Marvin Jenkins

On 31/12/2019 at 13:27, Clear Skies! said:

I want to know how are comparised mounts in weight capacity and quality:

• Skywatcher Mount EQ5 Pro SynScan GoTo

• Skywatcher Mount HEQ-5 Pro SynScan GoTo

• Celestron Mount Advanced VX AVX GoTo

• Bresser Mount Messier EXOS-2/EQ-5 (And where can I buy a mount with supplied GoTo? This one is without GoTo.)

 

And what do you think about these three mounts? Which is the best in high quality and cheap prise?

 

Clear skies!

Now. If I am not mistaken, the start of this thread said the following....

without further ado, can we just all say we are better off without nutters.

What is the general position of all concerned ???

Marvin

Wow, first post! Sometimes I am amused, other times frustrated but your post warrants serious interrogation. 
Please... we’ll educated SGLrs provide some answers, as I am following this like a hawk.

Marv

It’s either justification of a purchase or a salesman. Either way he did not do a good job.

We are all entitled to our opinions, but just the amount of Astro images from happy HEQ5 owners says it all.

Marv

Looks like someone over paid for an AVX and wished they had a belt modded HEQ5. 😂

2 minutes ago, Paul M said:

No, it won't be tomorrow, it'll happen once Betelgeuse is lost in spring twilight. Then next Autumn all we'll see is an expanding and dimming remnant. 

Dang! Missed it!

What's the next supernova candidate on the list?

Loved it, made me laugh out loud. The reason, When I first looked through a scope I thought M1 has got to be the first, surely.

A year later I found it and used M Messier’s name in vain. How can that be the first M object? Then it dawned on me, it must have been amazing back in his day. After a couple of years can you believe what it will look like after the initial sn dies down?

Going to make M42 look like an amateur water colour next to a Hockney.

Marvin

8 hours ago, paulastro said:

Well John, I am sort of lucky, so it may still be me who 'discovers' it when it finally blows its stack.

Hey there. There is a whole alternative live and disagreeable thread about The Big B going pop, and I have already called dibs on calling it ‘going bang’ although that was a couple of weeks ago.......

Seriously though, whatever your point of view, a very interesting subject and lots of information coming to the fore, which can only be a good thing.

6 hours ago, Space Hopper said:

I'm surprised by all this Betelgeuse hype, certainly on here.

Ok mainstream media whips up all this sort of thing, you expect that. I've read all sorts of nonsense about it.

Betelgeuse is a variable star : its normal for it to fluctuate in brightness periodically ??

It is not about to go Supernova.

I tell you what : lets come back to this thread in another million years or so, then we can all start getting excited 😆

 

I understand your comments, especially about mainstream media hype. But your comment “It’s not about to go Supernova” odd.

I find that as odd, as you may have found my slightly tongue in cheek post about it going bang any minute.

Do you know something the rest of the scientific world does not? Perhaps you have been given the heads up, in which case can you tell us how you know the future?

I understand that it is variable and due to this thread I know so much more about it’s behaviour, but you cannot say for certain that we are are not going to wake up tomorrow with a small second sun.

I will be happy to come back here in a million years and say to you ‘there you go, a DSO even harder to see than M1.✌️👍

5 minutes ago, Captain Magenta said:

Reverting to  OT...

I spent some time this afternoon/evening playing with my Intes 6” Mak and its new addition, the Revelation Crayford on the back.

I managed to get Mercury through it, finding it at 42x then moving up to 250x, definitely a half disc but I was having to look through a tree at the bottom of my garden so its quality came and went, mostly went.

Still, the first time I’ve ever managed to get a scope on that planet so very well pleased!

M

Excellent work. I may have seen it finally, but a very big well done for viewing a phase, especially being challenged by a tree. You have every reason to be pleased with your accomplishment.

Marv

Wow, like a hall of fame.

Marv

7 hours ago, Geoff Barnes said:

Here you go Marvin, the light pollution map of Melbourne, you can see Richmond just east of the city in Bortle 8-9 and our house about 50km east in Bortle 4 area. 

Once you get east of us the skies get progressively darker but over an hours drive from Richmond to get dark skies.

Might be better to head north out past the airport on the motorway to get to good dark skies quicker.

Just do some reading up on DSO's visible in the southern hemisphere, it's a rich treasure trove!  

Thank you very much Geoff. Probably just be binoculars and wide field photography as I don’t have a travel set up.

Are there any clubs or groups that get out to darker areas around Melbourne that you know of. Perhaps I could blag a peek through a scope when I am there.

Cheers, Marvin.

11 hours ago, Geoff Barnes said:

Almost impossible to see Mercury from home here with no view to my west because of the trees, may be possible later in the year when it transits across to the northwest with the sun in winter (sun, moon and planets are in the northern sky in Oz).

Interesting thing about Sirius is that it doesn't twinkle from here, certainly no colours shown other than pure white, mainly because it gets to 68 degrees altitude and is really steady to view on most nights.

Vega from here is very low on my north horizon and it does twinkle with colours.

Got to start doing a little bit of Southern Hemisphere homework. My brother lives in Richmond Melbourne, and it can only be a year or two before I visit. By then I will have a travel scope setup, any tips other than get out of the city.

Marvin

8 minutes ago, Captain Magenta said:

Cycling home from work this evening, admiring Venus over the Thames sunset vista, I suddenly remembered Mercury should be around too (1752). And so it was, quite distinct to the naked eye, and even visible in this iPhone picture, just above and to the right of the twin cranes.

My annual February fix of Mercury-with-naked-eye <tick> .

 

I know we all hate pollution, but what a great picture. The reflection of the eye on the turbulent water is great.

M

Just about got a pic. The sky is so clear I can see the mountains. Just in case anyone needs an explanation Venus is top left. Mercury is very low down on the horizon a little right.

Marv

13 minutes ago, andrew63 said:

One of them I remember is M69 in Sagittarius. 

andrew

Yeh I need that one too. Happy hunting.

M

My understanding of the original question and the framing of the answer is that I am not very smart. I was asked this very same question by a phd in Chemistry a month ago and tried to explain but realised I didn’t have the scientific tools to answer correctly.

In landscape gardeners terms which can be shortened to layman’s terms, take all the material of the object (red super giant) crush it down under its own gravity to a point where it becomes so dense (super nova) that the fabric of space time can no longer support it, so it warps the fabric of space so massively it ‘is’ a black hole.

Before the supernova of the RSG it’s mass is the same but not condensed into a tiny space so warps space time much less. Thank you Professor Brian Cox.

Now to get shot down by loads of people who are not Landscape gardeners😂

Marv

Good to see you here, you are in safe hands. SGL, the giant safety net under the tightrope of astronomy.

Marvin

1 minute ago, andrew63 said:

No I've seen it often, but always a thrill to catch a glimpse. Hope you enjoy those summer messier's.

andrew

Thank you I am really looking forward to it. I note with interest on your foot note that you are at M106, what 4 are you looking for to go whole nine yards?

M

Oh. That’s not looking good. So you don’t think I will get it with the 150pds then?😂

I have also noticed a flip side of this. I don’t know if it is a part of human psyche, but if you try to tell someone something incredible about an object you have seen they can shy away.

I have got into a pattern that when someone asks about my astronomy pastime, I tell a small amount, but do not talk for longer than one minute, wait for another question, give another minute. Shut up for a bit. If pursued offer a future look through a scope. It is very much like my other passion Carp fishing, seems like a lot of nothing then turns into something amazing.

I realised that for most ordinary people ‘wonder’ is not normal and the answers that we astronomers all take for granted like the existence of neutron stars can be too much.

The old saying “ignorance is bliss” is rubbish to me and you because we wonder. We push ourselves to understand and see the ‘thing’ through a scope, to say it is real, it is there, it is not just theory!

Most people like ‘safe’ the known, the easy to understand. An answer that doesn’t create questions is comforting. Children ask questions. Often they ask the best ones as they do not fear ridicule. When they stop asking is when this all comes to an end.

Marv

2 hours ago, andrew63 said:

Just caught a view of Mercury, in 10x50 binoculars and then naked eye. It's quite bright, managed to see it through some leafless trees as it was setting below the mountain.

andrew

Excellent work. I went out again and could see it but some horse tails low on the horizon meant it was far less visual than yesterday. Was that your first view of the inner most planet?

22 hours ago, Paul M said:

I reckon when you do bag it you'll never look back. I can't remember my first Neptune. I know it was a long time coming but I now consider it an easy object. I did the same with M33. Took me near 30 years then I got it with bins of all things. Now I trip over it in a dark sky!!

My all-time to-do-before-I-die object is Pluto. I don't know if it's even doable with the 10" under excellent conditions given its southern declination. I think my desire to spot Pluto visually is no more than a hangover from the days when it was a proper planet and was required for the full set. 

I know just what you mean, the night sky can be a funny thing. Within weeks of getting my first scope 130 newt on hideous eq2 I went big guns and decided Andromeda galaxy was on the cards, sorry didn’t know at the time it had a number!

Searched all over (probably in Orion for what I knew then) got to the right bit of sky and tripped over the pinwheel galaxy, didn’t have a number for that either.

Then the moon turned up and I was elated. Took another three months to find M31 (naked eye object, was I blind?) then couldn’t find the pinwheel again for another six months. Now I go ‘it’s over there’.

I know how you feel about Pluto. Personally I feel robbed, I grew up with that distant planet and then, no it’s not, I know it is not scientific but yes it is. A bit pantomime.

My other goal for the year is Ceres. That forgotten mini planet hardly anyone dares talk about, or seems happy to forget.

Good luck with Pluto hunting. If you get it be sure to let us know as one day I will be scaling up equipment and could do with some tips on finding Tombaugh’s planet.

Marvin

2 hours ago, PhotoGav said:

I was out observing last night and it is definitely on a magnitude par with Bellatrix (+1.6) rather than Rigel (+0.3) in the visible part of the spectrum. Still waiting for it to brighten (or explode 😉). My all sky cam (which is mono and responsive to longer wavelengths) shows it more on a brightness par with Procyon and Rigel than Bellatrix... Obscuration!

Looks like you have climbed onto the fence. Taking a fifty fifty position, very wise. I myself have taken to wearing a Sombrero whilst at the ep. Got to have something to stop getting burnt. Picture coming.....

M

2 hours ago, Nigella Bryant said:

Edward Guinan and other astronomers from Villanova University shared a brief update on Betelgeuse over the weekend, reporting it's now about one full magnitude fainter than it was in September.

It still continues to behave uncharacteristically. 

BANG - in my opinion. 

YES. Got one person on board the SN Express. Welcome aboard your first class seat awaits.

Marv

Something I have noticed when sharing an astronomy session with others (parents of children, not my parents) is that nine out of ten people are astounded by what they can see. Most have no idea they can see Jupiter and moons with a scope costing a few hundred pounds.

They ask questions like, How much does your scope cost? Are they hard to get?

Invariably people say “that’s cheap, we have to get one so little Johnny or Jenny can do some astronomy, they would love it” As yet I have yet to see any of them take the plunge.

It is like the vast majority of people have the attention span of a gnat, and forget everything they did five minutes before. I did have one person oooohing and arrring  at there first view of Saturn only to run away (for real) shouting over there shoulder “strictly is about to start”.

If that is the parents of the next generation then the kids are at a disadvantage regardless of the amount of internet info and computer tools. Just imagine doing astronomy for ten years and then saying “but I haven’t actually looked at anything”

This Christmas I saw a five year old get an Apple iPad. They told me they didn’t get the kids a scope because after a week it may get broken so it seemed expensive. Seems odd to me, but then I am an astronomer.

Marv

You will be happy you joined. SGL is a great place to be and valuable source of information. Nice Avatar by the way, looks like a nice place to be.

Marvin