Mike JW

Achim, Superb. Your sketches are always inspirational. Mike

Superb. Thanks for posting. Mike

Well worth using bright moonlit for a bit of experimenting. Mike

Doing well to spot the pair of stars in the centre and get the colour difference. Mike

Hi Martin, you are firing me up to get back out there under bright moonlight with the camera but I do find that under strong moonlight I get much more noise (amplified by being a large Dob). Well done. Mike

Observing in strong moonlight is often a sign that we have had a run of poor weather - certainly true in this case. You did well to get the detail. (I was lunar sketching). I looked up my visit to this one - also a 'desperation' to do something - it was windy so I had to do 3 sec subs and delete about half of them. Similar detail to yours but slightly better resolution. The quasar is better defined. Mike

I have tried the Harold Hill approach - an OK result but nowhere near his standard. Much to learn and fun doing it. Thanks for your thoughts. Mike

Crater Encke. Its three nearby craterlets are the Lunar 200 targets - L173. Very difficult to get a steady view of them but in moments of good seeing they were clearly visible. Crater Encke has a definite hexagonal appearance. The floor looked interesting with a possible ridge and indications of not being smooth and flat. I have seen the floor described as tormented! The well defined, short shadows suggest low walls and I assume steep as well. The three craterlets (Encke M) are off to the left in my sketch. I thought I would try a pen and ink approach - can't say I am happy with it. I would welcome feedback from artists who know how to use this technique. Mike

Great results and as always it makes want to rush out and buy the colour kit (which I will not be doing!). Mike

Hi Martin, definite improvement. Never did see the G-I stars visually in the 20". Need very steady skies and very dark skies, so I will fascinated to see if your set up could achieve it. Mike

Hi Martin, Looking forward to see how you get on with visiting these two PNs. (No filters for me. My comments were based on images on the Web). Mike

What brought me to this area was I noted the Lunar 200 list - L198 (Crater Louise and Rima Diophantus). I was unable to observe either, despite x 300+ mag and a 15" scope to enable fine detail to be picked up. At the top is Diophantus (tiny Diophantus C just above it). This crater is about 11km diameter and seems to lack a central peak. Just below it in the lighter region is where crater Louise should be at the top of a raised area. Interestingly the lighter region appears to be part of a ray of lighter material. I tracked it back to Aristarchus.? Diophnatus B is the lonely 6km diameter crater off to the left. Delisle is about 15km diameter and had a noticeably rough southern slope (up in my sketch). It also lacked a central peak. The mountain range near by is Mons Delisle (badly sketched - never have cracked sketching mountains). The mountain shadows revealed 4 major peaks in descending order. At the southern end there were definite hints of rough terrain. (Sketch outline made at the eyepiece, then redrawn back indoors) Mike

I see where you are coming from. Made me ponder as whether it is worth ago at 1sec or less - not sure my laptop would cope with stacking at that rate. Have fun Mike

Hi Martin, Yes possibly E and F popping in and out. As to closest you've got to the equivalent view in an eyepiece - uhmmmmmm, nowhere near to the real thing. The direct view in a large Dob on a steady night is a delight, with the 4 stars (and E and F) as diamonds in a 3D effect of M42 filling the whole eyepiece. Below is the best I have ever achieved using the EEVA technique - still poor compared to the direct view. I shall look forward to see just how good you can get the Trapezium. Mike

Abell 20 and 24 in CMi provide a couple of interesting PN challenges. Abell 20 has a very blue CS and an evenly bright ring. Martin/Bill and others would make for a great colour shot. Also known as PK214+07.1 Abell 24 is 1730 lyrs away and shows up well in Ha (another good one for the colour set ups) Mike

Bill, glad you got a view of something. Comet 104P - new one to me. A bit low down for my setup, as with 19P so good to add them into this section - thanks. Colour - uhmmmm - worth a try but....... Mike

Hi John, In the EAA thread we try to encourage folk to post not only how you did it as indicated by 'M40, - scope, camera, time etc, but observational comments, (features you have noted, research article references, info you might have found out about the object). By doing this it makes for observational astronomy, informs and inspires others and builds up our collective knowledge. Sometimes a comment is simply 'wow, this view is so beautiful'. Incredible first attempts - I have never achieved such quality. Mike PS - I note you are on Mersea Island - know it well from my younger days of sailing.

Both have a place. Colour for PNs is a real winner for me, but most of the time I prefer mono. Your mono image above does it for me. Mike

Final update to anyone following the attempt to calculate the distance from my image to the JWST. At the time JWST was around the 924,000km mark. Re-doing the calculations Keith (I) came up with a figure of around the 1,028,000 Km mark. Rather a large error but fun and absorbing to give the idea a go, so thank you to Keith for doing the maths. Quite likely a better result could have been obtained if I had run the sequence for much longer than the 17 minutes. Mike

As always Martin, the wider field of view gives context, added interest and beauty. On high resolution images the arms are straight - unusual? Line of sight? Mike

VV 699 (and NGC 1723) This area was Galaxy of the Month back in December 2021 - see https://www.webbdeepsky.com/galaxies/2021/ - excellent summary of the area. NGC 1723 (at the top) - SB(r)a - pec. Such a clear inner ring with the distinct arms coming off the ends of the bar. VV 699 - the three galaxies at the bottom. The right hand galaxy, NGC 1721 is also a ring galaxy but this time it is an outer ring - (R)SAB(s) - pec Mike

Always interesting to view comets. I enjoyed doing this whilst viewing all sorts of other targets. Mike

I had begun to suspect something wrong with the pixel count but not sure how to sort that one. There was not any binning. I have just sent you an image on your email (private not via the forum). Cheers, Mike

Morning Keith, Here is the camera details - see the link https://www.firstlightoptics.com/starlight-xpress-cameras/starlight-xpress-ultrastar-imaging-guide-camera.html Have fun, Mike

Hi Keith, Thank you for doing the maths. A pleasing result. In your post you mention Where did the figure of 19 come from? I counted 31 pixels from start to finish of the track of JWST. If I feed into http://astronomy.tools/calculators/ccd_suitability my telescope details (15" Dob and at f3.5) it gives me a 1"/pixel. To get a figure of 1.56"/pixel my scope would have to be operating at about f2.2 - no way is it doing that? - the coma would be a nightmare. Am I making a mistake somewhere? PS - I did not think about who Keith might be when your first post came up - silly me. We know each other - I am Andrew R. friend who pops down to Haw Wood - still remember that excellent flapjack of yours at my last visit. Mike