Marvin Jenkins

I have an original copy of the ‘Blue Book’ I will look it up, but I can say on behalf of the military it is a sky hook ballon, or the light reflected off the white breast of  migrating plovers.

Seriously I would say distant helicopter. I have a similar thing to your description but at dawn, and for a year I was convinced they were coming, until I spoke to a pilot who said it was the traffic helicopter getting airborne way to my south.

It just appeared in the sky very bright but way distant. Varied in intensity over a minute then in a few seconds just disappeared. Didn’t look terrestrial, looked star like.

Marv

Stumbled into a whole new world. Eyes as big as saucers. What an amazing project, I will be following this every day. Well done to the both of you and hope   Marc’s health is quickly resolved. I would love to hear about first light with this amazing creation.

Please keep us all informed

Marvin

I can’t say it was more simple back in the day as I have less than three years under my wings. However, sometimes, more is not less..... Got an Orion starter kit, Space probe 130st on an eq2.

The OTA pretty good, the mount, awful. Saved for an NEQ5 synscan and the OTA is a different bit of kit. I know many suffer from aperture fever but I have since flocked it, bought proper collimating tools and a PDS focuser arrives tomorrow from FLO.

I want to know how much I can get get out of this little tube before I move onto bigger, which might not be better. My first scope will only leave my possession once I have departed. It the small and basic benchmark which I will use to judge all others. Plus it’s the scope that I have seen everything up till now, so priceless to me.

Marvin

You lucky devils, it is a lifelong dream to see that behemoth close up. Can’t imagine what it must have been like to see it battle gravity and leave the planet.

one of my earliest tv memories other than the muppets is that static camera position as the body of the rocket with the large red U then S then A pass by vertically, with all the ice and vapour pouring off it.

M

3 hours ago, Bukko said:

Nice capture.

And well done on the early start !!

I have been frustrated with focussing on a DSLR; mine is a Canon and the newer STM lenses seem to have lowered the importance of manual focus leading me to waste a lot of time...

The image posted looks reasonably sharp with the expected star drift. Getting it on your EQ5 and tracking will sharpen the stars and make them a lot brighter too. The meteor does not look over-bright, so the camera settings are fine, but have a look at the same exposure time once you are tracking... Often the sharpness will drop off towards the edges amd it is a great test of the lense..

Gordon.

Thanks for the advice. I was brought up on old school ‘film cameras’ without auto focus (Olympus OM10 in early eighties silver)

I am going to the UK sometime after the new year if planes can still fly by then and will be on the look out for wide angle, manual focus, prime lenses that are DX fit, should solve the problem.

M

6 hours ago, daz said:

I am rubbish at meteors! Guarantee they will be in the opposite direction, or some huge ones while I am fiddling with the gear!!

Still, will no doubt try again on Saturday if the forecast is not lying!!

One thirty second exposure after another until something whizzes by. Nothing happens, delete and start again. Perhaps the key is spare batteries and huge memory cards.

Thanks for comments, I will take it all on board. Tonight has clouded over and turned stormy, so no more pictures for now.

Thanks Neil, I did notice that there is a smaller much fainter streak off the end of zeta tauri. Amazed at what can be seen from a focal length of 18mm, NGC 1647, NGC1750 and towards Gemini is that the Jellyfish nebula?

Please correct me if I am wrong as I am trying to match Michael Vaslov deep sky hunter star atlas to the photo.

Marv

Set the alarm clock for 3:30am and slept in the front room so as to allow my wife an unbroken nights sleep. Planned to have an hour looking at the Perseid Meteor shower as I missed it due to cloud last time around. I have recently bought a cable release for my Nikon D3100 so set it up on a tripod in the top field, pushed the ISO to 3200, aperture to f3.5 and exposure to 30 seconds.

Had some awful results due to focus problems, these auto focus lenses have so little movement from close to infinity it's like having the whole volume of your HiFi between zero and one. Saw at least thirty streaks with three being in my field of view. The attached is the best and a direct hit in the forehead of Taurus, obviously nothing to do with skill as this is my first time doing longish, wide field photography.

I played around with colour and tone a little as my RAW images were quite orange. If it is clear tonight I will put the DSLR on my NEQ5 and use tracking and an Intervalometer. Anyone out there have any advice as to f stop, ISO rating as I plan exposures of at least a couple of minutes if not more.

Marvin 

Thanks for the encouragement. I am using an Orion space probe 130st newt on an NEQ5 synscan v5.

I have a small box of Plossl’s a Barlow and a hand full of colour filters. I find the biggest drawback with this ota is the focuser. Sorry Orion, but a horrible plastic little wobbly thing fixed by three screws.

I can see the two main equatorial weather bands, the GRS, the four Galilean satellites. Managed a shadow transit a little while back but can’t get anymore detail.

Father Christmas is being strong armed into bringing me a 200 PDS end of this year. I have also ordered a 2 inch Crayford focuser for the 130st so perhaps I can contribute a little before Xmas.

living in hope Marv

I am sorry to say that I never met Sir Patrick Moore, but I clearly remember him and the sky at night programme on television. I was born in 1972 so the man was already a monument as I became aware of this most unusual educator of the general public.

I remember as a youth being utterly blown away by his glockenspiel playing which I was totally unaware of. Unforgettable man and truly one of a kind.

Marv

Stu and everyone else on this tread give me inspiration. My future aim is to be able to contribute to this topic but I am a little short of aperture at present. Keep up the great work as I can’t see anything like this detail and it keeps me informed.

Marv

I can second Rob on that, great report. I know the planets are lower than previous years but that means nothing to you, they are incredible and your comments are spot on.

As for what to see, as a person new to this amazing pastime, I would say work with situation in front of you.

For instance, if you are in a new moon period (ie no moon) try for some deep space objects like globular clusters. Planets of course, try to really pick out the weather on Jupiter and look out for the Great Red Spot. The four main moons are visible but try if your seeing is good, to pick out a transit or shadow transit on the surface of Jupiter which is a moon travelling across the planets disc or a shadow cast onto the planet from a moon.

As for Saturn I feel your main aim is to try and see the Cassini division in the rings if conditions allow. Use colour filters if you have them and find with trial and error which one gives your eye the best detail.

As previously mentioned download planetarium software if you have a pc, some great ones free on the web.

If you have clear skies but the moon is bright, do not despair..... look at it and wonder, it is magnificent.

My last bit of advice is to try to never miss a clear night. If you have ten in a row get out there ‘ten in a row’. It’s only after two months of unbroken cloud and rain you regret that clear night you couldn’t be bothered with two months earlier.

Good luck, a little effort and the reward will be with you for ever.

Marvin

Hi Jessica, I know you are new here. There are a lot of very knowledgeable people on this site who I am sure would be happy to ask you many questions.

Enjoy the view.

Marvin

No offence taken, from what I can gather all this super hot weather is caused by an unusual position of the jet stream. If you believe in climate change being man made then we are all to blame, if not it is just part of natural weather patterns. All I know is that it has rained here for the first time in over a month which is most welcome. 

M

Why are they French thunderstorms they are over your obsy.😂

This not intended as a criticism at all as your picture is excellent but what is the cause of the left side appearing to be green then shifting to red on the right? Other than the sky actually looking like that of course.

Hi Greg, how is the observing going? Just to show that there are plenty of future planetary delights awaiting you, I got my first sight of Titan. My first moon of Saturn and I believe the largest.

I had to check with a planetarium program to be sure as it appeared to be a small slightly reddish star about two Saturn diameters to the right. I had to check as I have been caught out before by claiming to have seen a fifth moon of Jupiter and it turned out to be star in the background of similar magnitude and colour to the Galilean satellites.

Hope your having clear skies

Marvin

Spellings probably not right but I can’t spell it either, so I will use the term ‘bit round the outside’.

I am using a 130mm Orion, so only a little larger in aperture. Your biggest advantage is your access to your dark sky site. I can’t tell you how much of a difference it makes.

I don’t completely subscribe to bigger kit means you see more every time, but in the future, if you can upgrade your mount then do. My package came with an eq2, after one year I upgraded to a sw eq5 and the difference was incredible.

It was so much more solid and precise I started seeing dso’s that disappeared in the eq2 wobble. It took another seven months to save for the syn scan kit but that has taken it to whole new level, being able to track an object has been a revelation.

I still use the 130 on it so don’t worry about putting a small scope on a larger mount, it should be that way round.

Do you know what..... can’t be bothered.

I am just going to do visual for the future. I am in it for the astronomy not a work shop for computer geeks.

Out of here

Marvin...... don’t reply.

The power issue is not easily resolved as the neq5 does not have a power light. The cigarette lighter socket has an led and it is lit up when I am connected to mains power via my 12v transformer, so I have to assume that it is working fine.

I powered up the mount with the handset connected instead of the laptop and all the handset functions work fine, I can slew and park the scope perfectly.

I am not connecting through Stellarium as I am still only in the first eqmod setup stages.

I used the device manager as shown in the light vortex tutorial and it shown as com port 3.

I have selected com 3 in the eqmod screen but get no connection. If I click the binocular button for eqmod to find the com port I get a list of 16 ports. I select port 3 from that list and click ok, toolbox connect still nothing.

I was beginning to wonder if it is a Windows ten issue as all the tutorials are 7 based and it’s looking like I am an odd one out.

I maybe able to borrow an older laptop and test the mount connectivity to see if I have the same issues.

Thanks for all the help.

Definitely the format of my long lat. I am now through that screen as I get no further message when I click ok.

Onto the next problem. In the toolbox I made sure the com port was correctly selected, in my case 3. I click Ascom Connect and I get the message ‘ Connect error: Time out’ in the mount position box.

I am definitely using the correct com port and light vortex says the only other thing that causes this is low voltage. I am connected to mains power.

Any ideas.

The best Saturn moment for me, after the first time which was the same as MKHACHFE for emotion, came when a friend expressed an interest.

He looked through the eye piece for the first time and jumped like he had been shocked with electric. Ten minutes in he still couldn’t believe what he was clearly seeing. That old saying ‘you have to pinch yourself’.

Makes you realise that the vast majority of people have only ever seen a picture. A smaller percentage have seen a photo which is why the real thing makes such an impression.

M

You are going to have a great time if the weather is kind to you. Our moon is especially relevant right now and a magnificent object to study. If you get successive nights compare the features from the previous night, the changes on the terminator are astonishing.

Saturn is my favourite. You don’t say what equipment you are using but I couldn’t believe how bright the planet and rings are. I hope you have good seeing as I managed to see the Cassini division at the fourth time of trying in one week and it made it all worth while.

You should be really happy with the clusters, they are not hard to find, but careful with planetary nebulas, they tend to be small and easy to miss.

Happy hunting