Captain Scarlet

I've also realized that the parallelogram of stars including 4 Cas, which I use as a star-hop aid, is part of the asterism called "The Airplane". Those four stars, plus 2 or 3 just above it (as seen from 51 degrees N), looks just like an aeroplane turning towards you to land.

Vertically-launched eyepieces too, I like it!

About the same to me just now through 15x56 bins as HD 220102, ie 6.63. A little dimmer though seemingly than closer-by HD 220819 at 6.61 . Which makes my eyes super accurate 🤣🤣, averaging out at an unarguable 6.62.

Just had a quick look as I was packing up giving my new carbon tube its collimation outing and firstish light. I made it equal to HD 220057 which is mag 6.9, and slightly dimmer than its close companion HD 220819 which is 6.6 . So my verdict tonight 6.9 It only needs to improve a little as Luna recedes, it might even become naked eye for me out here fingers crossed 🤞 M

It's been many weeks since I actually got a mount out. So long that I've actually relocated from UK to Ireland. In the UK, we had weeks and weeks of cloud. And here in West Cork I've been so busy that I've only managed a few cursory nippings-out with binoculars. Also, being almost as Westerly as one can get within the Greenwich Time Zone, 9 degrees West of where we were before, everything astronomical happens 36 minutes later. At this time of year any formal session necessarily ends not before 2am so after tiring days one needs resolve. After Umming and Ahh-ing for ages I decided to quickly get out my Ayo II mount plus Nexus DSC, and not having allowed my Maks to cool, I put my Kowa TSN-883 spotting scope on it. 88mm aperture, 510mm FL and Kowa's 17mm "wide" eyepiece (72 degree field I understand). I have an adapter to allow 1.25" eyepieces to fit, but I can't immediately remember where it is. So 30x mag and 2.9 degree FoV it was, with my Zeiss Conquest 15x56 bins as back-up. A short wide-field night. First in the queue was M52, now I know exactly where it is, after finding and reporting on the nearby Nova over the past few months. Through the Kowa, aside from one prominent bright star, it was still immediately a patch rather than a well-defined cluster. A little more concentration and some averted vision did allow it to just about resolve into a peppering of points. I look forward to getting it through my 12" when I've finished installing it into its new Helmerichs carbon tube. The Double Cluster. Easily naked eye, funnily enough I've never really targeted it, it really is a wonderful sight in a wide field. Alpha Perseii Cluster Melotte 20. One of my favourites through binoculars, it was very nice too at 30x. Almach. I could just about split it, the colour contrast was not so evident, but the brighter of the two stars was a little affected by my own astigmatism. Obviously a short-FL scope is not the ideal instrument for splitting doubles! Mizar/Alcor. As usual, lovely. Cor Caroli. Wider than Almach, two pretty pinpoints. Through the bins rather than the scope I took in the globs M13 and M92. The Kowa scope has a 45 degree diagonal and I couldn't face the gymnastics required to point it that high. I suddenly remembered I'd not seen M31 for a long while, so after confirming I could see it naked eye (with the 55% Moon still on view my "mag level" was around 21.0), I "did" M31 although I couldn't detect M110 through the bins. I have done so from here before through 12x50s on darker nights. I also navigated to M33 and found it as I was sweeping around not quite recalling where exactly it was. It's amazing how the faintest barely-detectable smudge can somehow still "leap out" once you've seen it enough times. I finished off with the Moon, very low down and very brown over the Western sea. Quite happy having bothered to get a scope out, the Kowa is actually a really good refractor with its pure Fluorite objective, and whatever prism it uses to RACI-fy Ractify deliver a corrected image was not detracting anything that I could discern. My easy-mount location, our patio a few steps from the utility room where the scopes are kept, has its view mainly North, albeit with a 180 degree elevated vista. From there the view south is blocked by the house, so I completely forgot that at about the time I was packing up, Jupiter and Saturn would have been very nicely on view. These are going to be my subjects over the next few days, I think, whilst the waxing Moon washes everything else out. Thanks for reading, Magnus

I’ve just had a look. Through my 15x56 bins I rate it equal to HD220167, which is mag 7.2 if correct, it does seem to be picking up! Cheers Magnus

Bushnell?

A member of my local astronomy group (you know who you are @PeterW) mentioned, after I reported a not-dissimilar experience to yours buying an expensive but scratched mirror from a popular UK company, that a largeish mirror he knows of shows no discernable visual defects despite having a bullet-hoie in the primary! I feel for you though, neglect/negligence is one of those things I cannot abide, and it's so unnecessary. M

In my new location I finally found it again. LP in my area in London (at mag 19.1 level) was quite useful as binocular-limiting of 7-8ish made the Nova and its signposts quite easy to find. Now having relocated to a mag 21.8 place, my easy signposts got totally crowded out. This time I used 8x32 binoculars to limit my view as my "starter-for-ten", then moved up to 15x56s. The Nova looks very similar in brightness at the moment to HD 220770, which according to SIMBAD is 7.85. But the star of the show was M52, which I've not detected before despite really trying from London knowing exactly where it was, and tonight it was perfectly evident even in my 8x32 bins; but extremely prominent in the 15x56s. M52 a "tick" for me, courtesy of Nova Cas.

OK slightly better one tonight...

Taken from Baltimore, SW Ireland at 2309 tonight as Luna set between Mount Gabriel (lower slopes at far left) and Hungry Hill (the flat-top right half). Doesn't stand much close inspection but an object this low down and handheld gets quite tricky. Magnus

My god there are going to be some nervous moments when it launches

I’ve just relocated to SW Ireland, and night no 2, last night was, at 2am, suddenly clear. I know exactly where the Nova is, having found it countless times. But last night, I couldn’t find it. There were just too many stars: even 4 Cas and its parallelogram were drowned out and impossible to recognize. I’m going to have to get a chart and re-do the star-hop differently. Nice problem to have I guess.

Was deluded into a sense of false confidence after such long runs of clear nights in May/June. Weeks and weeks now of NOTHING. Rather frustrating.

I kust went out to get a reading on the basis it’s been clearish all evening. Totally clouded over. Seemingly for weeks now very frustrating. M

Oh WOW they are some replacement for the Monarchs. Utterly lovely, lifetime indeed. M

🤣🤣 Well @Stu you’ve totally hit the nail on the head as to my thinking behind the little bits of sticky paper. My Nagler 31 wouldn’t fit, even lying down, into my previous “pistol case”. So I bought this lovely deep Trifibre case, which came with 2 layers of foam. I thought I was a lyin-downer too, but that would, as you suggest, waste a load of space or necessitate removing a whole layer of fragile stuff to get to bits in the bottom layer. So vertical it had to be, hence the labels to allow me to see what is what in the dark.

... you FINALLY get around to doing stuff like this: Cheers, Magnus

the key number regarding the pan is of course the number of sausages

Very very good bit of kit. I loved mine.

Ah now I understand, you were talking about your own tube, not Craig’s, my apologies! M

Are you referring to the OTA tube material on the “blue-tube” Skywatcher Mark? It’s 1 mm steel, and not very rigid at all. Attached a pic of a hole I drilled out of mine to move the focuser a few cm up:

I love reading your reports: great to read and perfect to subsequently use snd follow. Magnus

I haven’t applied the tube yet. I’m in the process of moving to Ireland, and the carbon tube was delivered to there just after I last left 3 months ago. So it’s still in its packaging. I’ll be back in 2 weeks though and will install it then. Also I swapped out the SW mirror for an OO one, so it’s a bit Triggers Broom really 🤣. I didn’t actually need to lose the SW mirror, I think they are rather good, but I got seduced by the OO website. Only the cell and the spider remain SW, and I’ll be building my own cell quite soon. After I ordered the Klaus tube he got quite ill I think, and everything was seriously delayed. He wrote later that he had suspended taking new orders until maybe late summer, I’m not sure how things stand at the moment.

I have both a 300p just like that and a 200p. They both suffer from flexure, the 300p not too bad but the 200p absolutely terrible. So much so that I resorted to putting an aircon hose-ring , which has helped but not fully cured: The 300p tube I’ve now ditched and replaced with a Klaus Helmerichs carbon tube.