Captain Scarlet

Very nice inspiring read. It makes me want to get a Mak out, neither of mine have seen the sky for a while now. Cheers, Magnus

It weighs 1.29kg, so a fair bit heavier than the 0.80kg of the APM 8x50 finder it’ll be replacing for my 12”. But the 12” comes in at 21kg so the odd extra 500g won’t matter much. It’s forecast to be reasonably still with clear patches tonight so hopefully I’ll be able to give it its First Light, mounted on the Baader Stronghold you can see I’m the pic. I’ll compare it directly to the APM too… M

I initially added this to another thread but on reflection the other (3-years-ago-last-post) thread was the wrong place to put it, so I’ve put it here instead… I bought a one of these Evoguide 50 ED guide scopes on here a few weeks ago with the intention of turning it into a super-finder. The original plan was to do some surgery, i.e. to cut off some tube and use grubscrews to re-attach the focus unit and a diagonal. But experimenting by simply slotting a generic SW 2” diagonal I had spare, I found that my Panoptic 24 sat in at exactly infinity focus. The problem to solve was that the female thread inside the 50 ED’s tube appears to be M53, and the small difference between a 2”/51mm nosepiece and a 53 thread does not allow for any adapter. Besides, none seem to exist. So I very carefully wrapped the 2” nosepiece in a few layers of plastic tape, screwed it in and it’s fine, pretty solid too. No actual surgery needed. 242mm FL and 24mm eyepiece gives me almost exact a 10x50 68-degree well-corrected finder. It certainly looks very nice at distant objects terrestrially. It’s not RACI, but I don’t mind that. But my neck does mind it not being RA. I can’t wait now to try it out on my 12” … I reckon I’ll get as much pleasure looking through the finder as I will through the 12” eyepiece. Well, nearly as much. Cheers, Magnus

… deleted and placed elsewhere…

Not only that but if it were on top you’d hit your head on it whilst lowering your head to the main eyepiece

Thanks … my next target, skies permitting

Unexpectedly clear, I umm-ed and ahh-ed and roused myself to whisk out the LZOS 105 and ayo2 to see if I could finally get the whole Veil in one field (I did!), and to look for the North America and Pelican Nebula for the very first time. Both with my Baader 2” Oiii. Both successes, using the Nagler 31 for 21x and nearly 4 degree field, but neither terribly impressive, there was a milky sheen to everything such that the MW, so impressive two nights ago, was rather washed out. I popped in the Ethos 4.7 for quick looks at Jupiter and Saturn at 138x and that was it. Two “ticks” but to be revisited on a more transparent night. The Veil-in-one-field was good though. And there were 2-3 serious flashes from over the hill towards SSE, which I looked up were some heavy thunderstorms just off the coast of Brest. Magnus

Out here in the West Cork coastal countryside, I have over the past couple of years become good friends with a neighbour who’s Swiss/German and spends 4-5 months of the year over here. He, and particularly his (Irish) wife have on several occasions mentioned in passing that if I were to happen to do a shared session they would be keen to attend. They love the night skies here - most Easters I can get 22.0 on my SQM-L when the MW is down - and she even mentioned that a semi-tutored tour of these skies was one of her “bucket-list” items. Crikey, no pressure then. It's been stubbornly cloudy and quite windy since the latest Moon-down half-month started, but from a week ago, the forecast for Monday 29th had stayed clear, and so it proved. Monday it was, and I asked them to arrive around 2130 while there was still a vestige of twilight left. As it happened there were four of them: they had their daughter and her husband with them, and as it turned out the daughter was the most impressed by everything she saw. Definitely a future Astro-convert. They arrived as I was still aligning. I had two scopes out, my 300mm OO/Helmerichs Newt on AZ-EQ6, controlled by the standard SynScan handset; and my 105/650 LZOS refractor on an Ayo2. The newt I’d pre-installed with an Ethos 13 giving 141x, and the LZOS was given my Nagler 31 for 21x and 4 degrees FoV. I’d attached my Nexus DSC to the Ayo2 but in the end it was used purely manually, as they arrived before I had a chance to align it, and I can appreciate watching someone else align is rather tedious! I set up behind the house, facing South to East to get some planets in. I told them I’d give them a tour of the best example I could find of each of the main types of objects we visual astronomers like to observe: planets (obviously), double stars, globular clusters, galaxies, open clusters. In the end I forgot planetary nebulae: next time! Being still twilight, I pointed the 300mm to Saturn. The seeing seemed quite good, and there were quite a few moons on show. Cue gasps of wonder, one after another as they took turns at the eyepiece. “It doesn’t look real, it looks like a cartoon”. Next, I explained a little about double stars, how beautiful they can be and how most are not just pretty patterns, but actually gravitationally-bound systems. So I showed them Cygnus, pointed to its head and said that star, Albireo, is also known as “The Jewel of the Sky”. They were amazed at the vividness of the colours, and appreciated the trick of de-focusing to get the colours even more clearly. I let it pass that in fact Albireo is not a gravitationally-bound double, merely a pretty alignment. None of them had ever heard of the term “globular cluster”, so I drew their attention to the central “keystone” asterism of Hercules, and both the younger pairs of eyes could see M13 naked eye. It was on the very edge of detection for me, helped by knowing exactly where to look. Again, at the eyepiece, sounds of OMG! And Wow! As they looked at M13 at 141x. Our next object-type was “galaxy”. We were going to look at M31, of course, and for this I put in the Nagler 31 to give us 59x and 1.4 degrees. By now the Milky Way was prominent, SQM-L showing 21.5, so I quickly described that looking at the Andromeda Galaxy they’d be looking at a “Milky Way type” galaxy, but from a long way off. That the bright streaks of the Milky Way were more or less the same thing as the view of M31 initially confused them, but suddenly clicked when I said that everyone knows what a tree looks like, but it looks quite different when you’re sitting on one of the branches. I’d warned them that the thing about looking at a galaxy through a scope was not the incredible view, merely a fuzz, but the thought of what you were looking at. M31 was duly appreciated. Jupiter was just about high enough to be worth a look, and despite some atmospheric CA some detail was on show, and of course all four moons. Similar reactions to Saturn, partly at being able to see any sort of detail on a planet, but also its sheer size took everybody by surprise. Open Cluster was next, and my example of choice was the Double Cluster. Having ascertained where it was naked eye, they appreciated the beauty of the myriad pinpoints against black and the variety of colours and brightnesses. Finally, after a quick return to more gasps at Saturn, I suggested we try for Neptune. I warned them that it wasn’t going to be spectacular, but it would just about be a disc, and just about appear blueish. Just to be able to say they’d seen it. It was found easily enough. And throughout the session there was a steady stream of meteors, lovely! I must say, a most rewarding session, even though I forgot any PNs. I wanted to show them the Double-Double too but that was nearly vertically up, and one of the party would not quite have reached the eyepiece even with my steps. I think I’ve definitely caused the acquisition of at least one scope, and when I get around to founding a local Astronomy Society, they’re definitely in. Thanks for reading, Magnus.

Set up early and ready for the first session, once again, in what seems like AGES. My neighbours expressed an interest so I’ll be giving a tour of the greatest hits, with the LZOS at 21x and the 12” at 150x-ish. Cheers, Magnus

Shock horror … it finally got delivered! VERY worn packaging. At the bottom of the lane again (not wet because there’d been no rain for 3 weeks) but it took 3.5 months, and a re-order in the meantime. So I now have lots of extra highly specific mostly Torx bolts with various lengths widths and heads. Always useful. Magnus

I first saw the Veil with a Heritage 130 and Oiii filter, and more recently with my 200mm newt. I have no doubt that I’ll be able for it with my 105mm refractor too when the opportunity presents itself. All with the Oiii filter though, and at a quite dark location, 21.8. Through my 200, I could not see it after removing the filter, despite my dark skies. Magnus

Could anyone who owns a recent OO 12” newt, please do me a favour? Could you measure the distance (in the along-tube direction) between the primary cell attachment bolts (centre- point) and the rear face of the mirror. If you can tell how much rearward movement of the mirror you have, so much the better. It’s the minimum such distance I’m looking to discover. I’m looking to replace my old corroded thread-worn Skywatcher rear cell (containing an OO 300mm mirror) with an Orion Optics one. I have an OO 200mm cell and like it very much. But before I go ahead and place the order I want to know what that distance is, as I don’t have infinite OTA length to play with. See my terrible drawing below for an illustration of what I’m after. (And yes I have asked them, but I want the answer confirmed by a user). Thanks, Magnus

I have a tent space booked and but unfortunately I’m not going to be able to make it. PM me and I’ll give you my details. Magnus

That last one is in fact my favourite of the three

This sums up pretty much my experience of UPS in Ireland. Latest-but-one package still not delivered since May: they’re still asking for Customs to be paid even though I paid it in May and have supplied receipt numbers etc. Latest package delivered into the bushes at the bottom of my lane 100m away: this method standard delivery practice for them. M

Odd. Perhaps you have a spider-web with something attached to it in the eyepiece tube? How does it change for different degrees of in- or out-focus?

I reckon it’s a piece of dust somewhere near the eyepiece focal plane, ie sitting on one of the eyepiece lenses

I had the exact opposite experience. After an overnight drive from London arriving at 3am to an OS-map pre-identified random farmer’s field near Falmouth, cloud cover ruled. Until literally seconds before totality, when a small perfectly-positioned gap appeared and stayed wispy-transparent for the next few minutes. We couldn’t believe our luck.

I was out again last night 2nd night in a row until >2am. 8” newt, I didn’t bother with any recollimation from previous night. Saturn was the best I’ve ever seen, the first time definitely seeing the Cassini Division and atmospheric stripes too just about evident. Jupiter, lower and earlier also not too bad, plenty of detail. Caroline’s Rose and M11 lovely as ever. Oddest moment was while aligning on Polaris, a bright meteor streaked past as I was at the eyepiece. Christ what a shock, I nearly jumped out of my skin. Smoky afterglow stripe also stayed for a few seconds. I don’t expect ever to see a Perseid at 60x magnification again! Just too tired tonight though to use the 3rd consecutive clear night to observe 💤 Magnus

Well done. Enjoy those skies with your big dob. M

Until recently I had three pairs of Leicas, ranging from 20 years old to current models … none ever came with front lens caps. I never use front caps anyway, they stay in the boxes for my other bins, but I do find rear caps are essential. Btw this is a dangerous thread for me, I must hurry away quickly… M

Superb! Your first paragraph almost exactly describes my first view of the Veil a couple of years ago. My brother in law asked me to baby-sit his Heritage 130p while his house was being done up, and I’d just then got myself the same filter, an Astronomik Oiii. I had the same experience. Your labeling it as a window to a secret view of the sky is spot on. Cheers, Magnus

It seems it’s been nearly three months since I last had an observing session, mid-May was my last report. That was partly down to returning to the UK at the end of May to complete on my UK house sale, not taking any scopes with me, and partly the weather not being conducive once I returned to Ireland in early July. Twice though I got as far as setting out a scope to cool, only to have to bring it back in again under full cloud. Last night was third time lucky: although it was in fact cloudy as I was setting up, it was forecast to clear and clear it did. It turned into as transparent a night as I can remember here, mag 21.5 pointing the meter directly up at the Milky Way zenith-streak. I regret not having brought out the 12”, but I’m doing a re-arrangement of the garage at the moment and it would’ve been too difficult. As easy as possible was the order of the evening, so I grabbed my Ayo2 and stuck my Orion/Helmerichs 200mm newt onto it. Serge recently sent me some new firmware for my Nexus DSC, and I was keen to test that, too (my Ayo2 has encoders). Again for ease and convenience I sited it on the North-facing patio just outside the garage, a decision I would regret come the end of the session, as by 1:30 – 2am I could see Jupiter nicely elevated over the top of the house towards the South-East, but my mount wasn’t nearly high enough to get it through the scope. First up: Collimation. The tilt of the secondary needed tweaking a little for my Glatter to hit the centre-spot, which reminded me that I must replace the (Orion) Phillips-head fittings of those three collimation bolts. Trying to get my Phillips-head screwdriver to site-and-bite properly in the dark, and then having to apply actual inward pressure for enough purchase to turn the bolts cleanly was rather irritating. I have a full set of Torx and Hex fixings for this scope which I haven’t fitted yet. I much prefer Hex fittings for the secondary bolts (even over thumbscrews, actually), as the Hex-L tool provides totally non-slip leverage, and if necessary a very long arm for extremely precise small adjustments. The Primary’s collimation, the important one, was still spot on from my last session in May, as gauged with a Barlowed laser, so no adjustment needed there. After initial Alignment of the Nexus DSC, with a couple of false starts slewing below the horizon owing to the firmware having restored default settings to assumed scope Initial orientation (thinking I was starting pointing straight up as per Dobsonian as opposed to level), I was ready to go. First target: The Veil Nebula. The first filter I ever got two or three years ago was a 1.25” Astronomik Oiii, which I have used to observe the Veil a couple of times before, first in a Heritage 130p, then (I vaguely recall) in much more detail with a SW 300p. Recently I bought from @Astro_Gaz a 2” Baader Oiii filter. Although the case labels it as a CCD filter (what’s the difference between CCD and visual filters? It says narrowband 8.5nm on it, whereas the 1.25” Astronomik has perhaps a wider gap?), I have very dark skies here so I had good hopes for it for visual. I wasn’t disappointed. I put in my Nagler 31 + 2” filter (giving 32x, 2.5 degrees and 6mm exit pupil), tapped in NGC 6960 (Western Veil) and Wow! I’ve not seen it that wide-field before. I really got a sense of each prominent half being part of a single large bubble. With 2.5 degrees FoV I couldn’t quite get the whole thing into one field (I’ll need my 650mm FL LZOS 105 for that), but it wasn’t far off, and just by moving the scope a touch I could bring the other side into view. Pickering’s Triangle was also evident, a first for me, mainly because I knew where and what to look. I took out the Nagler 31 and replaced it with my DeLite 18.2, showing more fine detail at higher magnification (55x 1.1 degrees). Memorable. Finally I removed both filters and had a look again … no sign of the Nebula. Lots and Lots more stars, but I could not see any hint of the Veil. It’s possible it had moved out of the FoV, but also that the myriad extra bright stars simply drowned out the low-contrast feature. I’ll try again. Various failed objects in Cygnus. I had screenshotted @Nyctimene’s recent Cygnus report for reference during the session, and for ease chose from there just two open clusters, NGC 6910 “Rocking Horse” and M29 “Cooling Tower”. Stupidly, I hadn’t looked them up so didn’t really know what I was looking for, a schoolboy error with OCs. So neither was a tick. Next time, now I have looked them up. M31. I couldn’t resist having a look at the Great Andromeda Galaxy at 32x, and it was suitably satisfying, dust lanes evident and of course M110 and M32. I’ll never tire of looking at this. I also quickly looked at M33 which was easily enough evident, but lower down and in my worst “light-dome” direction. A patch of fuzz but no discernible spirality. M52, Nova (not), Airplane. I had an idea to look to see if the famously variable Nova in Cassiopeia was still around, so I found M52 (very nice in Nagler 31 wide-field), I found with some difficulty the Airplane asterism – nearly drowned in stars and not used to seeing it so big through a scope rather than binoculars – and quickly realized I was never going to find the Nova candidate with that many stars and without knowing its exact coordinates. So I gave up on that. I’ll try again with bins over the next few days. Is it still around? To finish off I also couldn’t resist the two show-stoppers, Epsilon Lyrae and M13. The double-double was beautifully resolved using my Delos 6 (167x), and similarly M13 was splendid, though I couldn’t make out the Propeller this time. I did just about find its little companion NGC 6207 though. By 2am it was time to pack up. The temperature had dropped to around 11-12 with a breeze, and although I was wearing a down jacket, my bottom half was only shorts and sandals. My freezing toes drove me in. All in all a satisfying if not especially ambitious session, but very pleased to get my dark-sky-Milky-Way fix. I find it’s good for my mental health. And, I noted afterwards, NO DEW, yet again. Last year I seemed to have been cursed with it, but IIRC the last 10 sessions I’ve had there’s been barely any. Very lucky. As I write this, 2220 the following evening, it’s clear once again, though Luna will be an hour later setting of course. Nonetheless I have the same rig out and cooling, but on my South side this time, to try to catch Jupiter quickly before bed. Thanks for reading, Magnus.

In the last 2-3 months tonight was my third time setting up but only the first time actually putting an eyepiece in, and what a night. Milky Way so bright and so many stars! SQM-L measured 21.5. I’d almost forgotten how magical it is. I’d set up my OO-Helmerichs 8”, and my main target was the Veil, using both 2” and 1.25” Oiii filters, the 2” for the first time. What a treat. I’ll write it up as a separate report seeing as it was my first observing since May, but so relieved to get out at last! Cheers Magnus

That large toothed disk ultimately turns a thread (two half-threads, the two white plastic halves) which drags the mirror-sledge along a groove in the outer baffle tube. At a guess that groove is 2 inches long from stop to stop, which means the primary mirror can move that whole distance. That’s a lot of turns of the focus knob. Once you’ve disassembled it, it should be clearer what’s going on. Very different from the, say, Skywatcher or Orion USA mechanisms, and the Intes method apparently eliminates the mirror-shift on focusing. I hope that answered your question, Cheers and good luck, Magnus