Waddensky

Oh, wonderful, what a beautiful image. The dark nebulae really give a sense of depth with all those background stars. And it looks like the brightest part of IC 2087 is hidden from our perspective :).

The Interstellarum atlas displays position angle, separation and magnitude difference of double stars on the charts, which is quite convenient in the field - although I find the indicator lines a bit hard to distinguish in the dark. The Cambridge only has physical doubles - real binaries - if I recall corectly.

Great report, thanks! A wonderful selection of fine doubles. I almost always pay a visit to Algieba when I'm out, it never fails to impress me.

Crumey (2014) suggests grey (SQM 20.25-21.24), black (SQM 21.25-21.74) and pristine (SQM 21.75-22.00) as a dark sky classification.

If you zoom in, you'll notice that the streak ends (or starts) at the bright star. So I agree with the last two posters, it's most likely a trail caused by movement of the scope.

Yes, no other smudges in that neighbourhood visible with binoculars under these circumstances. That's a tick! Congratulations! The galaxy is readily visible to the naked eye if your skies are dark enough.

Here's an exaggerated illustation of the differences. As Andrew says, a spherical mirror is not able to focus all light in one point, creating a blurry image as a result. This may or may not be a problem depending on the mirror diameter and magnification. Image source

Wonderful objects visible over there from the sourthern hemisphere! Lovely report, thanks for sharing. M78 is quite obvious for a reflection nebula but it's small and poor transparency or light pollution will make it difficult to find. The two central stars @Jiggy 67 mentions are a great 'landmark' to locate it, it always reminds me of a miniature Orion Nebula for some reason.

Messier 1 is a tough one, and really suffers from light pollution or poor transparency. Then again, it also depends on your expectations. Most deep-sky objects are just that: dim, fuzzy patches. Stellarium shows a photographic view that doesn't look anything like the view through the eyepiece. There are some deep-sky objects though that will lift your spirit: try the double cluster (NGC 869 and NGC 884), the Orion Nebula (Messier 42), Messier 13, and the 'charioteers' Messier 36, 37 and 38 for example. They are easy to find and bright enough to observe under less-than-optimal conditions. Good luck!

I second the advice to try them out at night. What kind of difference in image quality did you expect?

I think it mainly depends on your expectations (and to a lesser extent on your equipment). Planets will never fill the field of view or show details you see on pictures: they are always (very) small disks - most likely much smaller that you'd expect, and it takes a lot of experience to discern surface details on Mars. That said, Mars is well past opposition so conditions are not very favourable at the moment. But if you look closely and compare the view of Mars with that of a bright star, you'll see that the planet is not a pinpoint of light but a small disk, and you might even see that Mars is not 'full' at the moment but a bit 'gibbous'. Just keep on trying, it's worth it!

Had a (spoiler alert: unsuccessful) go at Sirius last night with my 8". Warming up: Sigma Orionis lovely as always, Rigel was a clear split at 150x, with B suprisingly distant from A (I am used to estimating separations but the bright primary plays tricks on my estimation skills apparently ;)). The difference between the bright, scintillating A and the still, dim secondary right next to it was striking and very beautiful. Trapezium's E and F were nowhere to be found, strangely, but the surrounding nebulae were bright and contrast-rich. I can spend a whole night observing M42, it's so incredibly beautiful. Then over to Sirius. The bright star was placed lower than Rigel of course, and quite some time before transit, but I figured I'd give it a try. With the separation of Rigel in mind, I scanned the area around the fiery primary. The effect of Sirius in the scope is quite different from Rigel. A large, boiling mess at 150-300x with quite a lot of atmospheric dispersion. Sometimes, I thought I saw a steady, tiny pinpoint in the glare following the primary as Sirius drifted through the FoV, but it wasn't there all the time and I really cannot say for sure that B was really there or my imagination (and my desire) created 'puppies' out of A's glare. Tonight looks clear too, I'd really like to give it another go. It's a great challenge and very rewarding hunt!

Another nice target in this category is NGC 2169 😉. The double cluster is lovely, I almost always visit the pair when I'm out with my binoculars. They're visibile to the naked eye as a dim patch of light from my location: I tend to point them out to uninformed stargazers to illustrate that there's more to see than just stars with the naked eye.

Here's a link to a research paper by Ken Wishaw arguing that orange is actually slightly better than red to preserve dark adaptation. And because of the improved contrast, it makes charts easier to read too. The subject was also discussed in a 2019 issue of Sky & Telescope. That's why some of the stargazing apps I use have an orange/amber night mode. It's still a topic of discussion, apparently 🙂. I use a Rigel Skylite at the telescope, it has white and red leds that are fully dimmable. I've put some tape over the glass to diffuse the light a bit more. They are excellent.

There is no PC edition of SkySafari (see here). If you want to run it on a PC, you need an Android emulator but I'm not sure this will work. The publisher of SkySafari also makes Starry Night, this software is available for Windows.

And dark!

A warm 'welkom' from Friesland, Peter!

M31 will always be a large smudge without much detail (still, an incredibly distant smudge!), but the moonlight makes observing the galaxy even more difficult. In general, deep-sky observation is best done when the Moon is below the horizon. Coming back to you original question: try to find out when the astronomical twilight ends at your location. This happens when the Sun is 18 degrees below the horizon and is considered 'true darkness' from the viewpoint of a stargazer.

The Heritage 150P has a small footprint and can easily be stored, try to find some unboxing videos so you get an idea of the size collapsed - it's smaller than you'd expect! A dobson like this telescope has a mega solid base so you don't have to mess around with flimsy mounts or invest in a decent alt-azimuth mount. Its aperture is large enough to enjoy many years (some say: a lifetime) of observing and the scope can easily be upgraded with new eyepieces or other accessories in the future. It's not suitable for photography, but that usually requires another setup altogether - it's a whole other branch of the hobby.

What a great series of events in short time frame! Must be a wonderful sight. Oh, and a year later Halley's comet is back - with a much more favourable apparation than in 1986.

Space Engine is great. It supports different kinds of VR headsets and the new nebula rendering engine is breathtaking. You can also build and control spaceships, which is really great to understand orbital mechanics. I'm not really sure, but it's possible that an older stand-alone version is still available as a free download. Celestia is free, but no longer maintained if I recall correctly.

Depends on the focal length of the scope and the eyepieces used. Binoculars will show the pair very nicely.

About 1.75 degree at conjunction: https://earthsky.org/?p=345958. The Moon is near too!

I agree with Pixies, it's not seeing but transparency you're talking about. The extinction effects of the atmosphere are caused by dust, smoke and other aerosols (absorption) and Rayleigh scattering. Here's an intersting article on the subject. Edit: and yes, both horizontal transparency and night time transparency are caused by the same effects, although things can change significantly after the Sun sets, just like clouds.

I'm really enjoying the fantastic images posted on this forum made by people like you willing to endure all these difficulties, but after reading stories like this I'm sooo glad I'm purely a visual observer. I drag my dob outside, and if there's fog, I drag it back in.