Wiu-Wiu

I did manage to quickly scan them  

Here they are in the usual digital way:

A week ago, we went to a dark sky area at the German border. Conditions were a little hazy at first, but cleared up during the night. 
 

temperatures dropped to minus 5; the first time in freezing temperatures with the 18”. 
my dew control needs a bit more tweaking. Everything was dripping wet before the session started, so the dew heater on the secondary was fired up from the start, and my batteries died at about 2 a.m., after which I cut the session short and went to bed. 
 

the session was mainly comparing views between my 18” Nichol and the brand new 20” Lockwood of a friend, both Sumerian Canopus. 
(there ìs a difference, ofcourse, but the 18” stands his ground, luckily  )

I’m posting the raw sketches, as it might take a while before I get a chance to digitalise them. Sketches are all up close and personal this way, sorry for that.

first one: NGC 7814; The Mini Sombrero.

Next up: Messier 1 - I NEVER before saw this much structure and detail in it! The 20” showed even more. 
best views were in lower magnifications, with a 2” O3 filter. 

last one is Jones 1; Jn1 in my atlas, also dubbed ‘the headphones nebula’. The circular glow is also best viewed in the largest apertures and dark skies, anything lower might only show the 2 lobes. 

Taken on 2 nights, 72 subs of 300 seconds. One night at home, the second night at a dark site. Both with the Esprit, equipped with HA-OIII filter. 

Yeah, I must have misread that. 
It’s probably better this way, for people who use it to observe, I have lists ranging from ‘to see at home’, ‘to see at a dark location’, over lists that vary per telescope, or lists of objects I want to sketch or image. As I observe, objects can be added quickly to any other list, that’s quite handy. 

(It’s only a lot of work to delete objects from lists.) 

1 hour ago, Zermelo said:

Does anyone know if V7 has fixed the annoyance that there's no easy way to differentiate objects that you've previously observed from those that you haven't? (the ticks against objects in the observing lists mean that you have observed those objects as part of that observing list, so the absence of a tick doesn't mean that you've not observed it previously, from a different list)

Yes, on the top of each (note: EACH) list are three possibilities: show all, show observed, show unobserved. 

On 05/11/2021 at 22:07, JeremyS said:

I got an alert this morning about this 50% upgrade offer.

It does seems pricey. I’ve not investigated what I get extra from the money.

Besides the changes they made for this edition, one day you will probably stop getting updates on SS 6, as usually happens with ‘old’ apps. If you take the plunge later, it will probably be more expensive. 
 

i’ve only browsed around in it for a bit, setting it up to the way i’m used to, takes a bit of searching though, but i did run into a couple of new features that look handy while observing or creating lists. 
 

remember to save your settings into your livesky account! 

Thanks for the feedback, all!
 

Why the sad face, @Littleguy80 ? 

When imaging the Bubble Nebula last week, I noticed this nova is still quite bright. At first glance, it is almost as bright as that one star to the upper right of the Bubble, Vmag 6,944

29P is over its outburst, but looking into the core, it is slightly V-shaped now. 

67P is brightning quite well, visually there is already a tail sprouting, but photographically it is much, much longer. 

And finally I was able to catch this guy, at dawn. Brightning very well, keep an eye on this guy as it is going to pass close to some DSO's by the end of November - early december.

NGC 404 - Mirach's Ghost was appropriate in this time of year - Quite the challenge with Mirach shining all over the place. 

NGC 7635 - The Bubble Nebula with M52 is a lovely pair. I never took the time to image them for a longer period of time, so here goes: 

Imaged earlier this week on a clear night, Esprit 120 with ASI 071 MC pro, HA-OIII Duo narrowband filter. 

Cem 60 - Asiair pro.

I live close to a soccer stadium, and the practice fields are lit up pretty much every night. The big field lights only go on when their first team plays. This is my sqm measurement graph on such a night: 

when the lights go off, the sqm jumps from 18 to 19. 
 

can’t wait to move away from this place.

Surprise of my night must have been this beauty! When seeing the image in DSS it also looks like an interesting photographic candidate. 

Lots of detail presant, the entire galaxy is curved into a raw S- shape, but shows an internal dark lane, and brighter spots. Very nice one! 

Earlier this month, I went to a dark sky area during the New Moon period. I usually take pictures, and meanwhile I observe visually. 

While processing my pictures and sketches, I noticed I have made an almost simultaneous observation with both rigs. And I thought it would be fun to compare both side by side. 

Did they open a prison on the side? 

I’ve seen the propellor with my 12”; I think it’s a matter of seeing more than anything else. 
Ever since my son was a little boy, M13 has been his favorite object, so we’ve watched it A LOT 😅 

actually, the first view with the 18” was dedicated to M13. It was another sight! The whole cluster is riddled with dark lanes, and there were actually 2 ‘propellor’ like features. Give it another try next time  

while waiting for another object to rise, I was able to gather some data on this lovely globular cluster, before it disappears for the winter. 
 

I took 2 sets of subs, 120 and 300 seconds, hoping to resolve the core more. 
My processing skills could be better, so I let APP do its thing, then processed it further in Pixinsight. 
 

I do love the blue stars popping out. 
 

Esprit 120 on cem 60, asi 071mc pro.
 

This comet was indergoing an outburst just before I started to image it. 

I took 3 consecutive nights of data and superimposed them on the same starfield, it shows the movement of the comet, as well as its changes in appearance. 

Hope you like it  

YVW. That screenshot is Skysafari, btw. It has a lot of visible asteroids in the database (you need to update it from time to time, although it does do it by itself too). 

For PHOTOGRAPHIC creepy crawlers, I would recommend importing the MPEC database into Cartes Du Ciel. It's a pain to do and if you don't use it often, a reason to lose some of your hair, but it does show you ALL known asteroids in an area at a certain time. You know, because it's fun  

(796) Sarita and (793) Arizona, to be exact.

Imaged over 3 nights, but had to throw away 6 hours because I forgot to rotate the LPS filter out of the way. 

Kept 121 x 300s of Luminance, high clouds passed over during observing, but since I was in a dark sky park, I didn't see them. (hey, did I just find a downside to dark skies?)

This is my first try to image an actual dark nebula (besides B33), they need a lot of integration time, and very dark skies. Always trading off against other targets in quality skies. But I must say, it doesn't disappoint. 

Esprit 120 on cem 60 - ASI 071 mc pro. guiding and aquiring by asiair pro.

I was observing galaxies and crossing NGC's off my list tonight, during a quick getaway to a dark location for the rest of the week. 

When I come across something peculiar or quite pleasing to the eye, I tend to make a sketch of the view.

So I came across NGC 784. A surprisingly big and mottled streak with no further details but in a nice field of stars. Out came the sketchboard and I started to soak up the details. 

As my eyes were becoming more dark adapted (I use skysafari for starhopping and it is handy but kills my night vision), I noticed a round wooley patch when lookking with averted vision. 

I moved it in and out of view a couple of times, or in another spot in the FOV, but there was definately something there... 

...but not in skysafari... (And I bought the extension pack so I have a lot more stars and galaxies in the database..) 

Sometimes I limit the magnitude to 15 or even less, depending what skies I'm in, in order to clean up the screen and only look at the stuff I can see. I bumped up the magnitude to maximum... Still nothing there. 

Last resort: DSS survey check.. And there it was... A mag 15 galaxy in the place where I saw the nebulousity. Darn it! 

There is a very red star in other images at that location. Probably your modded DSLR picks up more of this band than the other ones. 

https://www.ing.iac.es/PR/science/m27.html

I use Skysafari and download the latest MPEC database to it. I think it is limited in how many objects there are it it though.  You can do the same in Cartes Du Ciel - that is the ENTIRE database- but it takes a bit more hands on work. 

I don't know what to make of that. 

Every object transits the meridian (the line from north to south). An equatorial mount will try to track it as long as possible, until something runs into the tripod, or the mount runs into itself. Enter: the meridian flip. Check your settings in the handset at how your mount treats the meridian. It could either stop, or flip at, before, or after the object transits. if possible: turn it off (let the asiair handle it)

Don't polar align again if you start up. It should be okay after the first time. When powering down, let the scope park in the zero position. That should be roughly pointing at polaris, scope on top, weights pointing at the floor, looking north. 

Then power down. When powering up; don't touch the handset anymore. Just tell asiair to go to an object, let it platesolve (or do it manually), and it should work after 2 or 3 times. When the asiair knows you are in zero position, it roughly knows where you should be looking at and where your target should be from there. It will slew, platesolve, and recenter until good. 

Good luck!