Captain Scarlet

1 hour ago, Stu said:

Well done on the Pup sir.

...

Perhaps I’ll get the 8” f8 out soon.

Thank you.

With your new skies not having got your 8" out yet surely is some sort of crime?

1 hour ago, Nicola Fletcher said:

... I have no idea how you managed without socks ...

haha the photo does the boots no justice at all! they are far more crazy than they look, they're lined with what looks like a removable foil-looking thermal liner too! Impossibl;e to drive in them I reckon

It’s so good to see a whole slew of jubilant observing reports arrive, once we British-Islanders (I include Eire 😊) finally get a band of clear weather; and with a New Moon as added bonus! So here’s my report to add to the mix, over two months since I last got a scope out.

During the morning I cleaned my mirror, removing a dead spider and some stubborn pollen-splat marks. I was therefore expecting my collimation to be out. In fact, having removed and re-attached the primary mirror cell, collimation was still nearly spot on. However, in the dark, the “barlow-shadow” was barely visible, owing to the secondary having dewed up and frozen! I’d hoped I wouldn’t have to run the leads out for the hairdryer, but no such luck. A blast with it sorted the secondary out, and I was ready for alignment, on Polaris and Procyon.

This was also First Light for my new (ridiculous) birthday-boots. I’ve used Uggs for cold dry nights before but they don’t like wet ground. These were perfect! I wasn’t even wearing socks for nearly four hours in -2C.

I had a list which I started compiling in early November, and perusing it, I could see that many objects were now too winter-far-gone for any realistic hope of seeing.

M42 & Trap E & F – After initial alignment, I went straight to M42. I had my 18.2mm eyepiece in giving 100x, and the Great Orion Nebula was as mesmerizing as the first time I saw it through a 12”. The nebulosity seemed 3D: I felt I could reach in and behind the various clouds. And there the Trapezium was, four lovely little steady points. At this magnification, 100x, I could just about make out the E star, and at fleeting moments the F would appear, both extremely faint. I put in the 10mm delos for 183x, and they both leapt out. I think at this stage, having only recently blasted the hairdryer down the tube on max setting, my “local seeing” (i.e. inside the OTA itself) was also still settling down, accounting for the improving steadiness of the E and F. They were both simply “there” for me to look at. Lovely. If the seeing is this good, I thought, the Pup must be a possibility. I’d never yet seen Sirius B despite many attempts over the last 4-5 years.

Sirius and the Pup – A couple of nights previously, on a short binocular session far too windy for a scope, I’d noticed Sirius not twinkling, and through 15x56 binoculars was not a kaleidoscope. I’d wished it wasn’t so windy as seeing was clearly good. As luck would have it, it was the same this night. Sirius was still, and through the eyepiece yes, it was very bright, but more or less steady in its glare and colour. To my amazement and extreme satisfaction I could just about make out, right next to one of the diffraction spikes, a tiny sharp dot come and go. Not unlike Polaris B actually when it appeared. On checking with SS, it was in the correct place. I was delighted, and spent some time persuading myself it wasn’t mere suggestion. Later on in the session, perhaps 90 minutes later, I returned to it and the seeing had deteriorated somewhat and I couldn’t get it. I’d also had to use the hairdryer again which may have affected things. Very pleased, and now I know what to look out for, it may be easier next time. It was a little further out than I was expecting too.

Horsehead Attempt – I tried for Barnard 33 Horsehead next, having put my Panoptic 24 in (76x, 0.89 degrees FoV). This was First Light for my Hb filter, too. No joy at all, with or without the Hb. With the filter, certainly there was more hint of barely-detectable gentle mottling, but no definitive HH shape. Without the filter, the same but brighter. Although the seeing was the best I’ve had, transparency was not. The MW on good nights here slaps you in the face, and tonight it wasn’t like that, there seemed to be a gentle milky sheen going on.

Leo Triplet minus 1 – Through the bins a couple of nights ago and quite high up I was easily able to see M65 and M66, two of the Leo Triplet. Tonight, they were distinctly less impressive notwithstanding my 300mm of aperture. The difference was, I think, the poor transparency and that Leo was still low down in my worst LP-direction, and there was some extra haze going on there too. I moved on quickly.

M1 Crab Nebula – I was keen to see what this looked like through a decent aperture. It was much higher overhead than Leo so I had more hopes. It took me a while to find it, but suddenly as I was panning, this quite bright oval patch streaked across the FoV and there it was. No mistaking it, but also unfortunately no discernable structure to it. The transparency again, I think.

Glitch and Rigel – at this point my Nexus DSC decided it was pointing around 160 degrees from where it actually was, so I had to switch everything off and re-align. I chose Polaris again, and decided I wanted a star in Leo rather than Procyon as I’d used previously. I chose Rigel, that well-known Leo star. So when it slewed off past Leo and into Orion, I suddenly realized I was an idiot. Anyway, it didn’t seem to mind. I checked out Rigel B whilst there, very nice, easy split.

Mirach’s Ghost NGC 404 – one fuzzy target on my list which was doable was Mirach’s Ghost, aka NGC 404: a galaxy in close proximity to Mirach. There was no doubting through the finder where Mirach was, and as soon as I adjusted orientation to centre it, sure enough, just nearby, was a galaxy. Lovely. Tick.

M44 Beehive Cluster – I wanted to check whether I could notice any nebulosity around the stars in the Pleiades, so I instructed my Nexus to take me to M44. Which is not the Pleiades. I was clearly losing my marbles at this stage. The Beehive/Praesepe was of course where it took me, and 0.9degs is far too little FoV for an open cluster like that. However, through the APM 8x50 finder, it did actually look utterly magnificent.

M45 Pleiades after brain-glitch2 – This time I went to the proper Pleiades, and sure enough there was quite a lot of haze around the brighter stars. And I still couldn’t decide whether it was dew or nebulosity. I’ve probably had 4 goes over the years having the same experience and uncertainty. I recall @Stu saying the same thing just yesterday, and it chimed! I removed the eyepiece and gave it a hairdry, similarly for the secondary, and the Paracorr2, and I also tried a different eyepiece straight from the warmer case. The “nebulosity” was there around the brighter stars throughout, so I will, on balance, this time, award myself “Nebulosity” rather than “Dew” 😊 .

Pan 24 with & without Coma Corrector – finally, I decided to do the last thing on my list which was compare views of a cluster through my Panoptic 24mm with and without the coma corrector attached. I recall I undertook to do this during a conversation a few weeks ago. This eyepiece gives me 66x/1.03degs without CC or 76x/0.89degs with. I found coma was definitely noticeable without the corrector, although I could make it disappear by changing the angle of my head: I wear glasses, and I’ve found that changing the angle of my head/the glasses just a little can “collimate” what I’m looking directly at by looking through my glasses at a different angle. I tried this on “unfocussed donuts” too, and I can make them symmetrical at any part of the image by a small tilt of the head. Heaven only knows what other aberrations I introduce though. I’ll have to experiment some more.

Just as I decided to finish, fog and clouds started to obscure the whole sky, so my timing was perfect. And as I type this, 2 days post, the sky is clear but the wind is back: 40mph gusts.

Cheers, Magnus

More in a proper observing report hopefully tomorrow but suffice to say I finally got the Pup. Tonight’s seeing was the best I’ve had here, and with my 12” out for the first time in a couple of months. Trap E and F were simply sitting there in plain view, so I thought the Pup might be on, and it was! My first time.

Magnus

4 hours ago, Stu1smartcookie said:

Not the postman , but me and my wife had a lovely trip  today to collect a 200p Skywatcher from @Captain Magenta

Many thanks Magnus .

The scope is in great condition 

May it give you joy. I certainly enjoyed it. It looks good with the OO focuser actually! 2nd-hand 8” newt just has to be far and away the best-value scope to get these days.

Magnus

I was out last night 2nd Jan with my bins FINALLY after weeks of total cloud. I could not detect it hand-held in windy conditions with my 8x42s but I could with my 15x56s. I haven’t looked at this for a while, the last time was a couple of months ago at least, when it was a much easier target.

Magnus

1 hour ago, Stu said:

Good to get out there Magnus. With the weather as it is you have to take any chance there is! He says, after missing the chance to put a scope out last night, pleading tiredness! Must try harder! 🤪

Thanks Stu. Tuesday tomorrow night is looking clear and, importantly, not too windy at last, so the 12" may well come out. Though it will be cold for a change.

1 hour ago, niallk said:

Nice report @Captain Magenta!  

I'm actually in Dublin at the moment, so missed the sorm / power outages!!  One thing I noticed last night was just how bad the light pollution is in Dublin - no seeing Orion's Sword naked eye for sure.

Nice to get to scratch that itch: Was hoping to get out over the Xmas hols, but it seemed like constant cloud cover 🙄

I was In Dublin myself over Christmas and there were a couple of clearish nights. I also looked out for the LP, yes it is bad! The only silver lining is that it makes the contrast between there and here all the more noticeable!

Superb Malcolm. Definitely the west of Ireland is a great place to be! If it wasn’t for the regular train of transatlantic storms that is!

Magnus

Superb Joe. I caught only a single look at it in early December around 6am on the one occasion the weather permitted. Good to see the family interested!

Magnus

We've had weeks and weeks of cloudy skies lately, so in spite of the fact it was very windy last night, I suited up and had a short session after midnight. The sky to the East was regularly lit up with huge flashes: there was clearly some massive storm going on over towards Cork. As it turns out, many in the East Cork area were without electricity today as a result. @niallk you must've been in the line of fire?

However, it was reasonably clear near Baltimore, though I suspect there was a bit of thin cloud, so using my 15x56s handheld+elbows I took in a few Messiers.

First was M101 which I've learned to spot quite easily now, though it is a very faint smudge. M51 was easy too, though I couldn't keep still enough to see if I could detect twin-cores. Leo was high up, so without knowing the layout I scanned his hind-quarters to see what I could see. There were indeed a couple of reasonably bright patches, which SS showed me were M65 and M66, and on further research this morning I learned they form part of the Leo Triplet. That's a "bino-tick" for me.

I've not looked at the Nova in Cas for a long while, and at first I struggled to find it in a different orientation from before. I understand from the Nova Cas thread that it's now rather dim, around mag 10. And so it is. Just before this session I'd nipped outside with some 8x42s, and couldn't see anything where the Nova should be. Now I took a quick look with the 15x56s and yes there was something there, but I had to concentrate. M52 and the Airplane asterism always nice too, of course.

A quick session so the observing itch was somewhat scratched after so many barren weeks.

Cheers, Magnus

I can’t answer all the questions but I do use binoculars with glasses on. I invariably have the eyecups in the “most down” position. Some binoculars I’ve rejected because the eye-relief is less than the distance from the eyepiece lens to my pupil with glasses on. Sometimes much less. For glasses-wearers, eye-relief is a very important parameter of a given set of bins. I’ve always eschewed dual-focus glasses for exactly the reason you describe: potential for double-images.

I should add that some very expensive and high quality binoculars simply have short eye-relief and therefore exclude use by any glasses-wearers 🙄. I recently sold a pair of 10x32 Leica Ultravids for exactly that reason when I finally understood why I never got on with them.

Magnus

Terve! Oh sorry that’s Finnish. Welcome to the madhouse.

M

Also I guess the levels of personal stress would be something they cannot have yet experienced. The consequence of a fault in testing is not fatal, and would have led to a fix. Now of course it’s that much more consequential.

Tomorrow is when things start to get tense (hopefully)

6 hours ago, Stu said:

@Captain Magenta likes a challenge and successfully uses a 12” Newtonian on an AZEQ6 so hopefully he can add some comments based on practical experience; I’ve used big refractors on this type of mount but not a Newt, although I did put a 12” f6 newt on an AYODigi II Alt Az mount briefly, and it wasn’t that easy or stable to use!

Yes indeed I had a SW 300p steel-tube newt on my AZ-EQ6 for a while, and it was (is) fine, even in some reasonably windy conditions. I only ever use it in Alt-Az mode. That newt came in at 27kg including its rings, eyepiece, finders etc. I've replaced it now with a carbon-tube 300mm-mirror newt which has saved me around 6kg. I should add also that the AZ-EQ6 sits on a Berlebach Planet tripod, and has an upgraded ADM main saddle. The biggest faff about it is actually the set-up, involving multiple trips carrying sometimes awkward loads to wherever I want to observe. It takes me around 25 minutes, though I plan to get a wheelbarrow at some stage which will shorten the time condiderably.

Magnus

Thanks to Don's similar advice some months back, I made up some "home brew" ROR  to allow myself to be liberal in its application and not worry about the £xx per small bottle the branded stuff costs. I can attest that it is as amazingly effective as Don says. I tested it out on some Canon L lens front elements and they became truly as good as new for the first time ever (having bought them used). But, as he also mentions here, it does comprise stuff that will leave a residue if not diluted and rinsed away, so I avoid the "full fat" ROR for items where there's a chance liquid might, say, get round the back of a lens and leave residue. For those occasions I made up some "ROR-lite", leaving out the soap and the salt, leaving only the isopropyl alcohol, water and ammonia, all of which evaporates. I also added a bit of ethanol. The ammonia makes a big difference, I think.

M

9 minutes ago, kirkster501 said:

Let's meet up at the pub mate  

Pub is the perfect opportunity actually

”syzygy egg n chips please”

sorry I’ll go now

M

8 hours ago, HollyHound said:

 

Presumably the big roof in the centre is your ROR observatory 😃 ?

In answer to @Chaz2b … After the second main boost-thrust it’s been in free-fall, and since then the main “force” acting on it from earth’s frame of reference has been earth’s gravity decelerating it as it moves away from earth. So it’ll continually slow down until it gets to its destination.

On 26/12/2021 at 20:29, Victor Boesen said:

I appreciate it Mike, and not at all! We all know @JeremyS is the worst among refractor owners. At least we don't have an urge to lick our fracs like he does

On the contrary Victor I think we would all love to see a picture of you licking your frac, and for extra entertainment please wait until it’s around -40 degrees C before doing so 😄😄🥶

Lovely read by the way. You’re torturing all we Brits who haven’t seen a star for months!

Mahnus

15 minutes ago, Stu said:

… nothing else happened until my thirtieth, when I asked for a scope for my birthday. I got myself a Celestron C150HD reflector …

What prompted you to ask at that stage?

I have 3 maks: 2 Skymax and an Intes. I have considered upgrading the Skymax to a Mewlon, but the reason I haven't and won't is the same as the reason I likely won't get a CC, which is diffraction spikes from the secondary holder. Although I also have Newtonians which necessarily come with diffraction spikes, and I don't mind them too much, I'd still prefer they weren't there.

Magnus

In 2022 I plan to build a scope around the 20” mirror that is patiently sitting in the cupboard under the stairs.

Magnus

I have one of these, It’s superb.
https://www.apm-telescopes.net/en/apm-finderscope-50-mm-90-erect-image-24mm-reticle-eyepiece-55

Magnus