Captain Scarlet

Do you not have a Zeiss refractor too Stu (Telementor)? That must be a classic.

Although this thread is 2.5 years old I thought I’d supplement it rather than start anew. I keep my scopes in a utility room that’s reasonably dry but heated only by an insulated hot water tank and has single-skin walls. It used to be a garage but has been absorbed as more or less part of the main house. Things don’t seem to get rusty whereas in the shed, they do. Anyway, I inspected my quite old (1991 I think) Intes M603 Mak today and Yikes! I noticed some obvious fungal growth on the corrector plate and on the primary mirror. I don’t recall having seen it before. There was some on the secondary mirror as well. I quickly took it apart and cleaned all the surfaces with a home-brew mixture of propanol, methylated spirit (ethanol), ammonia and distilled water. All surfaces are now free of contaminants and there doesn’t appear to have been any etching. I plan to use some of the mitigations listed above to prevent its re-emergence. Magnus

Trouble with that is you need to cover the 200m and press the shutter in less than the 30s before the phone-screen times out. Not impossible, but in my case I’d have to factor in hurdling a couple of barbed-wire fences along the way 😁

One thing that has struck me is how many SGL “equipment“ photos, often in the “postie” thread, have a guitar in the background. Also I’ve made two eBay purchases of astro equipment, and on collection, guitars were present too. Magnus

Why the garage roof as opposed to anywhere else in the garage?

Yes I recall reading that ... i.e. you may just have caught hints of it with your 7x35s. I'm going to have to make this my next challenge, as you say it must be possible through say 15x56s from here. I have an Oiii but not a UHC yet. Given where Cygnus is at the moment, there will have to be be lying down involved. My previous attempts have been standing, looking more-or-less straight up and very cold IIRC, so not much attention span to really relax or concentrate.

I really must try harder then. I’ve tried for the Veil with 10x50 binoculars from where I currently live, 21.8 skies, without success.

I admire your dedication at 0230!!!

I used to live not far from London, also B8, and would generally look at the following targets: - Polaris and Polaris B: Polaris B a beautiful blueish pinpoint near the Pole star, I never tire of looking at it - The Mizar/Alcor system, a lovely arrangement including Mizar as itself a nearly-matched double - Castor, a very nice double - As a challenge for the skies, try for M81/82 and M51 near Ursa Major ... I could sometimes get those even from near London, just smudges but from B8... - Epsilon Lyrae, the double-double in Lyra - M57 Ring Nebula also in Lyra, should be bright enough to see - Uranus, about 44 degrees up at 11pm from where you are - no doubting it's a planet, a disc - try for M36, M37, M38 in Auriga A short selection of what I'd try for, I'm sure others will suggest more interesting doubles to attempt. Hey hey, Magnus PS I would add @Stu has much more experience than me from these sorts of skies, although he's recently moved much darker, but I'm sure he can make some great suggestions too.

I did once set up my SW 300p newt on an AZ-EQ6 in reasonably strong winds, much less than 30mph avg, and it wasn't a rewarding session to say the least. Least of all, the open end of the tube became a musical instrument, howling in the wind! When you say "30mph wind" do you mean average, or a lower average but with gusts of 30mph? If average, then expect gusts up to and over 40mph. The thing to bear in mind about wind speed is that the energy content of wind varies with the CUBE of the speed. So a wind speed of 30mph will have a "violence" eight times that of 15mph winds. I regard anything over 10mph as reasonably strong, and if you experience gusts of 40mph that will be moments of wind-energy 64x that of 10mph. Personally, in unsheltered 30mph winds, I would not do it. Unless you can find a really sheltered spot. Cheers, Magnus Edit: I've just noticed that your location is "Ireland", like me . I think down here in West Cork we are having the least of Storm Arwen, and I'm certainly not taking any of my scopes out tonight.

For me late on tonight looks good if it weren’t for the wind: its the time between now and then that’s stymieing things:

The first time I managed to see The Veil was with a Heritage 130p that I was babysitting while a bro-in-law moved house. So your 150p will be correspondingly better, I’m not surprised you like it. If @JeremyS wasn’t so selfish (😉) as to live outside Ireland I’d have snapped his one up when it was for sale. In fact an H150 is very likely to be my next scope: I’m missing a fast 6” in my inventory. Cheers, Magnus

Yes indeed I use my 12" f/5.3 on an AZ-EQ6 in Alt-Az mode. I do need a small 2-step for objects high up, but IIRC I almost never need to use the 2nd step (I'm 6'1"). Cheers, Magnus

I got my grab&go set-up out yesterday evening mainly to have a quick look at Venus bright and low over the Western horizon. Its phase is starting to look great, even though my view in that direction is obscured by a couple of small Sycamores. Thankfully without leaves now though. My G&G set-up is a Kowa 88mm spotting scope, yesterday with an Ethos 4.7mm eyepiece giving me about 109x. Venus done, I swapped in the native Kowa 17mm wide eyepiece for 30x and quickly before going out for dinner took in the Pleiades, most of Andromeda: I still couldn't get everything in even with 2.4 degrees FoV. M32 and M110 were also nicely on view. I looked for the Veil (no filter and Moon starting to rise) in vain, and finished off with Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee (aka NGC6633 and Graff’s Cluster) SW of Tarazed and Altair. I have the Skymax180 out cooling, to go on my slightly-more-than-grab&go Ayo2 but it's suddenly become very windy outside so it might have to come back in again. Magnus

Yes! At surprisingly not-especially-low temperatures!

… alas it was cloudy, as forecast. Not even a teasing glimpse. M

Lucky you! Nice pictures especially from a phone. I too got up and set up for the slim chance there'd be no clouds, alas the forecast was correct. Oh well, alarm set for Feb 2669.

Haha yes I’d guessed that, which is why I mentioned bucket rather than observing 😄

I wasn’t aware of Procyon’s pup. Thanks, another one for the bucket-list! Magnus

I use Uggs unless the ground is particularly wet. Anything else, including some sheepskin-lined hiking boots, eventually leave me with cold feet. Magnus

Next time the clouds clear I’ll have a look with my own pan 24 and12 inch f/5.3 . I’m curious. M

Superb, thanks @Nicola Fletcher!

Alas for me, as nearly far West as one can get in Ireland and hence Europe, it'll be just on the horizon and sinking just as it starts. Even worse the further East one is, I think. Enjoy it ye who can. Magnus Edit: I might have 30 minutes or so of seeing a dark "bite" start to appear. It'll be sinking behind Mount Gabriel too from where I am, and with the Pleiades just above, there actually may be a decent photo in the offing. But the clouds...fingers crossed. 2nd edit: I’m at 51.49N 9.35W

SIMBAD which I’ve screenshotted suggests SAO 305 and Polaris B are the same star.

It sounds to me as if you were seeing coma, which is an inescapable feature of the Newtonian not the eyepiece. Inescapable that is unless you have a coma corrector. It only becomes objectionable as you get further from the centre of the image, which is why it’s only really noticed on wide-field eyepieces. I very nearly sold my Panoptic 35 for exactly the same reason, but when I got a CC the seagulls disappeared! Cheers, Magnus