Littleguy80

Thank you, Stephan. It was a great suggestion and something that really sparks the imagination. I'm sure I'll return to the Quasar too Clear skies for tonight. I hope that haze clears. All being well, I'm hoping for a return trip to my dark site tonight.

Thanks Mark. I was glad I hadn't left it any later to try for the Quasar last night. Good luck for tonight. I look forward to hearing how you get on

At home my SQM is around 19.5 and I was picking up the mag 14 star in the chart with averted vision with my 10". I think your 14", with similar or slightly better skies, should comfortably show you this.

I’ve just arrived home from a trip to my local dark site. Session was cut short by the arrival of fog. The skies were generally below the normal quality but still a step up from my back garden. After some nice views of Comet Iwamoto, I began the quasar hunt. I started with the Lunt 9mm and Baader VIP but found the two 8mm stars quite distracting in the wide FOV. I then switched to the 9mm BGO for a narrower FOV. Everything seemed much easier to see then. I quickly got the mag 14 star and then, not long afterwards the quasar! I was able to see it with averted vision as part of a triangle with the mag 13 and mag 14 star. It seemed to me to be much easier to see when starting at the mag 14 star and working back to the mag 13 star than vice versa. I repeated the observation a good 5 or 6 times and was able to return to the Lunt and get it in that too. It’s nice to get the repeated sightings to have confidence that it was an actual sighting. That’s my new distance record set at 8.6 billion light years. To put that into perspective, when the light left the quasar there was no planet Earth, Sun or solar system. The entire history of our Sun and planet has taken place in the time it took those photons to reach my eye tonight. That’s a pretty amazing thing to contemplate. Once again, I’d like to that Stephan @Nyctimene for this recommendation

I recently observed my first Quasar, 3C 273.0, which is in Virgo. It's listed as being 2 billion lights years from Earth. A phenomenal distance and a pretty impressive distance record. SkySafari lists it at mag 12.85 which is achievable in a great many scopes. After reporting on this success, Stephan @Nyctimene, made the excellent suggestion of trying for the Quasar PG 1634+706. This Quasar is in Draco and is a mind bending 8.6 billion light years away. Any light that reaches your eye from this target will have been travelling for more than half the known lifetime of the universe! Last night, I had my first attempt at viewing this target from home. My skies are around 19.5 SQM. I was using my 10" dob and after some experimenting, settled on my Lunt XWA 9mm paired with the Baader VIP barlow, giving 267x magnification, a 0.4 degree TFOV and just under 1mm exit pupil. There are two mag 8 stars near by and I used these are my jump off point. My process was to begin by identifying the stars that were visible in the eyepiece in SkySafari. Initially, I picked up a mag 11 and then a mag 12 star. I was then able to form a triangle with a mag 13 that is very close to the Quasar. I started picking up a mag 14 star intermittently with adverted vision. The Quasar is mag 14.6 and seemed to be within reach. However, despite a couple of possible sightings, I eventually had to admit defeat on this occasion. I intend to return to this target from my local dark site which has an SQM reading of over 21. This should bring the Quasar into range, I hope! I intend to update this thread with my future attempts to view this object. I hope others will also share their attempts and successes. I've also included a SkySafari observing list of Quasars that I've created which includes both 3C273.0 and PG 1634+706. Happy hunting! Quasars.skylist The image below is from the Interstellarum Deep Sky Guide. I've marked the 4 stars mentioned above with their magnitudes as recorded in SkySafari. More info here: http://quasar.square7.ch/fqm/1634+706.html

I think you’re absolutely right, John. The little differences will make certain filters lend themselves better to particular targets. So maybe the NBP has the edge on M42 but the Astronomik wins out on the Lagoon. Once you add in personal preference then it becomes even more difficult to separate the better filters. The answer with astronomical equipment always seems to end up being “give it a try”!

Thanks John. Very interesting comments. I have the Astronomik OIII, UHC and H-Beta which all served me well. I do tend to reach for the OIII over the UHC but that’s probably doing the UHC a disservice. When I had the 1.25” version with my old scope it gave the best views of the Lagoon nebula. I also have an original Lumicon OIII which is noticeably darker than the Astronomik OIII but does seem to draw out the fainter detail better than the Astronomik. I originally thought the Lumicon would replace the Astronomik but overall I think they both deserve a place in my eyepiece case.

Thanks Gavin. That was a surprisingly easy answer. Sounds like an odd effect with the red stars.

I have an Astronomik UHC filter which is excellent. However, I find myself considering giving a DGM NBP filter a go based on the number of positive comments I've seen on this filter. People seem to most commonly reference the views of M42 with it. I'd be interested if anyone has ever tried these filters side by side? Any thoughts or experiences appreciated

Telescope or ice sculpture? You decide ?

I’ve got 19.86 at home and 21.38 at my local dark site by that. Both sites have served me well! 21.67 at the campsite I visited during the summer. It’s only about 30 mins drive so may have to investigate observing there more regularly.

Hi Olli. I used the cheaper plus version for over a year and it worked extremely well. I don't think you need pro. Other consideration is that SkySafari regularly goes on sale at half price. I think they have a newsletter you can sign up for which will notify when you it's on offer. From memory, I got SkySafari 5 plus for £6.99 and SkySafari 6 Pro for £19.99. Wait for the sale and if you don't want to spend a lot get the plus version. The plus version has over 32,000 DSO's in there which should keep you busy until SkySafari 7 comes out Here's the link to the version comparison page in case you haven't seen it: https://www.skysafariastronomy.com/skysafari-6-professional-astronomy-telescope-control-software-for-ios.html

The RASC NGC finest list. A good follow up to the Messier list. Based on this PDF. http://www.astrosurf.com/mmorin/pdf/rasc-finest-ngc-list.pdf RASC NGC Finest Objects-1.skylist Note that the Eastern and Western Veil is listed as 99a and 99b so the list is 111 despite the final count on the PDF being 110.

I thank the judges for their wise decision. Any indication of competence on my part is purely incidental. The competition was tight on this occasion and consider myself fortunate to have fought off so many other great entries. I will be printing the image off to blue tak it in my trophy cabinet alongside my other StuPOD winning images. Surely this now cements my place in the StuPOD hall of fame!

Tonight I present the conjunction of Saturn and the Moon. Inspired by a suggestion by @Davey-T to use Photoshop to combine two images to get the best of both objects. To keep within the rules of StuPOD, I used Pixelmator for iOS to take the better Saturn image and replace the a dimmer version capture of Saturn in the other image. Not a bad result if I do say so myself! The original two images can be seen on this thread:

Yes! A great day. This completes a hat trick of StuPODs for me. However, like my wife, I can never be satisfied and shall therefore continue to strive for further awards!

You should have seen the size of these pigeons, man. They had these weird eyes so you never quite knew if they were looking at you or not.

Agreed, John. The prize for today has been awarded PREMATURELY! I’m here to present my rather brilliantly overexposed and totally unprocessed Lunar X and Lunar V picture. Took this bad boy last week. Totally handheld. There were a couple of pigeons that kept looking at me funny while I took it. I could’ve been pecked to death but that didn’t stop me. I’m ready to die for my art. Anyway enough of my heroics. I present today’s clear winner:

Looks great. Am tempted to get this myself at some point!

Carefully crafted with Pixelmator for iOS ?

I found myself thinking that an award such as the StuPod needs a prize. There are strict rules and winning takes real dedication! I've created the following image that can be added to your signature. I should say that this image is in no way endorsed or approved by the judge of StuPod!

Christmas has come early in the form of an original Lumicon OIII filter! Looking forward to a shoot out between this and my Astronomik OIII

Thanks Philip. How did the Circle T compare? I have a 4mm Circle T Ortho which I really like

Good work. I lasted a week before getting another eyepiece after declaring I had all my planned purchases. This time...this time it’s different.... I will be strong

I don’t have the 18mm yet. You’re welcome to my second born child and whatever major organs Dave doesn’t want in exchange for it