jjohnson3803

If you want a map, I'd echo suggestions for the Sky & Telescope correct image (binocular view) map. I like the Charles Wood atlas, but some people feel the errata list is too long. It doesn't bother me, but YMMV.

I'll have to try it with my 72ED just for grins, although I rather doubt that's going to work. Then I can try my ST102.

Since I usually observe pre-dawn, my springtime targets are evening summer targets - Hercules, Lyra, Cygnus, Saggita, Aquila. Scorpius isn't quite at culmination yet, but the claws and Antares are well-placed. Then you can slide "left" to Ophiuchus. I usually observe Orion in the late summer / early fall which is nice because the weather is still decent. The problem is that dawn comes on mighty early as we get closer to summer.

When I bought my C8 in 1982 or so, they were the Big Kahunas / future of amateur astronomy / must-have scope / and all that. 😁 I would not buy one today, not because I dislike them, but because they don't fit my current needs or lifestyle. (I did buy a 90mm Mak a few years ago, mainly for lunar observing but sold it.)

And I thought I was the only one praying for power outages. 🙃

I took numerous physics and astronomy classes at uni, but the thing that first got me interested in astronomy was the beauty of the Universe. As I've gotten older, it's the beauty of it to which I've returned. When I was in my early 20s, doing spectroscopy with a 1-meter scope was better than beer. I find lately that I'm appreciating bino or even just naked eye astronomy more and more.

As mentioned, there are so many stars in the FOV that I don't always know what I'm looking at. Forget starhopping. Cancer at home has at best one or two stars visible to the naked eye. Once, in a B2/3 zone, I could see a crab - body, claws, the whole thing - and it was screamingly obvious. The most memorable view though was of the Leo Triplet of galaxies. None of them are visible with any of my scopes at home. In a B2/3 they were so bright that I jumped back from the EP. It was like getting slapped in the face. 😄 I should also mention globular cluster M4 in Sco. Extremely difficult to see at home. Under a dark sky, it's like, "Oh yeah, of course - you can't miss it."

I'm a heretic. I accept that inflation theory explains a good many things, but there is something about it that whispers, "Epicycles!" to me. I have doubts about dark matter as well and I frankly don't think it will be found anytime soon. Kind of like Supersymmetry in the Standard Model. But I acknowledge that I'm often wrong, at least according to my wife, so I'll leave debates to others and keep trying to decipher cosmology preprints on arxiv.org.

I should be more disciplined - I have multiple observing lists and I don't use any of them. I was thinking the other day that I should bin them to reduce clutter. Maybe I could ease into it by writing down three targets a night or something.

Wow! That's outstanding!

Very nice!

SLVs are my preferred EP, but I've never tried a TV. I wear usually wear glasses while observing and the ER of the SLVs is quite good. Plus they don't have undercuts and the eyecups are twist up if either matter to you. I've been considering adding a 20mm SLV to my 10, 6, and 4mm. I have a couple of cheaper Paradigms / BSTs - 25mm and 15mm - that I'd probably sell.

Tough decision. I'd lean toward my 72ED - built like a tank, sliding dewshield so it collapses to about 12 inches long for easy travel, sharp optics. But my ST102 has aperture and my ST80 with an upgraded 2-speed focuser is possibly my best all-around scope - size, weight, aperture, and inexpensive to replace. If I were *really* pressed for space / weight, I'd keep my 50/250 converted RACI finder. It would be an easy choice amongst my binos.

I've lusted after 80EDs and 90-ishEDs, but I think they might be a bit on the heavy side for my current needs. I had a 102ED and it was a bit too much.

SW 90mm Mak AT102ED Orion ST120 And a couple of Sears / Tasco(?) 60mm refractors when I was about 12. Sort of wish I had kept one of those for nostalgic reasons.

Quick look around Sco with my 80mm this morning: M4 as usual was not discernable - too low in the LP filth. No surprise as it's difficult with my ST102. But another globular in Sco, M80, was easy to see. Relatively small and best with averted vision. Rho Oph - striking three star triangular asterism. All three are doubles / multiples if I read SkySafari correctly. Have to revisit that one. Omega 1 & 2 Sco - nice pair.

I really need to try to do some more sketching, although I'm severely artistically impaired. Open clusters and doubles / multiples are my favorite targets in my home LP.

I've only done a few sketches of doubles and wide fields, but I just use a soft black pencil on white paper. The sketch can be scanned and reversed to show white on black and then reprinted if I want. Enjoy!

No, not from what I've seen on TV of UK canals. Canals here tend to be quite wide, deep, dirty, and busy with enormous commercial barge traffic.

I noticed an "extra" orange star in the bowl of the Little Dipper a year or so ago. It was probably around 2nd magnitude, didn't appear to move over a period of several minutes, and then slowly faded. I couldn't find anything listed as being there at that time on the Heavens Above site, but I'm told that military sats are often not listed.

Skies cleared sometime during the night, so I had a short session with my 72ED viewing the moon this morning. Quite a wavy image, but I was able to observe three new to me craters between Archimedes and Timocharis: Bancroft, Feuillee, and Beer. Dare I say I have discovered Beer on the moon? I also noticed a rather faint, but quite striking star NW of the lunar terminator. SkySafari shows was 42 Librae. Observed several old favorites as well, but the moon was moving behind the trees and dawn was coming on quickly, so I called it a night.

I don't think Bortle meant his scale to be the end-all-be-all, but rather a relative scale for quick approximations. IIRC, he wrote that himself on Cloudy Nights or somewhere. Or more simply, 8 is substantially worse than 4, etc. More objectively, there's MPAS, SQM, and probably other alphabet soup to use.

Neighbors had more outdoor lights than usual blazing last night, so I went out between astro and nautical twilight this morning. Decided to compare my binos. I'm trying to decide if I want to order a pair of 8x56s. Popped around Lyra, Cygnus, and Aquila for a bit. Navy surplus 7x50s. Lenses probably aren't in the greatest shape given that they're 80 years old, but I do think these have the nicest view and feel to them. Mag is maybe a little low and they're what I'd consider medium weight. Relatively easy to handhold. Aculon 10x50s. Meh. These just don't excite me. Lightweight, but a bit more difficult to hold steady at 10X. I might donate these - I'm not sure it's worth the hassle to sell them. Giant View IF 15x70s. Starfields and random clusters are gorgeous in these, but they're too heavy to handhold for long. Since I've decided to forego binos on tripods, etc., I'll give these a try with a mini tripod on my chest as written in the bino forum, but they might have to go as well. Finished up with my AT50 RACI at 17X on my new AZ Pronto - Deneb, region around Sadr, and then down the swan's spine a bit. Not much identified in the way of targets, but I think it was time well spent comparing binos.

Heck yes. Now go take your VITE-ah-mins. 😉

I've wondered if it might be good for variable star observing. Snap a pic, move on, repeat a few nights later, and compare.