Marvin Jenkins

Perhaps I am just a bit edgy as I just got out and looked at the moon for ten minutes. Almost the first Astro in a month!

So far Mr H in Yorkshire you lead the field. With a fairground ride and what seems to be a quick add on😂

If it carries on like this I am going to go with top three and say “Red dot finder”.🤣

What is it today with posts. Most important three in order!

As per the post Gals scope not allowed.

Not Astro scope and only one.

Is Karl Jansky a telescope? Plus I need your top three.

I can’t allow that! It appears in your post twice in two sentences back to back and they line up in the text field so I think there must be some kind of bias🤣 Furthermore you need the top three. M

Just to prevent repeats the big question is “The most important three telescopes in history with the exception of Galileo first scope and JWST. So many scopes from Radio to visual, Solar, Space based, terrestrial, what was observed, or even more importantly what came from the observations. Odd ones like gravitational wave detectors if people think they should be included? The elephant in the room is of course Hubble, but that scope was named after a man that used a famous scope to discover galaxies and is credited main stream with proving expansion. 1.2.3. Simple really. Marvin

I consider it the greatest achievement in my life time, as I shot out of mum ten minutes before 17 shot into the sky! I also love geology so Schmitt is a bit of a hero of mine. I remember reading somewhere that some people had a nickname for him “Bull Schmitt”. However, none of those people walked on the moon. Marvin.

123star, you have done good thing and with the great advice you have received above you have not made any impulse purchases. Great advice, colimation cap. Dew shield essential. Eye piece upgrades one at a time, slowly slowly. At my entry into Astro five years ago I was bought a box of Super Plossl’s. In short they are good 1.25” all metal EPs. They are still my eps today. I went off a rapid tangent towards Astro photography at a limited level. However, I have now mounted my first scope 130 newt Orion on a portable alt az mount, and it is a joy. Never underestimate what a potent bit of kit a 130 is under darker skies. It has saved my observing sanity as a grab and go so think twice before selling it in the future for an upgrade. You might find you come back to each other a lot later on. If you can afford it, think about passing it on to a youngster if you know you are done with it. Invest in the future. Marvin

The pleasure is all mine. I have never really delved into Mono before except M50. Plasketts is a really interesting binary for sure. Marv

Unexpectedly clear tonight with incredible stillness but countered by light glow from fog starting to build. So I had it great but the conditions were going against me. I don’t mind as anything without cloud and snow is a joy. This is an odd one. I opened an Astro book yesterday and there was a bookmark in the section Monoceros. I probably left it there as a reminder to AP the Rosette. I looked at the constellation and thought why not give it a go visual? Right next to Orion, easy peasy. Not so! When the books say a faint constellation they are not joking. Under B3 skies the whole thing looks like a really dim bit of the milky way. Monoceros is the proud owner of M50 but I decided to go big game hunting. Plaskett’s Star. I stumbled upon this star in Burnhams which has the usual amazing description with all the trimmings. So I decided to give it a go with my five inch newt on an AZ5 with decent Plossl EPs. No high end kit. No power. No goto or computers. Beginners heads up. A decent star atlas. Something else to cross reference it to and plenty of dark adaptation. Monoceros is a visual nightmare. There are so few stand out stars that the whole thing melts into the background stars. Navigation is so hard. At first I was at despair but then I thought, use your time and work methodically. Go back to a known starting point and hop again. It took me at least ten minutes to work out where 13 Mon was for sure. From 13 mon there is a little triangle of stars that point in the correct direction. As usual every thing is the same magnitude even though the charts say otherwise. Another 30 minutes of back and forth an there are the three stars, the right one is Plasketts. It just looks like a star, but it is different to the others in the fov. It is pin point sharp. Very white and intense. All the other stars look like background points of light. To end it all I star hopped to M50, rude not to. I will leave you all to look into Plasketts Star. But I will end this by saying to all astronomers, the joy of a grab and a go can re energise your love of astronomy. Marvin

Great work everyone. I don’t care if it is perfect or if it processed correctly. I saw this in the EP two nights ago and these images far surpass that. Although the view in the EP had more green. Round of applause from me. I am loving this comet as I have actually seen it for once but so many people have different images of it. I hope you don’t mind me wrecking it with a smart phone pic if the clouds disappear. Marv

A quick correction. From the end of UM into Draco. Not sure how Bootes got into my train of thought, sorry to mislead. M

Just come in to warm up, five below out there with snow on the ground. Despite the forecast saying heavy cloud my inner comet clock woke at five am and kept nagging. Completely clear outside so I grabbed the 5 inch newt on the AZ5 with a 25mm plossl and headed out. My skies are quite dark so I was expecting this to be simple and obvious which it was not. Using the end stars of Ursa Minor as a pointer into Bootes, then a guesstimate of the area using a Skyhound chart it was in the EP. Definite green colour as others have reported. Very soft and diffuse, with a very short fan shape. Off centre core which is tight and bright white with slightly averted vision. Very happy to have seen it as the weather has not been kind. Back off to a warm cosy bed and a Sunday layin🙏 Marvin

1956 hardback. Quite a read if you can ignore a lifetime of tv rubbish and now internet rubbish blurring your thoughts.

Or garlic, after all I live in France.

You need one of these! Yes… held up to the light by a red onion, it was to hand. Marvin

Thanks everyone. Exceptional seeing after the snow fall may have made the difference. M

Just come in from a freezing back garden coated with snow. A really good session with plenty observed. M1, M36,M38 The Eskimo nebula and not forgetting a quick peak at Jupiter. I finished the session observing M42. I have a question. Is it possible to see the nebulosity that makes the Runningman? The stars there seemed to have an haze around them. I would hate to think that I am seeing it but it only turns out to be a slightly dewy EP😂 Marv

Just like me, two mini sessions. I now have that mantra that if the sun comes out even for five minutes, I am on it. Your Phone pic is sooo much better than mine, really does it justice. I am going to put much more effort into the sketches in the future. I will leave the phone pics to you, you have that mastered. Marv

I can’t believe my luck with the weather.

Not great. But I tried.

After so many sun spots I didn’t think it would get better, or have an opportunity to WL observe due to the horrible weather. A break in the stormy stuff and I have taken the chance, what a sight. Biro drawing as before, however AR3190 is an absolute beast. Going to try and grab a phone pic through the EP.