Geoff Barnes

Apologies if this has been posted elsewhere, I couldn't find it. Interesting article on SpaceWeather.com about the comet being affected by the recent solar storm that gave earth all the auroras....

It has often occurred to me how fantastic this hobby would be if the earth didn't have an atmosphere. Oh, hang on.... 🤔

Indeed! 😜

My SW 12 inch Dob pointing at Jupiter this evening. Those who remember my photos from a couple of years ago may remember the scope pointing almost vertically at Jupiter, now it's at about 35 degrees altitude and nowhere near as clear an image. I did just about manage to see the shadow transit of Europa I think it was which made it worthwhile. Orion is nearly clearing the tree tops now and that will be much higher in the sky for some quality viewing pleasure.

You're dead right there John. Down here in Oz Sirius rides high in the sky and spotting the Pup is one of the first things I try to start a session just to assess how good the seeing is on any given night. With my 12 inch Dobsonian I manage to spot it about 80% of the time. Now something like the Double Double in Lyra hugs my northern horizon and proves really difficult to separate, just a fuzzy mess most times. Horses for courses!

No updates for a year, rather concerning. Hope all is well?

I think it should be spelled "Brutal" for anyone living with the light pollution that most suffer from! 😕

One for you solar imagers to aspire to! https://twitter.com/mastronomersr/status/1711033219464773942/mediaviewer

Phew! Now I know what people who go cold turkey go through! It was like losing a major limb not being able to use SGL. How did we all cope?

This is interesting from NASA Juno satellite... https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/jpl/nasa-s-juno-mission-captures-lightning-on-jupiter

I won't have a view of this, but for those who do it should make a pretty sight over the next two days....

I guess I was incredibly fortunate when I first bought my 12 inch Dobsonian that the likes of Jupiter Mars and Saturn were very high in the sky, over 70 degrees altitude down here in Oz. The resulting views were amazing, so much detail and colour. Now they are rapidly lowering in the sky and while still not bad, the views are visibly poorer most of the time and it is a struggle to tease out the details I saw a couple of years ago. If the seeing is poor it's not even worth bothering and I tend to stick to doubles and clusters now.

My first thought was your power supply was possibly getting weak @M40. I find my GoTo system, while usually reliable, can occasionally throw a wobbly for unknown reasons, but is completely unreliable when the battery power supply is getting low, misses the target by miles. Other than that I have no idea .

Success, at last! Gosh it took a while! With the help of SkySafari I was eventually able to zero in on the exact location just below a small parallelogram of stars. It is much dimmer than it was the last time I saw it and I think I must have gone past it several times without seeing it. Still a beautiful ruby red though as always, but just a tiny speck easily missed. Happy now!

Hind's Crimson Star is perfectly placed for me in the evening to observe, and I do recall seeing it a few years ago. I spent about an hour last night scouring the area of sky equidistant from Mintaka and Rigel in a straight line and do you think I could find it, nope not at all. Very frustrating as I know where to look for it. I can only presume it is a lot dimmer than the last time I saw it. Will try again tonight, fingers crossed.