Marvin Jenkins

I would insist on the lighting if I were you.

With a stone barn to renovate, I have never had the funds to actually buy much kit, let alone get to the stage of selling any.

Marv

Great galaxy image. I also love the odd shaped distant galaxy NE in this shot. I believe it is PGC 213387. Couldn't find any info though.

Marvin

Is that some kind of spam?

I do hope the players on the pitch don't get distracted by the sight of planet Earth appearing to wizz by.

I think we have been here before with abstract descriptions of size. What would a football pitch sized object look like? A green sheet of paper with lines and goals.

Wasn't there a size approximation to a giraffe once?

Marv

I will say that a Brian Cox video and twenty minutes thinking does not constitute an original thought. Educated people, please step in.

To add more. I was watching a Brian Cox video about explanet research and it turns out that planetary systems like ours are extremely rare compared to what has been observed.

In fact we are an extremely rare set of circumstances. Why is that, when many of the systems should be similar?

Just as topic of conversation. What if the idea that a distant gravitational object is shepherding the TNOs cannot be seen optically. What if it is a black hole?

I have often wondered why you move farther from our greatest gravitational mass you seem to find more and more material. We look farther out of our solar system and find more questionable planets. This seems at odds to me as the sun being the only sculpture of our solar system.

Marv

2 minutes ago, vlaiv said:

I wonder if telescopes such as RASA line could be used for that?
These are wide field scopes - they can cover large area of the sky, and they can do it relatively "fast".

Would a wide field instrument be the thing to find a 20 mag or dimmer object?

I would contend that most if not all instruments are not looking for X.

Clyde Tombaugh found Pluto with equipment that is considered almost stone age by modern standards.

I understand that there are billion dollar systems doing all sky surveys on a 24 hrs basis but planet X is not what they are designed to find.

Also just saying... Planet X might not exist at all. 

M

I am in favour of Pluto being the ninth planet as I grew up with the sky like that.

It is a perfect spheroid  but my understanding is that it was kicked off the planet list because of its orbit. I read somewhere that at one point its orbit is inside Neptune's? 

Not to mention how we classify anything orbiting farther out than Pluto. There is a suggestion backed by observation that TNOs are orbiting in a way that shows they are being shepherded by a large unknown body.

Marv

Obviously everything I previously wrote was made up on the spot.

However... Living in SW France we seem to be on the border of the hospitable environment for the Horse Chestnut. 

I am a landscape gardener and the Horse Cestnut is diseased and in decline. An insect parasite seems to be the cause, and many clients of mine use a hanging pheromone trap.

My joke about the Northern Red Horse Chestnut is that there is one old avenue of trees near me that flower red. It seems to be the only place.

As to Sweet Chestnut this far south, never seen any any. As to spiders, no idea.

2 hours ago, Mr H in Yorkshire said:

Where do these stories (myths) come from. We had collected a load of conkers for the grandsons, they were down in our cellars which are spider heaven (hell to my wife). Within a day they were totally covered in web.

But those are the rare conker spider! The only known species to actually thrive in conker environments.

They are a species of arachnids that normally live out thier lives in the limbs of the Northern Red Horse Chestnut. Due to the decline of this tree, by way way of parasite infection the Spiders have no other option but to seek alternative accommodation.

I have tried Chestnuts but the spiders said I was sweet enough already

19 hours ago, Mognet said:

I guess if you're sitting on the sofa and throwing them at any visible spiders then they're likely to work! 🤣

That is what I was suggesting.

Conkers 

Wow how the time flies. I made a very important decision shortly after going back to the 130. I upgraded the mount to an EZ5 as I just couldn't handle the wobble. I am all for a challenge in the night sky but not a handicap in the back garden.

The upgrade came by a mix of good fortune, good will and timing. I was given a 2" EQ6 tripod. For my 50th birthday my wife bought me an adapter plate (geoptiks) so my goto mount is on the heavy tripod.

The other present was the EZ5 which is now on the 1.75" left over tripod. My new grab and go is a little more grab and the go is a bit slower but what a difference. Problem now is the weather, worst year since I started with the 130 ironically.

Goes to show you can upgrade over time but your timing had better be good.

Marv

I think you will find that the exposure is far too long. Someone who has a 533 will be along shortly no doubt, to give you some settings advice.

Marv

28 minutes ago, Ags said:

I have tried to keep lists but I am pretty chaotic and haphazard, so it always peters out and gets forgotten. I also have really bad light pollution to contend with... I am getting a new setup and may have another go at lists. Using a hybrid EEA/visual approach with plate solving I might be able to make some headway. 

With light pollution that is the direction I would go down. 

The only way I can ensure any seriousness or longevity in a project is too print it and laminate. 

Laminated ring folder means you have to follow the challenge to the end. Tonight I printed.... tomorrow I laminate... the next four years are the easy bit.

Marv

Just finished going through my logs and I register 48 Hershel objects to date. Some in my diary are quite dramatic like the Whale and Crowbar. Definitely in vocal orbit at the fact I can clearly see the bent end of the crowbar which I believe has its own NGC number?

Marv

2 hours ago, Skipjack said:

What a cliffhanger Marvin 😂 Perhaps you bagged all of them without knowing it.

I would say not a single one. I am going through my diary this evening just in case. I do however have a personal reset, that says even if I have seen it before.... to start an observing list one must start at 1.

Our observing experience and skill grows despite the reverse of our eye sight with age. I look at my first entries and can't believe that I observed a target and wrote "bright", nothing else! I will start at the beginning for sure.

Marvin

I am going to look through my observing diary and see how many H400 targets I have already observed without deliberately going H. You never know, I maybe close to wrapping it up.🤣

My report from SW France would say.... Very still and stable. -2 with a ground frost.

Should be amazing, but there is a super thin covering of mackerel cloud with the moon generating a great halo.

So close yet so far.

Marv

I never knew or even met him. I am just a guy with a couple of small cheap scopes.

However, I used to see his name appear in relation to telescopes that were in my dreams, not my reality. 

A real guy, but to us beginners, people like him and the equipment he created are the pinnacle. 

My condolences to his family.

Marvin

That's the truth.