Captain Scarlet

We’ve had a good run of clear nights further west here too, thankfully with less wind. Have you had your 12” on M13 yet? That certainly will not be disappointing! I like your reference to Graff’s Cluster, a favourite of mine. It’s half of Tweedledum and Tweedledee, a match for the Double Cluster IMO. Great read, Magnus

My effort

Just saw the eclipse, very nice, worth getting up at 0340 for. Used my 400/2.8+1.4x extender to get a picture or two which I hope to post up later in the morning. For now, back to 💤.

You do need an adapter, Kowa make them. It screws into a thread on the inside of the prism housing once you’ve removed the native eyepiece. Changing between adapter-eyepieces is tedious, though. The eyepiece is secured via two small recessed grubscrews in the side of the adapter. You’d want to replace those small grubs with fully nylon or nylon-tipped ones as well, the supplied ones are all SS. Sometimes I don’t bother using the grubs so I can swap eyepieces more easily, though Delos needs to be placed about 5mm proud of the adapter to reach focus, so using “loose” would require a 5mm or so parfocalising ring. It’s not perfect but it works. And being able to use 100x++ on birds during a cool still day always amazes people.

0215 just plonked out my grab and go setup, Kowa 88mm and Delos 4.5 for 113x for a quick look before bed at Saturn and Jupiter, Saturn surprisingly sharp with Titan and Rhea on show, then Jupiter a bit less clear with all four moons strung out “right”. Magnus

Thermal gradient inside tube suggests itself as possibility to me too. Try rotating the tube a bit when you see it and see if the narrow bit shifts gradually to top position again

Thanks Craig. Yes I still have the az-eq6, but that takes two heavy-load trips or a wheelbarrow whereas I can carry this tripod-pier-mount out in one go. It seems the former is consigned to the 12” from now on.

I couldn’t believe it. The afternoon was beautiful and clear and all the forecasts had suddenly changed to suggest clarity for the whole night. And so it proved. Those were almost the same words I used to start my last report-worthy observing session, but that was more than two months ago, in early July. Three or four times since then, I had actually gone to the trouble of setting up only to have to put it away after weather rolled in. Extremely frustrating. Yesterday, all the circumstances fell into place. I wasn’t too tired. I had a free late afternoon to set up in leisurely fashion. I had nothing on early the next day to prevent a late night. I’ve had just one quick look at Saturn this apparition, a couple of weeks ago, literally only ten minutes before cloud rolled in. There’s been mention lately of Caroline’s Rose, so that got a look. Jupiter and the Pleiades featured. My latest mount is a Vixen GPD2 equatorial, which I bought as a purely manual mount but added a Skywatcher EQ5-style motor kit to drive the RA axis. I hadn’t yet had a proper extended session with this and I wanted to acquaint myself with how to use it in the field. That ruled out using my 12” newt – at around 22kg all-up, too heavy – so my Stellarvue 140mm at 12-13kg it was. At around 12-13kg this scope exceeds the ~10kg published stated capacity of the GPD2, but that figure seems conservative to me. The mount lives in my utility room right next to a SkyTee2, which has no official payload AFAIK but I’ve seen photos of people happily putting crazy stuff onto it, way beyond my 140mm (by the way I have seen “that” photo of the failed Skytee2). The radii of the GPD2’s RA and Dec axes are significantly bigger than those of the Skytee2: the GPD2 is altogether visibly chunkier. Add in the superior quality of the engineering in the Vixen (obvious in use), and I’m confident the Vixen will comfortably win any payload competition. So I have no problem loading the Vixen with 12-13kg of refractor. My only concern was whether the RA motor could handle the moment, which it turned out, it did. I pointed the mount North, levelled the mount head, attached counterweights and OTA and awaited darkness. What, levelled an EQ mount? I hear you ask. I’ve pre-set the mount’s Latitude bolts to point the mount exactly 51.4 degrees up from a level tripod-top, so once I’ve aimed the flat side-plates to my North aiming-point, I can be sure the RA axis is pointing sufficiently accurately at the NEP for visual use. And it makes my EQ “Go-To” method work (about which more below), which would be irritatingly inaccurate if I used only a rough polar-align method. My first target was, naturally, Saturn. To get the scope pointed in the right place I tried to imagine myself leaning over at the same angle as the RA axis and trying to “intuit” the RA and Dec axes as left-right and up-down from a bent-sideways position. I got there in the end, but it wasn’t pretty. Also, using the axis clutches to try to point at a particular place then fine-tuning with the slow-motion knobs I could see was going to become frustrating, perhaps a deal-breaker. Still, I got to Saturn in the end, engaged the RA motor clutch and started viewing. So lovely to have it kept in the field of view at high magnification. However, it was still quite early and Saturn was both rather low and over the heat-plumes of a handful of illegally-built (no planning permission, causing local silent outrage, and permanently-lit) camping-pod/huts further up the hillside. Saturn was a bit wobbly, Titan and Iapetus were visible and just the merest hint of Tethys off to the “left”. But no sign of Rhea, which I knew was supposed to be below the left-hand ring. Still, nice to see the nearly edge-on rings. I moved on to Caroline’s Rose open cluster, having read much on here recently. I checked where it was on SS, and having my Nikon 18x70s to hand as well, confirmed its position. It was an obvious smudge through the bins. But how to wrestle the manual EQ mount to point at it? I tried the “leaning over” method, but being so high up, it was difficult. Hmm. At this point I realized I was being an idiot. I quickly went back to Saturn, found it, checked its Declination coordinate in SS, and set the Dec setting-circle on the mount to that value. I then looked up the Declination value for Caroline’s Rose, released the clutch and turned the mount to that Dec value. Then all I needed to do was open the RA clutch, rotate it round until it was sure enough pointing directly at the target. Fine movements could then be done with the RA motor controls and the Dec slo-mo knob. The better your initial polar alignment, the better this works, obviously. A few words about the RA motor controller. It’s a very basic (Skywatcher) handset with four buttons, 8x FWD, 8x back (so not very fast and certainly not for slewing large distances), 1x fwds and 1x back, plus an on/off button and N/S button. In the very centre is a green LED to show that power is on. That LED, in the dark when you are dark-adapted, is BLINDING. Today I covered it with a layer of flock material. Power is a 6v input, for now provided by the supplied 4-pack of D batteries. I’d like to find a rechargeable 6v unit at some stage. Pleased with myself for working out how to manually “goto” with an EQ mount, I found and observed Caroline’s Rose. I used too much magnification at first, and was not at any stage able to see the faint stars behind the brighter ones. The rose-character I couldn’t really discern, even backing off the mag to as low as 30x (31 Nagler). I was definitely in the right place, I’d checked the surrounding star-patterns. By the time I got to it, the Moon had set and it was at least 21.3, so Moon-washing wasn’t the culprit. I’ll try again on another night and with a larger scope. I returned to Saturn. By now it was both higher and well past the heat-plumes. And I could easily see Rhea, invisible before, plus Dione off the top of the right-hand-side ring. There was plenty of colour and detail on the planet, the rings and where they crossed the disc. Very satisfying. At one stage (actually exactly 2313 because I immediately texted my Astro group “bloody hell, did anyone see that?”) whilst swapping between eyepieces, the whole landscape shockingly lit up as if daylight, like lightning but lasting perhaps a second or two. Everything was bright white. It cast my shadow towards Saturn, so I whirled around to catch the final moments of a meteor Bolide exploding, breaking up into five or so pieces and themselves exploding, low to the NW. It was the brightest meteor I have ever experienced, by a long way. And yet I’ve found yet who noticed it, very odd. Lastly, Jupiter was high enough for a look, but sadly he was still too low for a good view. Wobbly and some CA. It was my first view of him this season, though. I moved on to the Pleiades, always so lovely to see the refractor-sharp stars of all sizes, others so bright, and a hint of the hazy nebulosity. By now my eyepieces were starting to fog with a tell-tale haze around objects which definitely was NOT nebulosity, and I was getting cold so time to pack up. As I was doing so, around 0130 with leisurely return trips, I measured 21.60 at zenith, and the naked-eye transparency was extraordinary. Mars was obvious by now too, and very red. On nights like this I always pack up slowly to stop and gawp. And no hint of any Aurora. Thanks for reading, Magnus

Returning to Saturn later on its seeing was much better, being higher and having cleared the plume from some holiday-trailers on the hillside. Rhea was now obvious below the western rings; Tethys was clear, as was Dione plus of course Titan and far-out Iapetus. No hint of Enceladus, supposedly between Tethys and the planet.

Seeing not great here too, but was looking at Saturn towards the SSE and someone put on a very bright floodlight behind me or so I thought. I turned around to catch the brightest fireball I’ve ever seen in its last moments as it broke up into several pieces. Turned the night into almost dsylight, quite incredible

Beside myself with excitement. All forecasts agree, it’s going to be a good night. SV140/GPD2 set up and ready to go. The last four times I’ve done this ahead of time, it’s been cloudy by the time I’ve gone out. Fingers crossed.

Further to my earlier comments, when I “submit” to GnG I have to suppress resentment that I’m not using my very best scopes: the SV140 or the 12” newt, and the fear that by taking the very easiest option, I’m starting on a slippery slope of laziness and might never use the more-involved-to-set-up scopes.

I have the same pier and concur it really adds to the weight. I've thought of ordering a carbon tube from Klaus Helmerich to replace the steel one. M

The OP’s problem is one that I have wrestled with too, to the extent that often when an unexpected or so-so night has happened, “what scope?” indecision has prevented me from getting any scope out, resulting in me sulking inside and regretting it. My solution has been two-fold. A pair of 18x70 binoculars, which I hand-hold from a garden chair; or my Kowa 88mm spotting scope with either Delos 4.5 or 3.5 eyepiece pre-inserted on a photo tripod and Gitzo video head, giving me 113x or 146x and an easy hand-carry of the whole thing. Especially useful now that Saturn is handy. Magnus

Solid cloud forecast so imagine my surprise when I went outside at 2300 to see clear sky. High wind so I put on a coat, grabbed my 18x70s and headed to the sheltered side, where I keep a garden chair for just this. Mizar/Alcor & Sidus Ludoviciana, M81/2, M51, M101, M103, M52, Airplane asterism, Double Cluster, Saturn, M31, M32 and starting to get hazy again so barely a hint of M110. But a good crop in a 5 minute cloud gap. Magnus

I have several BB tripods, one Uni 18 two Uni 28s a Planet and a Report. Mounting my 140 refractor on the Uni 28 with either Vixen GPD2 or Skytee2, I found getting anywhere near zenith impossible: tripod-strike. I needed a shorter tripod and a pillar to make either work, that tripod being the Uni 18. Pillar on a 28 is too high. By the way Hahaha lololol! Magnus

Being entirely visual, I've only ever taken one deep sky photograph, which was of M31. That was in 2017, using my Canon 300/2.8 on my AZ-EQ6. In other words a 107mm fast refractor. I took nine 50 second subs and combined them in PI I think, using only its most basic integration tool. The little line of four stars that @vlaiv mentions seem reasonably sharp to me? I've attached the small cropped jpg and the much larger uncropped tif. Magnus integration_ABE_2.tif

After what’s been an age, a late-change-of-forecast heralded a clear night. I hadn’t yet seen Saturn at all this season so that was my priority, if nothing else. As it turned out, it was indeed nothing else, aside from Titan Rhea and Tethys. I had intended to move on to the Veil and M57, but the weather Gods had other plans. It was nonetheless a not-unsatisfying session, First Light for a couple of things: Vixen GPD2 mount (manual but driven in RA) and Baader VIP Barlow. Having an RA-driven mount is very nice, I must say. Saturn just stayed where it was in the eyepiece! Luxury. Clear whilst setting up, bands of cloud soon started arriving, so M31 was naked eye one moment, even Saturn obscured the next. I was finally driven to rush-pack-up by a heavy rain-squall. I got about 10 minutes observing in. Seeing seemed quite good and the view through the Barlow with Baader 10mm ortho was great, for only a few seconds before the cloud. I had my SV140mm on the GPD2, it seemed to pose no problems. Full report to follow, it merits one, I think. Magnus

You may well get an extra spike if there’s a straight edge on the secondary’s mirror silvering, where some tool was used to hold the mirror in place during the slivering.

I live near the coast at an elevated position overlooking Baltimore Harbour (Ireland) which is a roughly circular area of water about a mile in diameter with a narrow entrance to the open sea (the North Atlantic). I can regularly see diffracted waves arising from the outside swell and the narrow aperture. Mesmerising sometimes, actually. Magnus

I regard M101 as a more difficult version of M33. I lately moved from 20 miles from central London, Bortle 7ish or mag 19.1 to rural SW Ireland, Bortle 2-3 or mag 21.8. From the former, M33 and M101 were quite impossible through binoculars. M31 was possible but only as a hazy smudge. From Ireland, both are easily findable in 10x50 binoculars as obvious grey patches. Both seem to be bracketed by a trio of stars. However, on nights seemingly clear they can disappear entirely with just a small amount of poor transparency. The one that to me is a galaxy that n’existe pas is IC342 aka “Hidden Galaxy”. I’ve tried and tried and tried through 56mm binoculars but no luck. Perhaps my new 70mm bins will do the trick. And that moving the scope/FoV trick really does work! Magnus

Another vote for vertical launch

I promised an update on two posts ago (3.5 years) but of course forgot. I did get delivery of Klaus’ carbon tube, and it’s very good. I did a bit of fettling with that scope just this afternoon. It’s so good, I subsequently got an 8” tube as well. Both so stiff. Partnered with good mirror and OO cell👌. The only advice I’d give with his tubes: do the holes (focuser, finders, spider, mirror cell) yourself, if you feel confident enough for the design. Magnus

Yes totally I agree with that. Designing a secondary that’s smaller than the minimum to cover the principal cone is a waste of primary mirror size and a waste of weight. I bought a 200p with the same defect, the first thing I did was pull the primary as far back as it could go within its range, and put a Steeltrack onto it which also allows longitudinal movement: I needed it all. M

I'm not sure that first sentence is right. The purpose of an oversized secondary is to capture more of the off-axis light cone to produce a larger fully illuminated field. The edges of the secondary are always going to come into play as the light cone goes off-axis. Grinding away the edge or covering it with a lip is what helps avoid the edge-aberrations.