. E.E. Barnard’s original photographic plates can be viewed online here: https://exhibit-archive.library.gatech.edu/barnard/ I have a copy of his book “A photographic atlas of selected regions of the Milky Way” which is an excellent resource.

I saw the same effect looking at Mercury yesterday evening. Have a read of the thread below which describes the causes of that effect on Sirius. Sounds like you saw it though

According to SkySafari it’s mag 14.3 at opposition in July this summer. This just became one of my observing goals for the year It’s pretty low so it’ll be tough in the 10” dob.

Sleep well, my friend https://www.cases-and-enclosures.co.uk/catalogsearch/result/?q=cubed+foam+block+insert+for+en+ac+fc+a501+flight+case

Thank you. I was really happy to see it. I gave the SN in M100 a really good try a week or two before but never felt any confidence that I saw it. It’s those failures that add to the thrill of success. I completely agree on the excitement of the chase. I’ve never used goto, just finding everything manually with SkySafari as a guide. It’s so satisfying to find things they way. That’s just my preference though. Certainly not knocking anyone who does use goto.

The wind did make things a bit tricky here too. I was able to shelter enough to keep things reasonably stable

The spot is still visible on the limb. I almost missed it. Focus seems to be critical to being able to see it or not. Slightly off and it disappears. When the seeing is good, I can see a dark spot with what looks like light tendrils coming off of it. I’m not sure of the correct term for them. Looks really good. On the subject of granulation in smaller apertures, with my 80mm scope I see some granulation (macro granulation?) but have not been able to see anything that I would describe as a cell like structure. Not sure, if that’s me, conditions or simply needing more aperture.

After the sun sets. As it gets darker it will be easier to see, hence 30 mins after sunset. You should be able to see it naked eye when it gets dark enough.

Thank you Iain. It was part observing report/part day in the life of Neil! I did want to show that it’s possible to fit a bit observing in around a busy day

I wouldn’t be too hard on yourself. It’s hard to keep on top of life and astronomy is just a hobby after all. That being said, if you can keep a little scope permanently set up and ready to go then it’s easy to pop and catch some of these moments

Thank you! I've always loved event astronomy. Those little things that are just there for a brief moment in time. Well worth running out to grab a view of

Thanks Stu. I wasn't sure I was going to get a chance to see the SN so I was really chuffed to get that. The comet has become a bit of tester object for the conditions. Transparency was good last night so it showed really well. I normally settle on my 9mm Lunt XWA which gives 133x mag in the dob. It's quite clear at this mag. When conditions are less favourable then it can be a struggle to spot.

Monday night I'd stayed up late baking and decorating a birthday cake for my daughter's birthday party the following day. The party was in the afternoon so I was working from home. My first opportunity for some astronomy came with a brief break between calls at lunchtime. My Equinox 80 was already set up with the TS Optics Herschel Wedge from the weekend. I was quickly out and observing the Sun with the sunspot, AR2757. Over the course of 10 minutes, I was surprised by how much detail could be seen. Many smaller spots or pores could be seen trailing the main spot. The day moved on and we went off to my daughter's party. As darkness set in, I looked outside from the happy smiling faces of the party goers, to see a bright crescent Moon and Venus in the early evening sky. Arriving home some time after 6pm, I switched the Equinox 80 over to night mode. The target was the conjunction of Venus and Neptune. The best views came with the APM HDC 20mm, showing the phase of Venus and the tiny pale blue dot of Neptune. I'd have loved to have seen them the previous night when they were much closer but the weather hadn't cooperated for that. The Moon was absolutely stunning. The thin crescent was showing Mare Crisium particularly nicely with two large craters within it. Earthshine lit up the whole disc in the eyepiece. It was the planetary conjunction that brought me outside but it was the Moon that stole the show. My list of duties now required a trip to the grocery store. As the skies were clear, I put the 10" dob outside to cool. I couldn't resist a quick peek at M42 before I went back inside. When I returned from shopping, things were looking distinctly cloudy. My wife and I sat down and watched an Episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation while we at our evening meal. I looked outside to see the clouds clearing so out I went again. This time I aligned the dob with the double cluster and went in search of a comet. Very quickly I found Comet C/2017 T2 Panstarrs. I've been following this comet since mid November and was very much looking forward to it's fly by of the double cluster. Some eyepiece experimentation revealed the ES82 30mm as framing the comet and clusters most pleasingly. The comet seemed quite bright which was a sign of good transparency. The buzz of my phone ended the fun for now as work called. It was closing in on Midnight by the time I finished work and my household chores. The skies were looking great so I decided to try for one more thing before bed. Virgo had risen just high enough for me to target it from my back garden. I star hopped my way to the galaxy NGC 4636. I began to compare the view through the eyepiece to an image I had found on the internet. After 10 minutes or so of careful studying between the eyepiece, image and SkySafari, I was happy that I'd seen Supernova 2020UE. Only the third Supernova I've ever seen and the brightest at mag 12.1. It was thrilling to see it. I contemplated the thought that a star had exploded in a galaxy and 46 million years later, a life form on a planet in another galaxy looked through a telescope and saw a small pinpoint of light in the galaxy. The life form smiled and punched the air with excitement. He then went inside his house, ate a slice of birthday cake and went to bed feeling very lucky to have witnessed these small events in the history of the cosmos.