Marvin Jenkins

16 minutes ago, Greymouser said:

Thank you for asking and the good sentiment.
Yes all is well and the eye is starting to feel better all ready, so fingers crossed. The other eye went well, without any problems so this should be good too. There is no anaesthetic, other than eye drops, but they are useless, at least there is no recovery time.

I have to ask, your avatar? Looks like a complete gem.

Definitely not an expert in this field but I got a great look between storms this evening. Big hole in the sky from horizon to horizon but this will last one hour before the weather front rolls in.

Orion, the entire sky, constellation Orion, Taurus, and the surrounding constellations. Betelgeuse is sooooo dim. By naked eye, I would say one magnitude less than Rigel. Has this been the case at anytime in the viewable past?
 

Please bear in mind I am just one of you, so my idea of magnitude maybe less than scientific. On the other hand if a PHD wants a fist fight I am more than willing to apologise.

Marvin

2 minutes ago, Greymouser said:

I got this over a week ago, but have had neither the time nor the inclination to get it out and sorted atop my tripod, yet. I have just been too tired, achy and busy.  Someone else bought it for me, which was nice, but I have already got an upgrade for one of the clamps, ( got myself this time, ) not sure which I will replace first. Top or side?

Its a Sky Tee 2, just in case you are unsure...

Aaaannnd today I had to go for another bout of laser eye surgery, on my left eye this time, ( hopefully the last time I will see him! ) which was very uncomfortable and has left my eye feeling very odd. Hopefully it will be better by morning. However as we got back, we were just in time for a delivery from DPD, which had come from Germany. I ordered it on Tuesday and it arrived today, which is not bad coming from Germany. It showed as in stock, it was and was dispatched the same day it was ordered, which is better than some retailers and is not half bad at all! 

It is of course, the six inch classical cass, which has a very good price at the moment. I cannot wait to try it out, perhaps on the above new mount. 
Not sure what to make of it yet, but things seem to be a little loose and it may need a little fettling, so I will have to pick the brains of the apparent resident expert on these here Classics... ( I wonder whom I could mean? )

 

The most important thing in all of this, are you ok? I hear laser eye surgery and it gives me the chills. I do hope all is well.

Marv

12 hours ago, Alien 13 said:

The Pluto trigger is basically a smart wireless DSLR shutter remote control that is operated via a phone app, the unit has built in sensors for sound and light triggers so can detect lightening strikes for example during the day as well as doing HDR or just used as a intervalometer. The app is very powerful and allows for lots of differing configurations.

Alan

Dude, that really is a thing of beauty. No idea anything like that existed. 
 

M

So happy to have you here. The enthusiasm and warmth for the subject are obvious and contagious.

Your line in your post that something so simple could be so amazing sums up how a lot of us feel.

I hope you enjoy this incredible journey. For me personally it was like having the top of my head removed, quick play with the grey matter, top of head replaced and I came out the other end a different person.

I sincerely hope that you continue this amazing journey and encourage the younger generation to do the same. I hope your five year old daughter is in as much awe as me, and you, and hopefully thousands more.

Wednesday was blue skies and for once it did not cloud up by five pm. Decided to put the Nikon on my 150pds and have a go at taking my first DSO picture.

M31 is a single image of 180 seconds at ISO 800. I sent it to Bukko for critical examination and he very kindly asked his son to see if it could be tweaked a bit. A little bit more detail of the dust lanes became apparent.

Next opportunity I will try to grab a whole bunch of these and try a stack for the first time.

Marvin

3 hours ago, Alien 13 said:

I had one of these delivered a few days ago.

Amazing bit of kit.

Alan

What is it? 

Fed up with everything getting soaking wet. Just received a Lynx Astro dual port dew controller and Astro zap heater band for my 150 pds. Tested it yesterday and Against all odds the skies were clear and the atmosphere was bone dry!!! 
 

Is that the equivalent of equipment anti matter?
 

Marv

Wow that sure is an in-depth answer. I would give you sixty seconds under interrogation. I will look up IC 443 and see where it resides in the sky. Good luck capturing that S11 data, I hope you get to post a complete image that you are happy with soon.

Marv

I am unfamiliar with IC443, any further details would be much appreciated. Looks like you captured some amazing structure. What equipment are using?
 

Marv

Nice one John thanks for the link. Very reasonable prices too. Definitely something I will get into in the future.

Thats me with my hand on a very expensive nickel iron lump at Greenwich between Christmas and new year. Older than planet Earth apparently.

If I have clear skies tonight I am going to get right on this. I find meteorites fascinating. To be holding something that was once flying around in space is incredible. I have always had a dream of owning a decent size nickel iron meteorite with thumb printing. I know they can be bought on the web but I have so much more astronomy kit to get so it will just have to wait.

Marv

Dumbo, something feels wrong about that. What an impressive first step into the heavens. Good size dob, and the smaller grab and go, although to the coffee table. I am impressed by your pictures, most people see high end images, fully processed and shy away from posting there efforts, I always think there is not enough posts from new members. Well done you for giving it a go and getting some results. Keep a diary, record everything you see no matter how 'matter of fact'.

Quote "Your journey into this amazing night, will last a life time if you continue to wonder and it will be a most fulfilling pursuit" 

Marv

Thanks, for a single image I am very happy. I am using a Nikon D3100 on a SW 150pds without any extras. So next clear night I am going to try for a big batch of these and see what stacking can achieve. I promise I will frame it correctly though as the third galaxy is out of shot for no reason. See getting picky already after one frame.

Marvin

12 minutes ago, Rodd said:

Thanks Marvin.  I remember my first successful sub....it was M31 too.  I could not figure out how to do anything (its not like there is a manual ya know?) and when I finally got guiding to work and was able to take a 5 min sub of M31, as soon as it popped up on the screen I whooped and hollered and ran inside and was overjoyed.  Those were the days!

Rodd

I know just what you mean. Mine was three minutes which is pushing it on an NEQ5 and if you don't mind here is the end result. What do you think? Nothing done just a raw image.

Rodd I love both of them. This is especially close to my heart as last night I took my first images of M31. If I can get close to your image one day I would be overjoyed.

Marvin

Just stumbled onto this thread. Great shot, you should be proud.

Sometimes it makes me realise how far tech has come. Does anyone out there know when the first image of M42 was taken? It would be interesting to know when the image in this thread became roughly equal to professional efforts.

1 minute ago, Paul M said:

Most of the intense radiation of the core collapse is screened from us by the outer layers of the star. Those take time to be disrupted and be ionized and eventually ejected into space by the core collapse. What does escape immediately is the glut of neutrinos created at that moment. They are effectively mass-less and beat everything else out of there. 

Don't worry. Apparently there are neutrinos passing through us in great numbers all the time. They won't wait to be focused by a telescope or captured by a CCD chip. They'll carry on their merry way, mostly!

Just finished reading the book Big Bang. I think I understood about a quarter of it. Your explanation of neutrino bursts from the sn makes me realise I need to read it again.

It seemed like a silly question when I posted it, but this is very interesting and I definitely did not expect the difference of options.  Was expecting ‘don’t be silly’ but I guess we are all a little in the dark when it comes to the real effects of Super Nova.

On a personal note I have decided to view Betelgeuse with my left eye. If I get blinded by the explosion I have saved my ep eye of choice.

Marvin

I think that is a great result, considering that it is in effect a holiday point and shoot camera on a bracket clamped to the eye piece. In my opinion you have done very well. My own personal favourite is a moon shot I have using a Sony Cybershot in the same bracket as yours. It is my screen saver and I have been asked from where did I download it. Makes me smile.

Marvin

18 minutes ago, willcastle said:

Took the HEQ5 out for the first time tonight and ran into a few issues. After realising for ages that I was inputting the date wrong (dd/mm/yy instead of mm/dd/yy), I also realised that when it mentioned the position of Polaris at the end of the setup, it seemed to say it was at a different position to my app (but maybe I am misunderstanding it). Secondly, I told it to do a one star alignment just as a quick test and it was so horrendously out that I was a bit stunned. I loosened the clutch and pointed it where it should be, and from then on it was approximately okay and finding the moon / m42 / m45. It managed to at least get each of these in the 30mm finderscope, if not the actual scope (80mm). But then I typed in m31 and it said it was below the horizon! And... well... yeah it was pretty much right over head. 

Welcome to astronomy b#####s. I have lost count of the amount of times I have laboriously pin pointed Polaris in the polar scope, adjusted for Polaris off set using the syn scan app, for the first star of choice given by the hand set to be so far out it is in another constellation!!!

Drives me mad to the point that when the hand set asks to align to first star I always scroll to second or third option in the list as this ends up being more accurate. Just to prove myself wrong I have calibrated my polar scope and use an illuminated reticule eye piece and first star is always way out.

Marv 

Rocked it dude. I have viewed Uranus once in the ep. Your pictures show far more than my eye ball could ever capture. Keep up the good work, gives me something to aim at in the distant future.👍

Last night I was fortunate to get a second evenings Lunar observation, after missing the 7th due to complete cloud cover. 

I started with the most northern crater on the terminator which turned out to be Babbage, showing a crisp pock marked crater in the floor. Right next door Pythagoras with it’s central peak full of contrast. There appears to be a heart shaped structure joining the north wall of Pythagoras. I think it is the crater complex Anaximander finishing with Carpenter but hard to tell right on the edge. It is noticeable compared to the other craters that Pythagoras seems worn and badly erroded.

J Herschel, very hard to see. A crater in the n/e wall and a pin prick post mark in the crater floor. Moving south to Aristarchus (pure white) plus Herodotus. I can now see Schroters valley, initial description ‘like a fish hook coming out of the mouth of the north wall of the second crater. At first I got confused for a few minutes thinking I was looking at Reiner and Reiner Gamma. Then I noticed the rock outcrop east and realised it was Montes Harbinger from the session on the 6th. Now I know where I am!

West on the terminator to Selencus the shadow line directs it perfectly. A long wrinkle ridge glances Selencus east wall and continues to the Montes Agricola, I ponder if it is a wrinkle ridge as it is so straite, perhaps an ejector ray from a crater on the dark side?                   Schiaparelli has a large ridge that seems to fork at the crater.

Moving south again, Hevelius with north companion Cavalerius appearing to clip the north wall of the larger crater, Cavalerius split black and white right down the middle. Hevelius showing a small sharp pointed peak, the floor has lumps and structure in the crater side wall. Looks a strait line on the outside of the eastern wall (map says rilles) going to need higher mag so I will come back this way later.

Grimaldi is a monster with very complex crater walls, but really smooth on the crater floor like untouched Maria. The walls look eroded to the point of being blasted. Extremely rocky with what appears to be mountainous structure. Sirsalis, two overlapping equal craters, the older one clearly far more eroded. There appears to be lots of complex structure surrounding that area.

Darwin, hard to identify. Appears to be a solid black figure of eight, so may be a double crater with collapsed joining wall? Cruder nearby and seems so shallow. Finished with Schickard which was not spectacular at this time. Time to up the magnification and head back to Aristarchus and Schroters valley.

Now using a 10mm ep the valley looks like the letter W written by left hand (I am right handed) part way down the valley there looks like a split with one continuing onto to two small equal size craters. In moments of complete stillness this structure really blows me away. The central peak of Aristarchus is now visible and the wrinkle ridge/ray question is answered, it seems to be a massively long wrinkle ridge. I pushed it a bit further with a Barlow, but it seemed to amplify the seeing problems.

After an hour or a touch more I decide to pack away and have a look at the Lunar 100 list that I keep hearing about

Marvin

Apologies if this is in the wrong place, mods please feel to move it to the right heading. 
 

Now this may sound silly, but if I were to be viewing Betelgeuse with my 150 pds at the moment the light from it’s supernova explosion reaches Earth would I be in any physical danger of eyesight damage.

I thought don’t be rediculous, but after talking with an astronomer far more knowledgeable than I, his description made me wonder. I have read about a potential second sun in the sky, weak daylight on earth at night.

I did initially think it wouldn’t be any worse than viewing the moon but it dawned on me that it is a concentrated point of light not soft reflected light from a surface.

I ask this as we are aware of the dimming at present so perhaps we are getting close.

Marvin