Ed in UK

Same here, checked four times already. Looks like a beer may be in order.....

Thanks for posting that CJG, downloaded and saved. Someting to get my teeth into and keep me engaged for a few years 😁😁 or the rest of my life.......

Thanks Mr Spock & Globular. Some great ideas there, especially like the idea of a text link so you can at least find the drawings associated with the observation. I'll give this a try.

Some great advice above and I'd struggle to add to that. Personally I struggled with Star Hoping but Sky Safari was a game changer for me. As well as adding the overlay of your equipment, you can adjust the "Star Magnitude" level to match what you see in you scope which I found useful. Also the App gives you the ability to flip and invert your the map/display so you can get it to match what you see in the scope. Good luck with it all. 👍

Thanks Ian. It'll probably come to that for me, just trying to digitize it as much as possible.

Luckily enough I've been recording all my sessions and observations on the platform provided by Sky Safari 6 (Livesky IIRC) The downside is that it's text only pretty much, so if you have a sketch of your observations then there's no way of attaching that sketch to your session/observation (as far as I'm aware). Are there any other online platforms that allow you to do this ??? I have no objection to paying a small fee for the service. I'm normally pretty poor at keeping notepads and bits of paper in order, so a way of linking a drawing/sketch (as a photo or PDF) to a observation would be useful for me. I really like the way that SS6 and Livesky interact with each other, this would be the icing on the cake for me. Interested to hear how other people record their session/observations digitally along with any other info that you gather such as Sketches etc. TIA

Nice Report, gives me come confidence and hopefor the future. The GRS is a something I want to see and to be able to observe a transit would be great, detail in belts would be mind blowing for me. After my view of Jupiter last night it left me qusetioning if my 4" was going to be capable of letting me see that. But after reading your report here it inspires me to get more time at the eyepiece and hopefully unlock these views. I struggle with focusing with on greater magnifications but I guess time and experience will help me develope that skill. Thanks for reporting.

Well despite all the poor weather of recent I finally took the bull by the horns and went out with my scope last night. The sky was pretty poor really, loads of cloud around and only the brightest of stars available to look at. So I decided that Jupiter would be my target for the night and it didn't disappoint. It's been nearly two years since I last used my scope so I was expect to be a little rusty etc. So it was straight onto Jupiter and I was quite surprised to be able to pick out the banding pretty much striaght away. Seeing wasn't great with the planet frequently burring. The four moons stood out nice and clear. I dropped from 25mm EP down to 18mm. Banding and moons still good. I was going to change to 12mm EP but with the amount of cloud starting to obscure the planet I felt it wouldn't be long before I lost it. After 30 mins the cloud pretty much blotted out everything so I called it a night. Although short, my last session was back in Jan 22 so pretty pleased to be back in the race again and looking forward to posting more and reports here with more sightings....... Thanks for reading. Ed

Thanks Scotty1 & Pete Presland. Downloaded the AuroraWatch UK app and signed up to the Glendale App as well. One day hopefully we'll get to see it.....🙂

Thanks, greatly appreciated.

Hope I'm posting this in the right forum, Mods please move if not (Sorry in Advance....) Did anyone in the UK see the Aurora Borealis last night please ???? and if so where abouts were you ??? I'm just north of Lincoln and it's my wife's goal (now) to see this, it was in the media yesterday that you should be able to see it. I downloaded an app, Aurora, which seemed quite helpful in showing KP Activity (??), probability of seeing it and sightings. We watched as the sightings as they moved across northern Russia, Finland, Norway to Iceland then off to southern Greenland. Nothing for UK. The App shows somemore up coming activity later on this month, so you never know. Are there any other better apps?? I had my camera on a tripod and took a photo of the sky around every 10 mins looking for hints of pink or green, but alas nothing. Finally gave up at 1am and headed home. Hopefully got a nice(ish) shot of Orion. Great thing is it's inspired me to finally dust off my scope and get back out there over the fourth coming week. Look forward to hearing from you guys. Ed

I was looking at Mars last night but would have struggled to make out any detail. The planet will appear like a bright red/orange star at 25mm and a small red/orange disc at 10mm. Both images should be relatively sharp. When out of focus the planet will appear as a fuzzy ball. Are you sure that you have the eye piece sitting in the holder correctly ? With my limited knowledge it sounds like you have a focusing problem. If you can use your scope during the day have a look at a distant object such as a tree or a building and make sure that you can get that in focus. If you can't use the scope during the day then use the moon. Again check to see if you can obtain focus. Stars should appear as pinpricks of light and not fuzzy balls. Let us know how you get on. Good luck.

Thanks everyone. I'll give a high magnification a try. 👍

In Sky Safari you can preset the visual magnitude to only show certain stars etc. Stellarium is free though.

I use these eye pieces with my scope and I saw a massive jump in quality. So much better than the kit EPs. I have the 18mm, 12mm and the x2 Barlow. All give a great viewing experience. I decided to stick with the kit 25mm as that seems to work fine for me.

Although I've had my scope for a couple of years it hasn't had much use and I'm pretty much still inexperienced. The other night I was looking at M13 which pretty much matches everyone's description of a fuzzy ball. I couldn't really say that I could start to resolve any of the stars, maximum magnication was x100. Would a Ultra High Contrast Filter help? If so any recommendation please. TIA. Ed

Some great advice here for you. For me I would say that planning is key a successful nights gazing. I use Sky Safari 6 Pro for my digital map and it has a facility where you can compile observing lists so you can plan what to look at. I fund it extremely useful. Plus one on the Turn Left at Orion, worth every penny. It can be a bit confusing at first but stick with it. 😀