Mike JW

Good for you - you are underway and no doubt planning the next target. You should see my first attempt - went straight into the bin. Mike

Using the ultrastar is not really the right camera. Need a high resolution camera to do anything worthwhile but it was fun to try. Much prefer binocular views. Mike

Last night was my first serious attempt with the STF Mirage 180 and the ultrastar. Shots at f6. I was keen to discover what could be achieved with a small scope. At some point I shall test it out on the faint SHK galaxy groups. Mike

Thought I would mess about with the 7" Mak Cas and take a closer look at the core. Results below. Hints of detail. Mike

Hi Martin, I enjoyed this tour of the VV galaxies in Oph. As usual I had no idea what I might find. Agree that 537 and 617 are the best. I really should visit these again but they are setting and getting too low. VV 537 (NGC 6570) is SBm - the bar is easily visible in my shot. At the end of the spiral arm going off to the left is the galaxy it is interacting (decent images show a nucleus at this point) with and hence causing the disruption. My shot would suggest it is a two arm spiral. VizieR gives it a N classification = three or members in a tight group. Very hard to identify other possible galaxy nucleus. VV 617 (NGC 6240) is also given the N designation. It is a Seyfert 2 Galaxy (bright core and bright in the infra red - a powerful black hole lurks at the centre) and has a double nucleus. VV 778 (UGC10868) is classified as PDb = distant pair with a bridge (just got a hint of this) VV 820 are a PK = pair in contact. Both elliptical galaxies. VV 1795 are a pair of spirals in contact. (PK). VV 1821 are a pair of spirals in contact (PK). VV 1837 (UGC 10797) SB (probably) VV designation M = one satellite galaxy. Aladin shows a bridge between the two: should it now be classified as PDb? Noting my poor stars - need to double check collimation and I might as well clean up the corrector plate on the C11. Mike

Hi Achim, the mould made pastel paper gives a very satisfying rendition of the sun's turbulent surface. A good choice. Mike

July 13th whilst waiting for Comet F3 (Neowise) to clear some cloud I took a look at VV galaxies in Ophiuchus. Stars are a bit elongated. The camera cable got caught up and I forgot to check the focus after it got snagged. It made for a delightful tour.

Hi, Enjoyed the sketch, here is my sketch from earlier this morning. At one point the comet was being passed by two satellites on a parallel orbit (likely to be some of the Starlink satellites). They neatly framed the tail. So my sketch records the natural wonder of a comet with humankind's contribution to the night sky. In my sketch through binoculars they are the two brighter 'stars' either side of the tail. Agree that the view through binoculars beats a telescope view. Mike

Enjoyed seeing F3 this morning. Once located with 8 x 32 bins I could just pick it up with the naked eye at 3.10am before loosing it to the twilight. Core had a golden/yellow appearance and a sharp curving tail. (Equally wonderful was the moon close to Jupiter/Saturn, Mars high in the sky and Venus sparkling away low in the East.) Mike

Hi, Re shadows in the wrong direction. Take a look outside on a sunny day when the sun is at a low angle. Look carefully and you will see shadows at all sorts of wrong angles. Looking carefully at your image and shadows are at various angles. This is due to the height of the ground at this point, the compass direction of the feature. The image of the shadow of Rupes Recta in your image is a triangular in shape. If the angle of the sun to the wall is approx 90 degrees then the wider shadow at the right hand end of the wall would suggest the wall is higher at this end than the left hand end. Shadows are fascinating. Mike

Thanks Bill. (Owen put me onto it).

This type 1a Super Nova was discovered by Atlas just yesterday. I was fortunate to be given the heads up by a good friend. It is mag 16.4. At first I thought it was the obvious bright star (silly me, I should have known better as I have visited M85 before with the camera) but it is the faint intruder just below it. Worth re-visiting but we are rapidly loosing our chance as M85 is setting by the time we get past twilight. Mike

I wanted to make a start on the Lunar 200 as I have just one target left for the 100 (crater Peary - waiting for a good libration to get this one). Number 147 is Mons Usov. Never heard of it or noticed it. Take a look at the sketch below and see if you can spot it! Mons Usov is the lone mountain down in the SE of the Mare Crisium. It has been isolated from the basin rim by the basalt lava flows. It is 1700m high and appeared slightly curved. I have never noticed it before. Where the mare basalts flow out of the basin at the West is where O' Neils bridge can be observed (seen it once). The bridge lies in between Promontry Olivium to the north and P. Lavinium to the south. Both these names are defunct. Sketch is chalk on black paper. (Much artistic licence in this sketch). Rough sketch made at the eyepiece in pencil, then drawn in chalk later. Mike

Hi Barry, It took me two years of reading, trying out two cameras on two different scopes, giving up, then starting again, then getting totally confused about cameras. All of this on the back of 20 years of visual observing with large dobsonian scopes and a whole variety of other scopes. Firstly - slow down!!!!!!! Secondly take time to read through the posts in EEVA Reports to get a feel what folk are doing and what equipment is being used. Excellent EEVA is being done with 8" scopes. I used a C9.25 for awhile but replaced this with a C11 but I would happily go back to the C9.25. They really are excellent scopes for visual and EEVA. Camera - several regular contributors to this site are using Starlight Express Guide cameras - either the Lodestar x2 or the Ultrastar. I have used both and personally prefer the Ultrastar as it has a larger chip and hence a wider field of view. These cameras have a dedicated piece of EEVA software called Starlight Live which is simple to use but no longer being developed. However Martin who is a regular on this site has written software for these cameras called Jocular which does an excellent job and is currently being upgraded for colour work. Colour is not for me. I prefer to see things as they appear in a scope or as they might appear if I had a really big scope. Colour cameras are less sensitive than mono. One camera will probably not satisfactorily do all you want. Others need to advise. The Lodestar/Ultrastar are for deep sky only. I thought long and hard about a Hyperstar but decided against it because its fast f ratio, wide fov and effectively low magnification is not ideal for the faint, small galaxies I am interested in. I use my C11 (and the C9.25 ) with the dedicated f6.3 reducer. I find this fast enough for decent results in 1-2 minutes for brighter objects or up to 5 minutes for fainter targets. I have used a 0.5 reducer on the camera with mixed success - tendency for coma and vignetting with the ultrastar due to its wider fov than the lodestar x2. Mike

I have been waiting for the right libration to observe this mountain. If I understand correctly it is a significant high peak at the end of a ridge, close to the south pole. Height is in the region of 27,000 ft. It is part of the high ground that forms the Aitken Basin. In my sketch it is the triangle peak at the end of the ridge. Mike

I can still remember my first view of M13 - some 20yrs ago. Awe and wonder time. Mike

Great. A decent snack! I note the comment re no real gain with stacking. I find the same when viewing globulars. I tend to then go for short subs in the hope keeping stars sharp. Mike

A satisfying result Bill. Well done. I like the idea of nipping into the kitchen. I do the same. A pity we cannot now re-organise the thread and put all the Arp 104 shots together. Mike

Having just posted the above I remembered I had visited VV 170 and SHK 357 as per Martin's post. Mike

9th June, unexpected gap coming through so what do you do on a bright summers night? I set up the 15/ultrastar with no particular targets in mind and took a look at the Pocket Sky Atlas and decided to go for bright galaxies as shown in the atlas and what a lovely surprise I had. NGC 4618 popped onto the screen - star forming regions, lovely spiral shape and just one obvious big arm. Further looking made me wonder if this galaxy was being disrupted because of the star forming regions. Reading up about this barred spiral (SBm) tells me that its neighbour NGC 4625 is gravitationally interacting with it. This galaxy is classified as SBm pec, meaning it is being severely miss-shapen. No doubt it is already losing out to its somewhat bigger neighbour which in time will finish it off and possibly form a ring galaxy in the process. It is also a one armed galaxy with a bar. Together this pair are known as VV 73. However NGC 4618 is also Arp 23, so there I am in the bright summer sky just after midnight spotting VV73, two one armed galaxies, and Arp 23. Nice! Below is the shot using starlight live and also close ups from Jocular which I was running at the same time. I forgot to adjust the Jocular close ups to match the orientation of the SLL wider shot. Mike

ARP 269. I have visited this pairing before in CVn. The light nights of our summer do not stop me being out there. When it is clear I will observe from about 11.30 pm to 1.30 am. This shot was taken just after midnight. The galaxy pair are in the process of merging which, is triggering much star formation? The big galaxy is a barred spiral (NGC 4490) and no doubt it will consume its small neighbour (NGC 4485), A connecting bridge of stars appears to be in the process of forming. https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/307/3/481/960844 In this article it concludes that NGC 4490 is a young galaxy and that its rate of star formation has in fact been constant. Further it has yet to be seriously affected by the merging process so the star formation knots that we see are nothing to do with the merging. The merging began about 10 million years ago. NGC 4485 being considerably smaller is being disrupted by the collision. Definitely one to watch over the next few million years!!!!!!! Mike

Martin - thanks for adding to the post and in colour. I recently visited 5634 but my focus must have been out so the shot is only worthy of the bin. Anyone else reading this thread - feel free to add in globular shots. Mark - Globulars are always worth a look and I never loose the sense of awe and wonder when viewing these objects. Yes I do get a thrill at capturing them and the more you look the more one appreciates the subtle differences. I am hoping to capture as many as I can over the year and then to do a grand post. It makes a real change to picking up faint fuzzies. I would love to give NV a go but the expense............ Have fun and thanks for your thoughts and comments. Mike

My OMC was an early one and yes cool down could be a problem but I would always start the cool down process well in advance (2hrs ahead). I was able to keep the scope in an outside store close to ambient temperature in the first place. Noway would I run a fan that pulled air through the scope, despite the filter system - dust and grot are best kept out of the tube. Also as commented above, there is the danger of dewing up inside. I checked the scope collimation on purchase and never needed to adjust it. Intes Micro 715 Mak - agree - lovely scopes. Mike

Yes it would but a good friend who is a Mewlon owner still reckons the OMC beats the 210. The Dall Kirkham design suffers from coma, unless corrected, which if I remember correctly the 10 and 12" Mewlons are corrected but not the 8 or 7". Mike

Hi folks, I have followed your discussions with interest. I owned an OMC 200 (1/8 wave, secondhand) for a few years - simply put they are seriously good on planets, moon and doubles. I can still remember those rare transparent, very steady nights and I would cruise the lunar surface at x400 with ease - awesome. The contrast is apo like without a doubt. On double stars again is was so good and made splitting doubles a pleasure. The big disadvantage was the narrow fov so if I was hunting out doubles then the GOTO mount needed to be aligned very well. The narrow field of view was also frustrating with lunar observing - I was unable to see all the moon. So I bought a second hand Meade 127 Apo (triplet). It was a pleasure to see all the moon but at 5" aperture it was no match to the OMC for brightness of view/detail for lunar or planets. Aperture does win out. Before the OMC I had a chance to use a Mewlon 180 - beautiful scope but OMC still beat it because of the extra aperture. Earlier on in my telescope journey I owned a Intes Micro MN56 (secondhand) - lovely contrasty views (apo like) but 5" aperture gave dimmer views. So when I had the chance to buy a secondhand MN 76 (1/8wave) I went for it. This scope was impressive. I remember putting it alongside a quality 15" Dob on a rare exceptional night and it held its own against the Dob but the Dob did win out because of the brightness of the view. However on most nights 15" of aperture would be too much. The disadvantage of the Mak Newt was as with all Newtonians is the constant need to adjust the scopes position to have the eyepiece in a comfortable position. It was built like a tank and thus was quite heavy. I am told the Intes Micro MN88 is a seriously good planetary scope not only because of the extra aperture but the small secondary. However it is heavy. I have found a happy compromise scope (secondhand) - it is the STF Mirage 7" Mak Cas. Just enough aperture (in my view) but compact, light and with its quality optics delivers very good views (not as good as the OMC) and a reasonable fov as it is the f10 version. In combination with my iOptron MIni Tower Pro (v2) is is a very good grab and go set up. As I final thought. MakCas scopes give so much better views than SCTs. My C11 gives such soft views that it a relief to use the small STF where black is black and white is white and to see sharp stars. So my ideal planetary/lunar/doubles scope would be a quality (1/8 or 1/10 wave), 8"aperture and f10 - does such a scope exist? Also I prefer to sit comfortably and that was not always possible with the Mak Newts and refractors need to be mounted somewhat higher. Finally re the advert for the MN86 (APM version) - overpriced? Also I have heard that this APM version of the Intes Micro has a different mirror cell arrangement which may not be to everyone's liking. It would be interesting to put it alongside the OMC 200. I doubt there would be much in it but the OMC would be so much easier to handle All the best Mike