Mike JW

Hi Martin - decent views? SLL failed to cope but Jocular did fine. I did then load the snapshots into Photoshop to tweak them further. In Jocular the gradient slider is incredibly useful to deal with the background noise. These shots show the power of the EEVA approach. Mike

Seeing where you are observing from - I am impressed by your determination. I would not even bother. I moan if I can only see down to mag 5 stars! Don't worry about quality of the results, EEVA is about 'seeing' objects and finding out about them. Enjoy the journey. Mike

Palomar 12 at -21 DEC is too low for anything worthwhile but here is my attempt from last night (Aug 18th). It lies about 62,000 lyrs away and is about 52 lyrs across. It is a relatively young globular cluster. Its proper motion indicates that it may have been captured from the Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical galaxy about 1.7 billion years ago. Below next to my poor shot is the Hubble image.

Hi Martin, thanks for the technical info. I always have the hot pixel removed box ticked in Jocular. The buzz last night was using the EEVA technique to get a view of these low down targets - no way could I have reached them with a big Dob. Mike

August 18th - RFGC galaxies in Capricorn - why did I visit these guys? - because I can!!!! and it adds a few more ticks to my Flat galaxy list - I must get a life??? They vary between mag 15.7 and 16.7. These galaxies are for folk who live further south and in very dark skies.

August 18th - part of the grand tour in Capricorn. SHK 296 - very attractive set of faint mag 18 - 19 galaxies, likely to be at least a billion lyrs away.

August 18th - transparent skies and warm (too warm for an uncooled camera?). Two VV galaxies in Capricorn. It is easy to always post shots of interesting objects, so here are two boring ones! but pleased to continue my VV galaxy journey. VV1889 - pair of spirals in contact and disrupted (PKdf ), mag 15.5 VV 1907 A spiral and an elliptical galaxy that have coalesced (PC), mag 14.5. NGC 7030

August 18th. I spent a leisurely time in Capricorn, taking advantage of transparent skies to peruse the DSOs low down. Never easy at the low DEC and the camera was of course noisy in these summer temperatures. Hickson 87 HCG 67a 67b 67c 67d "Name" NGC 5306 PGC 49017 PGC 49040 PGC 49036 Type E1 pec Sb Scd S0 pec Mag. 12.2 15.1 15.7 15.8

Look at the postings from Bill S and Martin M in the EEVA reports to get an idea of what can be achieved with an 8" scope. They both use a lodestar x2 guide camera, capturing the images with Starlight Live (SLL) but then using Jocular to view them/adjusting as required. A mono camera is more sensitive than a colour camera. SLL and Jocular are very easy to use. They enable me to concentrate on the viewing rather than getting diverted onto technical aspects. If it is DSO objects that you wish to concentrate on then in simple terms you need a camera with big pixels as big pixels tend to be more sensitive. (the more technical folk will be able to give you more detailed advice). An 8" scope can 'see' thousands of objects, even down to pinprick mag 19 galaxies. No need to stick with the Messier objects or the brighter NGCs. We can give you all sorts of interesting lists. I mainly use a C11 and an ultrastar (mono) guide camera. Sometimes I use a 7" Mak Cas. All the best Mike

Tried again last night with VV 476. No real improvement in the detail observed but I enjoyed the revisit. I need to wait until we have a colder, transparent night. Mike

Hi Martin, Great to able to compare your results as well, which I think are better as far as galaxy details go. Conditions were rubbish last night - so much humidity. VV 476 is definitely better than mine. The central part of the galaxy has a ring like feel to it - fascinating. Mike

My post earlier today re VV galaxies in Equuleus highlighted a couple of gems. This post complements it with the RFGC galaxies to be found in the area. None are exciting but it makes for a decent challenge to detect mag 17 edge on galaxies, in poor conditions. Data below is from ST4 (Sky Tools 4). Mike Cls Primary ID Alternate ID Con RA (Ap) Dec (Ap) Mag Ang. Size Type Gal UGC 11656 RFGC 3668 Equ 21h00m05.2s +11°21'46" 15.8 1.0' x 0.2' Spiral Gal RFGC 3697 LEDA 91696 Equ 21h08m37.3s +05°34'33" 17.7 52" x 8" Gal RFGC 3744 LEDA 91703 Equ 21h23m50.2s +05°18'47" 17.7 40" x 8" Gal RFGC 3745 LEDA 91704 Equ 21h24m17.4s +08°58'41" 17.3 42" x 15" Gal RFGC 3749 LEDA 91707 Equ 21h25m31.7s +07°54'25" 16.8 46" x 14"

Hi folks, Now we all know Equuleus is a waste of space visually!!!! but there some gems to take a look at using the EEVA technique. VV 476 (UGC 11680) - a mag 15 galaxy with a satellite companion at the end of an arm. Conditions were poor last night (light haze, high humidity but steady skies) but nice to be out there in shorts. It was daft to go for this target but you never know what might be seen. Is the galaxy at the end of the lower arm a line of sight ? red shift suggests not. So quite likely the satellite is interacting with the main galaxy. VV 508 - also a mag 15 but this time classified as 'Ch' - meaning a chain. First glance it was tempting to think it was a chain of 3 galaxies and maybe one offset, making a total of 4 but then maybe two galaxies and two stars. So off we go to Aladin/NED data. It really is 3 galaxies in a row and the offset fuzz is a star. Close inspection of Aladin indicates various other very faint galaxies (mag 18) which coincide with fuzz spots on this shot (could be be noise that happens to be in the right place). There are various brighter galaxies in the shot -see ST4 screen shot to help locate them. Mike

Here are three highlights from a tour of the VV galaxies in Delphinus and Aquila (7 in Del and 2 in Aql). Conditions were not good. VV 102 (UGC 11672) in Del. This is a pair of spirals that are coalescing (given PC designation), about 460 million lyrs away. VV 773 (UGC 11564) in Del. This pair have a bridge between them and are about 240 million lyrs away. Sort of got a hint of the bridge. VV 621 (NGC 6926) in Aql. It has the designation of N, meaning 3 members interacting. But is it just one large spiral that is being disturbed by gravitational interactions with ??? See link: https://www.webbdeepsky.com/galaxies/object?object=NGC6926

Hi Callum, progress indeed and as Martin indicates the Pal Globulars are tricky objects to track down. Have fun doing it. I have often thought about getting the ASI174 Mini and using it with my C11 but not being very software savvy I struggle to use anything other than SLL and Jocular. Very interested to see how you get on with your set up. Mike

Hi Martin, I am still getting use to ST4 but I do find it a useful piece of software, especially for lists with apparent co-ordinates. The info box on a chart indicates stars down to mag 20. Mike

I always enjoyed visiting this group in Delphinus with the 20" . I first visited this group back in August 2013, when it was galaxy of the month on the Webb Society - https://www.webbdeepsky.com/galaxies/object?object=NGC6928 . Thus it gave me much pleasure to visit it EEVA style. The group are about 204 - 219 million lyrs away and include 6928/30/27/27A. UGC 11590 is 230 million lyrs away so could be part of the group. 6928 and 6930 are both barred spirals (SBab). 6927 is SO, 6927A is E. The screen shot is from Sky Tools 4. Mike

Last night (6/08/20) I thought I would find Pluto again but this time to use the C11/ultrastar. This would be more of a challenge as it would give a smaller fov and more stars compared to the STF 180/ultrastar combination. I could not be sure I had found Pluto last night but on close inspection this morning I was able to locate the fov against star charts and locate Pluto. The C11/ultrastar could pick up Pluto in just 3 seconds. The attached image is stack of 5 sec subs to reduce the noise. Conditions were far from ideal - unsteady, humid and moonlit. Mike

Hi Martin, I had been wondering when you might continue the Berkeley journey. Great to see some more and in colour. As you indicate some of them really do take a bit of convincing that they are clusters. Agree re Be 82 - wins the pretty cluster award for the outing. Mike

Wonderful to see the big flare. Great sketch. Mike

Thanks folk for your enthusiastic comments. I should really do the same with an asteroid or two - watch this space? Mike

Mark Stuart contacted me to discuss if using the EEVA technique it would be possible to show his friend Pluto, via the Zoom facility. The answer is Yes. Set up - STF 180 at f6.0, and the ultrastar camera mounted on an iOPTRON MiniTower Pro (v.2). Clear spell forecast for early hours of the 28th July, evening of July 28th and then again for the evening of July 30th. Charts prepared. Headed out at 01.00 hrs on the 28th. Sent scope to Pluto (having set it up,aligned.......). I just could not work out the star field (the disadvantage of the narrow fov of the camera). I double checked charts, re synced the scope twice and each time the scope came back to the same place but it just did not feel right. I also had no idea what would be the best time for the subs or how many to stack. I did not wish to get too many stars and thus loose Pluto in a multitude of stars. In the end I did a series of shots in and around where the scope kept going to each time I sent it to Pluto and gave up after an hour. During the day I poured over the charts and various shots and realised the scope had just been missing Pluto (I suspect internal co-ordinates in the handset are out). However in one of my shots I spotted a faint grey dot that was indeed Pluto. Having decided that it was better to use apparent co-ordinates for Pluto from Sky Tools 4 and also now familiar with the star field, it was game on for the evening. Mark organised the Zoom bit. That evening (28th) - I set up early (10.30 pm) and put in the apparent co-ordinates and there was Pluto but not where it was 20 hours earlier. At 11.15.pm Mark and friend came online via Zoom and we sat there musing on just what we were seeing. We all agreed that the dot had to be Pluto - the dot had moved compared to my earlier observation and it fitted exactly where charts said it would be. A very satisfying outcome. However I wished to be 100% certain that this dot was indeed Pluto so last night (30th), despite the bright moon I set up the same gear and put in apparent co-ordinates and there was the 'dot' again but of course it had moved. A 6 second sub was all that was needed to show Pluto and the stacking was simply to reduce the noise. What a thrill to find Pluto, especially as we now have the amazing close up images from the fly by............ Equally satisfying was enabling someone to 'see' Pluto as live as possible other than a direct view through a large Dob. Mike As an after thought. I was able to demonstrate what I was doing re stacking etc via the live screen share facility of Zoom - this idea could be really helpful to someone trying to sort out how to use a piece of software to get an image/view of an object - it really is an online, live tutorial facility..........

I had not seen the FLO ones before. I like the simple means of attachment. I would go for one of those. Much easier than mucking about making one. Mike

Totally agree. This sketch captures the drama of the comet. Thanks Marios for posting. Mike

I never use a Bahtinov mask on my reflector. I locate a bright star and get it in the centre of the fieId of view and keep tweaking the focus until the diffraction spikes are as sharp as I can get them - normally works. (Don't forget to keep the collimation spot on ). (Keep camera settings down to about 1 second, no stacking and adjust the software so that you get clear diffraction spikes). For my other scopes I use a mask. This web site may interest you http://www.deepskywatch.com/Articles/make-bahtinov-mask.html I have made three homemade masks over the years and personally find them fit better than the bought one I have. Much to learn and have fun. Mike