Captain Scarlet

9 hours ago, markse68 said:

Your new scope looks really beautiful  Magnus and sounds like you’re going to have a lot of fun with it- really nice job you’ve done on it

Mark

Thanks Mark. Another thing about the new setup is the fact it’s much stiffer. The old steel tube was annoyingly flexible and if I could be bothered I had to recollimate every time I adjusted eyepiece or altitude. No such problems with this, even with the monster Nagler 31!

39 minutes ago, JeremyS said:

That looks an amazing setup Magnus.

Any issues with the AZEQ 6 carrying the OTA (apart from finger trouble - been there 😊)? And no bumping into the tripod?
what’s the screw head on the alt locking capstan - more torque?
 

Looking forward to more reports 👍🏻

Thanks Jeremy. The Mount handles the ota with ease actually, and in fact was also fine with the previous steel-tube incarnation at 6kg heavier. I’ve never had a problem.

The screwdriver head you notice is yes exactly for that purpose, it’s the handle of a Stanley Fatmax modular screwdriver to allow for extra leverage, I find the original capstan bars don’t allow enough, especially trying to undo.

8 hours ago, globular said:

Good read Magnus. Lovely looking scope. Are you 11 feet tall? Must be something like that to reach the eyepiece?

Haha I am 6’1”. It’s not too bad actually. Anything up to about 49 degrees altitude is fine. I have a small set of steps for anything higher, and never need to go beyond the first step.

Last year, during lockdown, I replaced the 12” mirror on my blue-tube SW newt with an OO mirror. The OO had a longer FL than the SW original, so I ordered a custom-specified carbon tube from Klaus Helmerichs and in the (long) meantime I drilled a new focus-hole in the blue tube as far up the tube as I could. That was fine for a while, but only used about 10 inches of the available OO aperture. With the new tube finally in my possession only recently, I finished mating the cell to and installing the focuser, finder-brackets etc a month or so ago, and since then have had two aborted attempts to get First Light for the new set-up. At the first attempt, my battery ran out of juice just as I achieved alignment on the second star. The second attempt, 3 nights ago, saw the whole tube dripping with dew-water and the primary itself completely dewed-over before I’d even begun alignment.
Finally, 2 nights ago, on 15th August, everything lined up and I had a most enjoyable session.

Chiefly thanks to SGL’s Observing Reports, I’ve been accumulating a list of targets over the last few weeks, so if you see unusual something below that you recently reported or read, it was probably partly those reports whence I stole my inspiration. (I’ve just realized, on re-reading and editing, that only one object listed below fits the “unusual or off the beaten track” category, but I put so much effort into creating the fine words in this paragraph that I’m keeping them :).

My equipment was: OO 300mm mirror in Helmerichs carbon tube with Paracorr2; AZ-EQ6 mount on Berlebach Planet tripod in Alt-Az mode; Nexus DSC control unit, directly used rather than via, say, SkySafari; Telrad and APM 8x50 finders; kitchen cloth and hairdryer for dew mitigation (both used during the night). The new tube has saved about 6kg, bringing the total OTA weight from 28kg to 22kg. It may not sound much, but it’s certainly noticeable lifting it into the rings!

Alignment - I succeeded in aligning on Polaris and Markab at the second attempt after making my usual mistake whilst selecting the second alignment star: pressing “OK” instead of “0” to select the second star before slewing to it: this effectively tells the unit “OK the second star is now centred”, while the scope is still pointing at the first, causing a fatal-error message and necessitating a complete switch-off and start again.

Alignment finished, I was ready to go. During the night I mostly used my Nagler 31 and Ethos 13, with Oiii-fitted Panoptic 24 for the Veil. Lovely and dark with the Moon fairly low, the MW was clearly on view.

Jupiter - First look was at Jupiter, still with my 18.2mm alignment eyepiece, for 100x. Judging from this view it was clear that seeing was only so-so. It stayed like this all night, for Jupiter and everything else. Better than clouds though. There was plenty of atmospheric CA, mushy wobbly edges and barely 2 equatorial bands on display. 4 Moons all there of course.

Saturn – Saturn was mush the same, though I did take time to look out for his Moons which I’ve never done before. Titan, Rhea and a background star were evident, firsts for me, and perhaps Iapetus though that was further afield and I wasn’t sure.

Barnard 142/143 “E” dark nebula – Never having heard of this but having seen images and read that it should be easily seen even through binoculars, I slewed to it, a little NW of Tarazed, still at 100x and 0.62 degrees FoV. The dark “E” is apparently about the size of the full Moon, and with only a touch more FoV than that, I couldn’t make the “E” out at all. Putting in the Nagler 31 for 59x and 1.4 degrees allowed a bit more background for comparison, but I still wasn’t convinced. Grabbing my 15x56 binoculars worked, though: it was definitely there, dark void-channels against a field of stars and diffuse background forming an upside-downish E shape.

M22 globular and M11 Wild Duck Cluster – I remember @Stu chancing across M22 with his bins a few nights ago from his new dark home so I had a quick look, but only a quick one at low mag (59x) as I was impatient to see the Veil, so I didn’t bother changing up the eyepiece. M22 nice, I’ll have to revisit it with more intent. Similarly for one of my favourite open clusters, M11, the Wild Duck Cluster, so-called because of its series of lines of stars in “V”s. Lovely and angular as ever with its single brighter star.

The Veil – I first saw the Veil around this time last year through a Heritage 130p for which I was providing temporary accommodation while its owner moved house. I saw it a little later with my SW 12” and Oiii filter and was amazed. This night, it didn’t disappoint, through the Panoptic 24 plus Oiii. I started on NGC 6992, part of the Eastern bit, without the filter, and was able to quite clearly see it without the filter. With the filter, absolutely superb! I moved across the the Western part, NGC 6960, and again it was lovely with the embedded star 52 Cygni. I followed it up and down getting a bit lost in the process so wasn’t really able to name or recognize the various smaller features. The filaments weren’t perhaps as sharply-defined as I remember from last year, I guess from the poorish seeing, but still a wonderful sight.

Pi Aquilae - Recalling @John’s mention of Pi Aquilae (very tight double) from some time ago I had a quick look for it, having put in my Ethos 13 for 141x, but there was no chance of a split, stars weren’t tight at all.

At this point I pressed a wrong button on the Nexus DSC repeatedly, thinking it was the “slew up” button, and ruined its notion of where we were, so I quickly had to re-home the mount and do another alignment. Having had quite a lot of practice, I did this quickly, and resumed my list.

M52 – a familiar sight now with all my viewing of the Nova in Cassiopeia, very nice. Like so many OCs, there is a single bright star.

M57 Ring Nebula – I hadn’t actually looked at the Ring Nebula since my very first time three years ago, my first-ever target with my then-new 12” SW newt. It made me gasp then, and it did again this time. I even said aloud “Wow”. It’s so bright, and there even seemed a bluish tinge to my eye.

M27 Dumbbell Nebula – Similarly to M57, I haven’t seen this since a first look ages ago, and I’d forgotten how BIG it is. And so bright again.

M13 Great Hercules Cluster – M13 I have returned to again and again, and have used it as a showcase object for guests, it’s usually their favourite. I generally start off by asking them “you see that smudge just there?”, and they normally can see it naked eye. I then move up to binoculars, where it’s a brighter larger smudge, and finally I amaze them with the full twelve inches’ view. The “Coronavirus in the sky” one called it this time last year. My purpose this night was to see the Propeller, which I have seen before but it’s always a bit tricky. As I readied my self to start concentrating, I looked away briefly for some reason, and when I returned my eye to the eyepiece, it had completely disappeared! I looked up: dratted clouds!! An increasingly thick patchwork was creeping across from the NW, so I gave up on M13 and decided to finish my night looking East before all was subsumed.

M31 Andromeda Galaxy – naked eye-visible, and with M110 visible in the binoculars, with the Nagler 31 installed for my widest-possible 1.4 degrees at 59x I could easily see various lanes in its structure. M32 was especially bright.

I finished off the evening with the 15x56s, taking in Kemble’s Cascade, the Coathanger (naked eye too), the (now rather dim) Nova in Cass.
Packing up from my South-facing site around the back of the house takes 25-30 minutes, mostly with up to 10 trips to and fro carrying tripod, head, OTA, weights, eyepiece case, cables, controller, etc etc. Why haven’t I just got myself a wheelbarrow to make perhaps one or two trips only? Off to the local hardware shop I think.

The Nexus DSC in “driven-mount mode” has some annoying glitches, such as only deciding to start tracking perhaps one in eight times once an object has been decided and slewed-to. You have to keep selecting the object as it drifts away by pressing OK until suddenly, randomly, it’ll start tracking. But its ability to select from any number of esoteric catalogues is extremely useful. And its “nearby stuff” feature is good too.

A satisfying night. I turned in around 3am.

Thanks for reading, Magnus

Nice read John thanks. I had a similarly clear night last night and gave my OO 12” and Helmerichs tube its first proper light, which I’ll  write up a little later. I turned in around 3am.

A little tired, Magnus

All I can say is “you lucky blighter”. I’ve yet to see a wild Tawny.

Magnus

Ah yes Kemble’s Cascade, I’ve neglected it this season thanks for the reminder!

M

Superb read. NAN is something I’ve not looked for yet, I’ve added it to my next list.

M

Lovely! Tawny Owl I guess?

Magnus

If you can be sure it’s just a bit of dry leaf or debris, I’d ignore it until proper cleaning time. Try completely up-ending the ota if you can, to see if it’ll simply fall or slide off. If it’s a stuck-on “splodge” of something like sap or dew, I would remove the cell and give the whole thing a proper clean.

Cheers Magnus

What a great read. I didn’t want it to end. It’s maintained my motivation to get out properly after a couple of recent for-various-reasons frustrating sessions.

Magnus

I had a quick look for this last night. It really is much dimmer now. It's very close in brightness to a close-by star which I think is SAO 20610 and brightness 8.97. They are close enough together that I can't tell which is which through my 15x56 bins, one was a bit brighter than the other. So anyway, in the region of 9th magnitude. I'm not sure if I'd be able to see it from London.

Cheers, Magnus

3 hours ago, Deadlake said:

Sommerset is a beautiful part of the world. There is quite a difference observing on Waltons Green to a rural setting, however Waltons Green does have the Prince of Wales pub on it for when the cloud comes in 😃.

The person I bought my refractor from gave up observing on that Walton green precisely because of that pub. Because he had to drive there, the proximity of the beer and its total unavailability broke him 🤣🤣

In the end I saw 10-15 Perseids before it all clouded over around midnight. And there appears to be a biggish white spot on my mirror. Not sure what it is, maybe a spider-ball or spore-spread. Time to give it its first clean it I think.

I had hoped this would be an observing report, but no such luck! My new carbon tube for my newish 12” OO mirror was to have got its First Light tonight, but when even the primary looks like this once it had been outside to cool, it was clear nothing was going to happen.

Another pic from earlier in the evening, to actually show off what it looks like:

Oh well. At least it’s much stiffer and far easier to manhandle than the SW bluesteeltube it replaced.

I did see a short but very bright Perseid though, actually the first “xxx…eid” ive ever seen “on cue” ie where and when it was supposed to happen. I’ve seen dozens of meteors, but never until now the “official” ones, they’ve always eluded me on the nights.

Magnus

Nice! What size is it? My own solid-tube 12” newt is currently outside cooling/accumulating dew on an unforecast rare clear night tonight.

Cheers, Magnus

Dammit I wish I’d seen this thread yesterday. Last night was a lovely clear unforecast 21.6 night. Tonight I’m in the midst of low cloud and fog. Hopefully this nova will wait for me.

M

Well done Stu. I’ve found CO’s estimates to slightly _understate_ the best darkness actually, based on lots of data from 2 very different places. CO stated my Middlesex place to be 19.05, whereas I’ve regularly got 19.15 there. And CO puts where I am in Ireland at 21.83, and I have measured over 22 a couple of times. The MW quite high at the moment makes quite a bit of difference to the zenith reading, so I reckon you’ll easily see 20.8+ from your garden during winter.

I look forward to reading about the new toys!

Magnus

22 minutes ago, johninderby said:

I chose that example as I knew you would notice the handle connection. 😁

 

You went fishing, and caught the fish! Hook line sinker and handle!

15 minutes ago, Paul M said:

A sawtooth curve!

I think this nova has piqued our general interest in novae. 

Piqued and peaked - a rare combination! 😃

10 hours ago, Sunshine said:

I’m going out on a limb saying your telrads are on dobs and or SCT’s and your Skysurfers on fracs? It’s what I would do as telrads don’t look right on fracs.

Close. Yes the telrads live on my two newts (not dobs but similar enough) each with its own 4” riser; and the SSVs each sit on a Mak. My frac has a weird APM/LZOS finder-boss which only takes its native set of rings, and I haven’t dared drill new holes yet, so I don’t have any 1x finder for that.

M

I agree about both the telrads and the baaders. I now have 2 Telrads and 2 SkySurfer Vs, each mated to a particular scope. As far as pure RDFs go, the SkySurfer V is in a class all its own. Very military.

M

The biggest wonder and impact I get from going from bright to dark skies are naked eye and with binoculars. Look for the things you couldn’t dream of seeing naked eye where you normally live, M31, beehive cluster, Coma Berenices cluster, the ladder in Auriga, even M13 for example. Then M51, M101, M81/2, M33 with the bins. Anything beyond that aperture-wise and with filters is a bonus.

Really much dimmer tonight around midnight.  About the same as SAO 20606 in my estimation through my Zeiss 15x56 on a lovely clear 21.6 night. SAO 20606 is the bright star in/on M52, and apparently is a variable 8.3-10.6. Making the nova at brightest 8.3 perhaps dimmer.

Such a lovely clear night though I can almost forgive the Nova!

M

I am 99% visual, but I totally understand why new people to the hobby might opt for AP. One look at the myriad superb results people are getting these days, and how accessible it is, is easily enough to tempt people to get in. Plus much of the equipment itself is very satisfying to handle and use.

My epiphany came 6 years or so ago when I visited a 21.8 place and exited the pub one night by chance on a Moonless extremely transparent clear night. It was utterly mesmerising and amazing, all the cliche words. I was completely and instantly hooked, and now I have several scopes, all for visual, and I live in that place!

That shocking visual experience simply doesn't happen any more to the vast majority of people who live in severely LP'd places. You look up and it's not "amazing". It's such a shame.

M