Captain Scarlet

It’s describing the frequency in meteors per second as opposed to a more usual meteors per hour. My God it could be the event of the decade for those with dark skies and clear nights!

@markse68’s profile backdrop photo comes to mind…

Magnus

The second highest-ever energy particle has been detected apparently. The Guardian article below says

When ultra-high-energy cosmic rays hit Earth’s atmosphere, they initiate a cascade of secondary particles and electromagnetic radiation in what is known as an extensive air shower.

Some charged particles in the air shower travel faster than the speed of light, producing a type of electromagnetic radiation that can be detected by specialised instruments.

… what is meant by that second paragraph? “Faster than light”? A case of journalistic misunderstanding? @andrew s? @vlaiv?

https://phys.org/news/2023-11-telescope-array-second-highest-energy-cosmic-ray.html
 

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/nov/24/amaterasu-extremely-high-energy-particle-detected-falling-to-earth?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
 

Magnus

Sky was unexpectedly clear so I set up aiming to see Jupiter with the 8”, having had increasingly good views through the 105 and the 140 in recent weeks. In the event I got about 5 seconds of the Moon as a pre-align, and that was it, total cloud, suddenly and completely.

I’m sure they’ve done their sums but that wedge looks disproportionally small for the monster atop it.

34 minutes ago, Alan White said:

Dear All, I cannot help myself, I have slipped off the non buying mode and bought a pair of DeLites from @The60mmKid, Siddhesh.

Very plesed with them too, had the same before so knew what to expect.

Oh this is a slippery slope with the @FLO clearance items on offer!

How funny they went together - I did the same and took the other 7 & 13. Makes a nice cascade for me to partner up with my 18.2 and 3. Though it’s going be a bit longer before mine actually arrive.

Magnus

Another long journey but this finally arrived. A correct-image adapter for Newtonians that Vixen used to do. It appeared on ENS and I was curious. Telescopic sights for rifles have them built in.

SW used also to supply very cheap such adapters with their scopes, but this is supposedly high quality.

23 hours ago, Zermelo said:

Yes, perhaps I should have said "settle up" rather than "settle down".

In my experience the phrase “settle up” causes an expectation of payment. The phrase “settle down” usually results in an argument 😁.

22 hours ago, pete_n_pugs said:

… Is it worth pursuing - or should I just make sure the secondary and primary are aligned?

Yes to the second part of that question. The _position_ of the secondary only affects illumination levels, it’s not really collimation proper, i.e. “alignment of the optical elements”, which are eyepiece and primary mirror. With a slightly misplaced secondary but otherwise collimated focus-tube and primary, you will still get views as aberration-free as they can possibly be. You will not notice the illumination difference visually with a secondary slightly out of position.

Ideally of course you’d like that secondary to be symmetrically straddling the primary light cone, but more important, by far, is to align the focus-tube axis with the primary mirror axis.

Magnus

A very quick session with the 15x56s after some cloud and showers briefly cleared at bedtime. M81/82 nice. M51 and M101 not detected despite much trying, too low in thin haze over Skibbereen. M1 Crab was visible though, as was M33. M42 and M31 both naked eye. Jupiter and Moons. Feet got cold so back in.

Magnus

Another thought is the side-grubscrews in the mirror cell, restraining the mirror laterally. They also need to be made to contact, then 1/8 turn reversed. With my old 300p I once cleaned the mirror then tightened up those grubs, but not by much. That night my brother in law asked “why are all the stars triangular?”. Mirror-clips and those grubs have a much greater effect than you’d think .

Cheers, good luck with the diagnosis, Magnus

I finally achieved B33/HH a couple of years ago, and I attribute it to the following combination of factors: dark site (21.8); perfect transparency (any thin cloud is enough to extinguish it); no Moon; no alcohol (important - optic nerve is affected. Learned that from @jetstream); 12” of aperture; full dark adaption; four years experience/learning of how to try to see really faint things. It was possibly my ~5th attempt to see it and I literally danced with joy when I’d convinced myself I’d detected it.

Magnus

16 hours ago, scotty1 said:

…

Venus and crescent 🌘

That shot of Luna, Earthshine, Venus and a suburban silhouette is fantastic! I’d have that in large format on my wall.

Magnus

Well done on getting that tick.
I’ve seen M1 fairly regularly in my 15x56 binoculars, from a 21.8 location (equates to around Bortle 2-3 though I don’t agree with much of that scale). When I lived 20 miles from central London, though, it was quite impossible.

Magnus

5 minutes ago, Stu said:

Clouded out here for both ends. Briefly saw the Moon with Venus behind it for what it’s worth (🤪)

This was exactly my experience too. A gap briefly appeared so I can confirm that Venus was in fact occulted, as my location showed it was touch-and-go whether an occupy or a graze.

My forecast is for wind average 40mph gusting to 49mph with dark cloud and heavy rain. Nonetheless I have readied my spotting scope (waterproof) and will be waiting behind a sheltering hedge just in case a lucky gap appears!

Magnus

1 hour ago, Zermelo said:

 

Most of the time I spent looking at Jupiter, over in the East.  It was best at around x170, which is 9mm in the Mak. Any more, and it turned mushy. The NEB and SEB showed some detail at their edges, and one further band in each hemisphere was visible. The GRS should have been close to transit, but I couldn't see it. 

I too couldn’t see the GRS in similar otherwise-good-view circumstances the other day when it was apparently just there. I wonder if it’s at a low-contrast period at the moment. 

Not an astronomical object, but certainly a phenomenon we all get interested about, the Aurora Borealis. I’ve seen two from the SW tip of Ireland this year, and I did exactly what you mention to my photo of it. So herewith my pic of 13 September, both as captured by the camera, and as re-rendered in PS to be exactly as I recalled it naked eye:

Cheers, Magnus

I saw that too but by the time I got back home it had subsided. A shame as it was clear and I was out with scope. 

Just in (0205) from a nice session on Jupiter, with the LZOS 105, mainly at 217x and 260x with the DeLite 3 and TOE 2.5. I’d say my second best ever view, no big features on display but good detail within the Equatorial Bands, North especially, white spots and edge detail plus other belts too. A bit of Uranus and the Moon, plus to finish the Orion Nebula with the Nagler 31: 4 trapezium stars just about separated at only 21x!

Magnus

I had this in my diary but sadly fierce weather precludes any chance. The back end of storm Ciaran. You could say, Ciaran’s Hind (groaan).

Magnus

5 hours ago, Mr Spock said:

 

Judging by the difference between in and out I’d say you have some severe Spherical Aberration there 😁

Seriously though I feel for you re the flooding 

M

1 hour ago, Mr Spock said:

… I have taken the plunge and ordered the astonishingly expensive (and 2-3 month waiting list) FeatherTouch for it …

Did you order it from USA or FLO? Whenever I see the wait times I assume they’re a proxy for “probably never”.

Magnus

12 hours ago, Sunshine said:

Great read! and I can't believe the journey that baton...uhhm wedge! took before finally being handed off to you, that LZOS seems like a special scope.

It is a very nice scope, I think. I haven’t really used it enough or put it through its paces, as I have with the 140. I’m enjoying getting it out more lately.

Although it’s been four weeks since my last proper session and report, they have lately been at regular intervals - I don’t feel that I’ve somehow missed a season. There have been just enough breaks in the admittedly terrible (even the long-term locals admit it!) weather to get the odd full session in. Thankfully.

Yesterday was a bonus: two sessions in a single day.

Weeks ago, I agreed to take a Baader Herschel Wedge off @Stu’s hands. I have a couple of home-made Baader Solar Film end-pieces, but since I’ve started a local Astronomy Club here where I’m not always in 100% control of things, the very slim chance of someone else removing one whilst observing outweighs the risk in my reckoning. So when Stu’s wedge became available, I caved in pretty quickly. Those Solar-film appendages will do for my Maks when I’m on my own (Herschel Wedges are strictly non-recommended for Maks).

The wedge, I believe, uses a glass prism to reflect most of the energy away to be radiated, and the remainder passes through an ND filter and a green 540nm Solar Continuum filter to the eyepiece.

Initially I got Stu to post it normally, but for some reason Irish Customs rejected it, and after a lengthy period of “radio silence” it arrived back at Stu’s place! Grrrrrr. Ireland appears to be genuinely the worst place in the world for this sort of no-explanation postal rejection. So I asked him to post it instead to my sister-in-law in Northern Ireland, who delivered it to her mum, who handed it to her other daughter, who brought it to me yesterday! It took weeks.

Once collected from sister-in-law, knock me over with a feather: it was a lovely sunny day! I quickly set up my LZOS 105 on EQM-35 to catch the last couple of hours of the sun. I started with the Nagler 31 for 21x and immediately was struck by the tiny almost cute filigree of the detail on the various sunspot groups, one of which was big and complicated (Question: do they have designations?). It was like looking at something _extremely_ intricate in high detail from a long distance away. It begged for more magnification so in went the Delos 10 for 65x, which started to show the boiling orange-peel in places (actually, lime-peel, because all this is in green 532nm light). Amazing, and far better views than I recall with my Solar film on my Intes 150mm Mak. Next clear day I get I’ll be doing a side-by-side comparison.

Further increasing the magnification, it oddly seemed suddenly to not improve at all, disappointing. Initially I couldn’t fathom it, then I realized the problem. But I had to defocus the telescope to test the theory, as of course I couldn’t look directly at the Sun to check! The picture below shows why my views had deteriorated:

That was that for my solar session. But the forecast was for it to remain clear and low-wind all night, so having de-camped the solar rig, I put out my Stellarvue 140. At 14kg for the OTA alone, only my AZ-EQ6 would do, so into the wheelbarrow and around to the other side of the house went two 5kg counterweights, the mount-head and the Planet tripod. All set up, I placed a large umbrella over the top to shield it from unobstructed exposure to the clear sky thereby avoiding early dew, and went inside to cook le diner.

After dinner (fillet steak, yum) with the Moon and Jupiter well up, I took the scope outside and added it to the mount. All set.

My intention tonight was almost exclusively Jupiter, with perhaps a side order of Moon and Uranus. I had the BBHS mirror diagonal, and had decided to control things with the Skywatcher handset rather than the Nexus DSC I more often use. Alignment was done on Polaris and Capella at 54x using the Delos 17.3. As evident from the pic, I was having to “dodge clouds”, but mostly they were thin enough to see through.

Immediately on pointing to Jupiter, I discovered by complete accident that Io was in the midst of a Shadow Transit, and that Io and its shadow were also very close together. I guess Jupiter is getting close to Opposition. For at least an hour, I couldn’t tear my eyes from the eyepiece save for brief breaks to try to settle on the right magnification. I ended up with the Delite 3mm at 313x. I felt I could have gone even higher but my smaller/newer eyepieces live in a different case and I couldn’t be bothered to go inside.

Jupiter was more detailed than I’ve ever observed it before, with multiple bands and changes of shade, and within the main Equatorial Bands swirls lanes and spots were all visible. By a huge margin it was the best I’ve seen the planet, and I’m sure there’s still better to come. But oddly, although SkySafari showed that the GRS was on show, I could not see it, despite the clarity of the rest of the disc. It must have been because bright white Io and its black spot were “out-contrasting” it, being as they were on top of or very close to the GRS by the time I got there, maybe even following it round?

I watched Io all the way to the edge, the shadow disappearing first, then Io becoming a bulge, a nipple and finally separate and free. For the next few tens of minutes, the sight of Io and Ganymede both perfectly distinctly round discs off the main planet, and the planet with its detail, gave a properly three-dimensional impression. As I said in my brief “what did you see tonight” summary, Memorable.

I took in Uranus and had a quick look for Titania, futile though at mag 13.7 with a Full Moon nearby. Uranus was as well-defined a disc at that magnification as I can recall.

Finally on to the Moon. A few trips up and down the Terminator, closer inspection of Petavius which was spectacular and even the Rilles on the far side briefly froze into view.

And then, just as I’d decided to pack up, all-encompassing thicker cloud rolled in and light rain started to descend. Perfect timing.

Thanks for Reading, Magnus

2 minutes ago, F15Rules said:

What's that strange coloured pigment in the background Magnus? I think, here in England,  it might have been called "blue sky" many years ago??🫣

Dave

back to normal today - I cannot see beyond the hedge!