lenscap

Stellarium has it at apparent Mag 14.7 in Capricorn in the early hours of June 7th. ( I think 20 is the Absolute Mag ) Much too challenging for me!

Hi kirkster, In UKABS select Ad Archives/Search Archives to reveal a search box that accepts a Boolean expression, eg +takahashi +mewlon I think you can only search 1 year at a time though. HTH

Hi Dan, welcome to SGL. I think the first thing you need is a celestial guidebook such as turn-left-at-orion This will show you the basics of using a telescope, has details of hundreds of objects to observe & shows you how to find them by "star-hopping" from naked-eye stars. Clear skies.

Hi John, I'm afraid you can't track the ISS with a Skywatcher Synscan mount. I believe it is possible with some high-end mounts, and maybe with a Meade LX200 with some custom software. Have a look at this thread on CN. https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/461325-the-best-telescope-to-track-iss/

Sunday 24th May, from 7:30pm BST, 200p F/5, EQ3-2, diy Onstep Goto. I've enjoyed watching Venus wane to a thinner & thinner crescent recently, but have never observed Mercury. Having the 2 planets & the Moon only a few degrees apart this week was an opportunity not to be missed. But the gap between the trees & the hill to my West is only about 1 "fist" wide - maybe 40 minutes of observing time. And the late sunset time means Venus would have moved behind the hill before becoming naked-eye visible. I don't have a permanent setup & can't see Polaris from my patio so I observe from a very rough "polar alignment" & have marked the tripod leg positions on the patio so I don't need to Polar, or Star align every session. So, having made sure to "Park" the scope at the end of the previous night's session I could just plonk the setup on the marks, "Unpark", "Goto Venus" & lo and behold a tiny crescent Venus appeared about 1 degree from the centre of the the 9x50 Finder in a sky that was clear of cloud but still pure white from the solar glow ! Isn't Goto wonderful ? Venus was such a beautiful thin 4% crescent with "horns" stretching to the meridian. At first it was shimmering but that must have been a heat plume because a tiny tweak of the focus steadied the image. The seeing was surprisingly good for the low altitude. I enjoyed the view at up to X250 (4mm TMB), before a Goto to Mercury. Mercury was not visible in the Finder but was a tiny dot in the 32mm Plossl. At higher powers I saw it as a 45% crescent. I know it was about 62% illuminated so the sky must have been too bright for me to see its full extent. I don't claim to have seen any detail - the brightness just reduced steadily from the limb towards the terminator. I still couldn't see the Moon naked eye so did another Goto & looked in the Finder. Nothing ! But the bright sky must have been fooling my eye because when I forced myself to focus at infinity it popped in sight. The visible crescent was about half the thickness of a crosshair ! In a 20mm Plossl I could see about 6 medium sized faint, ghostly craters along the limb of a 4% crescent. So in about half an hour I had my first sight of Mercury, & seen my thinnest crescents of Venus & Luna. Isn't this hobby fantastic ? 😀

Hi Spyros, The Celestron 20mm erecting eyepiece contains a set of "Amici" prisms which flip the image to allow terrestrial use, but which may be causing the problem you describe. If you wish you can remove the slotted retaining ring at the bottom of the eyepiece and extract the cage containing the prisms. The eyepiece will then produce an inverted image, like any normal astronomical eyepiece, and the view will be much improved and noticeably brighter without the prism set. The field of view will still be just as narrow though, about 30 degrees. Upgrading to an inexpensive Plossl eyepiece (52 degrees afov) would be a worthwhile improvement. Clear skies!

I don't think so John, from the coordinates in the original post I think that the OP is in the Philippines. 😀 I checked Stellarium for his time & location & the ISS was not visible.

Hi Tcerbulis15, If the EQmod EQASCOM driver had been installed it would show up in the ASCOM Telescope Chooser drop-down list in Cartes du Ciel, even when the computer is not connected to the mount. I suggest you download the driver file ( EQASCOM_V200q_Setup.exe ) from the top of the list of drivers at https://sourceforge.net/projects/eq-mod/files/EQASCOM/ , find it in your downloads folder, and run it to install the driver.

Yes, the HEQ5 synscan & syntrek worm gear ratios are 135:1 and the motor gear ratios are 5.222 which gives an overall gear ratio of 705 motor revs for each rotation of the mount axes.

Hi spillage, There is an example in program files/ciel/data/horizon/ and here it is . . . horizon_Geneve.txt

"There are tobacco stains on this eyepiece Hubble ! Have you tried Baader Optical Wonder Fluid ? "

Hi Toms, I assume you are using this guide; http://www.eqdrive.com.ua/en/support/статьи/first-steps-with-eq-drive and that you have installed the ASCOM platform, the EQmod EQASCOM driver, and the appropriate virtual COM port driver , and configured EQDrive. Then open Cartes du Ciel and click on the Telescope tab. When the ASCOM Telescope Interface opens, click Select. When the ASCOM Telescope Chooser appears select EQMOD ASCOM HEQ5/6 , configure that & use it to drive your mount. It appears to me that EQDrive emulates the HEQ5/6, so you need to select that mount from the drop-down list, and "EQDrive" does not appear on the list at all.

Most Goto mounts, including Synscan, have a "Park" facility which causes the mount to remember it's star alignment when the power is switched off (provided the setup is not moved of course).

Hi Nyctimene, If your object crossed a more or less full lunar disc in 30-40 seconds that's an apparent movement of, say 1 deg/minute which is much too slow for most satellites which are in low earth orbit. The ISS averages about 20 deg/min and about double that near the meridian where you were looking, so perhaps something in a higher orbit. I used Previsat to find a satellite that fitted an object that I observed transitting the moon during a recent partial eclipse. http://previsat.sourceforge.net/ Put in your time & location & see if anything crosses the moon. Here is the thread on my observation.

Hi Miguel, The Stellarium graphic shows a fov of 80 arcmin X 50 arcmin, which is an aspect ratio of 1.6 to 1.

When I got my 200p a few years ago I was disappointed that the only galaxy that I managed to spot from my light polluted backyard was M31, and just the central core of that. But a report on here inspired me to try harder, and last spring I was able to add M32 and M81 to my tally. Just small dim fuzzies of course with slightly brighter cores. So this moonless week I decided to try for a few of the brightest Virgo galaxies, based on the Surface Brightness values in Stellarium. Wednesday 22 April, from 11.30pm BST, 200p/F5 , EQ3-2, diy Onstep Goto. M87 SB 12.6. To my surprise I saw this immediately in my 32mm Plossl. A uniform, circular misty patch, presumably the brighter core. Better in the 10mm but no structure. M49 SB 12.9 A barely visible, more or less circular fuzzy. Again no detail, but amazing to be able to see objects over 50 million light years away, as they were 50 million years ago, with just a few small pieces of glass! M104 SB 11.45 As the brightest of the three I thought this should have been doable (through a gap between in my neighbours trees) but I could see no trace of it. I suppose the low altitude (25 degrees) meant there was just too much atmosphere to look through & too much light pollution. I don't like to end a session with a fail so I headed for Ursa Major in search of M82 SB 12.4, the Cigar Galaxy. I centred on M81 (so much easier to spot once you've seen it before!) & after checking the eyepiece view in SkySafari, moved it to the edge of the 32mm fov to bring M82 into the frame. Was there something there? I tapped the scope. Yes, a barely visible, long, thin streak. Much clearer in the 10mm. I tried the 4mm TMB and it was still visible & with the narrow fov I could estimate that it was about 8-10 by maybe 2 arcmin. Definitely cigar shaped. So I'm delighted to have increased my bag of "Bortle 8" galaxies to 6 !. Can I get to double figures? The Quest continues . . . . . 😀

Hi Nick, These coloured doubles will be easily seen in your Dob, no filters required. Your 8mm will be fine for these targets, (x150 in your 200p/F6). Have a look with your other eyepieces as well, and see which you prefer. I had a good view of Izar recently at x140 in my 200p/F5 so your 8mm should split it if the seeing is good. In poor seeing you may not get a clean split, but will still be able to see that it is a double with yellow & blue components. How much colour you see depends on your eyes. I can see colours with both but much more vividly in my right eye than my left. Enjoy.

Have they stitched 1st quarter and 3rd quarter images together so that the central area appears as it does when near the terminator?

In the Synscan V4 Manual have a look at Section 5.8 User defined objects.

There are some really nice doubles on this list from Sky & Telescope; https://skyandtelescope.org/observing/celestial-objects-to-watch/pretty-double-stars-for-everyone/ Enjoy!

Hi kman, When you run the AstroEQ configuration utility you have the option to set the RA & Dec axes to run in forward or reverse directions to suit the physical arrangement of your motors & gears as explained here; https://astroeq.co.uk/tutorials.php?link=config

I am about to flock my 200p with the "self-adhesive black velvet jewellery lining" material that you can find on ebay. It is very black. As the description suggests it is intended for lining shelves & display cases in jewellery stores. If you know anyone in the jewellery trade they might know where to get some locally.

There is a good EQ3-2 strip-down guide here; If the stiffness is caused by a mal-adjusted Dec worm drive a full strip-down is not needed. Just loosen the relevant 4 clamping bolts and patiently make tiny adjustments to the grub screw until it is just right, as described in the guide.

Hi Paul, After you have switched on, initialised, (date, time, if necessary, site), but before beginning an alignment routine, select a fast slewing speed (7, 8 or 9) with the number keys. Do the arrow keys work now? Do they move the relevant axes in the correct direction? Also the time zone for the UK is E00 (or W00, same thing.)

"Moving away from us you say, Hubble ? Well it looks pretty damn stationary to me!"