Ships and Stars

I've not had the pleasure of dealing with UPS customer service, but now you mention it, I had a £300 sleeping bag sent from the US to Scotland about five years ago, it went totally missing, but the shipper didn't buy insurance. Three months later, a knock on the door. It had been sitting in a hub in France! The trip from the US only took two days according to the info on their internal label. I was glad to see it though.

I think essential items are receiving shipping priority, plus I've seen RM here locally deliver items for other couriers, e.g. Hermes, so things are definitely unusual. I'm a little bit surprised shipping non-essential items is still on, though I've ordered a few bits myself to avoid going to shops. Suspect this may change in the next few weeks, but just a guess. Edit - if they delivered the other items then it does sound like they've misplaced it but am sure it will be on its way. I'll never use RM international again - they lost both of my last two parcels by sending them to the wrong country from the main sorting branch down near London - a £600 satellite phone that went to Australia instead of Austria, and a £250 NV tube that went to Greece instead of the Netherlands! They wouldn't cover the phone despite buying insurance, and only reimbursed the NV tube after three promises to send a cheque. It took me months and at least half a dozen emails and phone calls each to recover the money from that. In the UK, RM has been great, but never using them for international again. DPD is rock solid in my book.

Wow that's excellent with a 130p! What kind of LP do you reckon you're dealing with? You must be well over 21.00sqm I'm guessing?

I used Capella and Pollux as well for the first time in town tonight because my sky view is heavily restricted. Had quite good synscan alignment results.

The APM/Lunt eyepieces aren't exactly cheap, but punch well above their weight into Televue territory for a fraction of the cost. I now have their 9mm, 13mm and 20mm 100degree eyepieces after owning several Ethos, and haven't looked back. That way, if I drop one on concrete some night it will still suck, but I won't be out £500-£800. The only other eyepieces I use are fairly cheap 31 & 42mm 'finder' widefield EPs if I get lost in space and can't find something. Oh, and a 10mm baader classic ortho for dissecting galaxies or splitting doubles with a Barlow, but the 9mm APM is definitely no slouch here as well. I could happily live with just the three APMs.

Welcome! Awesome selection of gear you have there. I'm a bit the same, I've gone through phases buying and selling, but have finally settled on a couple of dobs and a modest set of six eyepieces, plus binoviewers with a few pairs of plossls. I've wondered what it would be like in the southwest US with a big scope, especially in eastern Nevada (well away from the light pollution of Lost Wages however, ha). Someday perhaps!

Because it's so bright, perhaps try Venus with a lunar ND filter if you have one. Mine cuts the glare and lets me resolve it much easier.

Amazing to realise objects that far away are still affected by gravity from our galaxy. Some of the Caldwell objects are pretty challenging I think. Very interesting post, thank you John.

Wolf behaviour really seems to be something unique in the animal kingdom I think, based on the fairly limited amount I've read, but I did take an interest in it a while back and did a little reading on the topic. We didn't have any wolves where I grew up, some malnourished coyotes were the closest thing, but black bear have apparently returned. Still a far cry from your area! Really hoping to get out again with the 20" before we lose total darkness, but not holding my breath! We had the little Tawny Owls near a place I used to live, I could hear them every night but never could see them, the closest one was resident high up in a giant oak tree. I've seen a few barn owls swoop across the road late at night while driving. There are two reindeer herds in the Cairngorms which were introduced by a Finnish herder in the 1950s I think. One is wild and roams around the Cairngorm plateau I think, and the other is semi-domesticated and lives down near the visitors centre. Been wanting to take my daughter, but she'll still in her 'car-sick' phase, joy oh joy, and would tire fairly quickly on a long walk. Next year perhaps! No need to reply to all this! My coffee just kicked in, haha. Cheers!

Sounds like another interesting galaxy that's missed my radar. I saw a Hubble photo of it and checked Stellarium eyepiece view. Looks fairly large! Weather being very uncooperative here, plus we've entered a lockdown (of sorts), so I may only have a few hours around 1am in mid-April for galaxies again. Hopefully not, but... PS the wolves must be incredible to see. We are overrun with deer here, but highly, highly doubt they would reintroduce wolves to Scotland. A hot topic and a lot of unhappy sheep (and shepherds)!

Thanks Mark, my biggest problem now is mounting. I'm kicking myself for selling my AZ4 mount/tripod when I sold my 130PDS and 25x100 bins. I have a camera tripod, but it's risky using it for astro, terrestrial is fine. I need to whip something up in a hurry before we lose astro darkness, though I could still do lunar of course. California nebula is on my list before BST!

Thanks Peter! The additional height is c/3.5mm above the top of the EP, so some loss of eye relief, but actually very little, especially without filters in place. I was using them yesterday for terrestrial and the filter holders actually act as eyecups to block stray light entering. Thanks you Gemineyes! That's a very slick solution you have there. I will look into this as well. I am a big fan of filters, especially at dark sites. I haven't tried the sky glows, but the Astronomik Hb or UHC and OIII produces some very interesting results under very dark conditions with dark adapted eyes. Completely agree, it does add a whole dimension. My DIY task this summer is to cobble together a suitable tripod/fork mount for these, they are around 7.15kg, probably about the same as your APM 25x100s. Clear skies all!

I just caught this post! That looks absolutely amazing there. 21.65 is getting properly dark too. What a change from London!! Smart move if you ask me, hope you have a memorable time there, a silver lining these days to have some space. I rode a bicycle around Cork and Kerry, ended up in a small campground near Allihies (I think), five euro a night and wonderful stars. Slept with my head out of the tent one night, the milky way was so bright.

That looks excellent! Remote and high up. 21.53 is pretty good too. Kudos for taking your scope 'offroad' wild camping. The tripod looks to be the heaviest/bulkiest bit, but perhaps the scope edges it in the weight department? You've a goose down bag I take it? I've an Alpkit down bag, my second one, had really good luck with them. I really want to try for Barnard's Loop with Hb filter and my 42mm Revelation or 31mm Baader after reading your reports. Nice one!

I haven't been able to use the APMs much since I bought them, but had a few sessions and am very happy with them. The 21E will be missed though! I had a 13mm Ethos but only used it a few times, should have given it more of a run before I sold it... If I ever have a home obsy, I'll return to the Ethos! I'd like to change the eyecup on the 20mm, it seems to hold my eye a bit far away when up, and when down there's too much eye relief, but a minor niggle. What do you think of the Delos vs the Ethos?

I was going to ask if you had a effective method for keeping track of galaxies in that region. It does get a bit overwhelming for me. My best solution so far is just to have the S&T atlas on my lap and tick them off with a pencil, but on the fainter ones I'll have to print off a page from the deep sky atlas I think. Anyway, well done again!

Wow John, you cleaned up! Markarian's Chain is incredible, I love looking around that area. Seems like the galaxies keep going and going. In a way, they do I suppose. Transparency here was pretty atrocious, I viewed M97 and just managed M108 and packed it in, but we had close to 40mph gusts earlier. PS think I confused seeing with transparency in my other post in 'Anyone playing', sky seems really bright and washed out with LP scatter, but I was getting sharp stars through the 10mm BCO (a very sharp EP if you can keep your target in the FOV and not lose it like I kept doing on M97 Excellent job, especially on the galaxies!

Wish we had that here! Looks crystal clear, have fun!

I've not managed to resolve the 'owl eyes' with my 12" under town light pollution, but recently saw M97 with a large dob from a very dark site, it absolutely jumped out, looked like it ran on batteries, it was quite bright and the eyes were easily visible. If I try my hand at sketching, I'll have to try for this one! Great sketch!

Yes, very good report as the others say, I'll have to check out some of these globulars. The Owl is a favourite of mine, and can be described exactly as Scarp15 says above, you won't mistake it for a star but it might be a real struggle under bortle 6 though. With smaller apertures under some LP it will appear as a very (or extremely) faint circular 'puff' of nebulosity with averted vision. Around 85-100x is a good power to locate it with in my opinion. Transparency makes a big difference I think, and any haze or high cloud will dampen or mask it considerably. I've seen decent views of it with a 12" dob under 20.3-ish skies on the edge of town, but struggled to resolve the twin 'owl eyes'. Three nights ago, I saw it from 21.80-85 skies with a 20" Dob and it was absolutely glowing, the 'eyes' were plain as day, no filter, which I prefer. If that fails, try and get to a darker spot if possible, you'll see so much more. PS while you are in the area, keep an eye out for M108, the surfboard galaxy, they are really close to one another. I've had them both in the FOV of a 21mm Ethos at the same time in the 12" scope, that was really memorable. Cheers

Very nice scope indeed! I'm up near Aberdeen, have a 20" SW 500p and take it to dark sites as well. I used binoviewers on the horsehead earlier this year (or late last year now?) and would like to get some Denks someday. Been meaning to try binoviewers on galaxies too - need to try that next time I'm out but time for DSOs is getting a little limited as the days get longer. I don't know what besides the microfibre cloth to put on the primary to keep it as clean as possible, though I might be reluctant to have something touching the mirror surface in storage, perhaps some way to keep it a few cm away? Others on here will hopefully add to my vague musing on that - I think the 500p had some sort of tissue paper during shipping, a one-shot deal. The grab handle is known as a 'dob knob', my SW 300p has one, just a small handle to steer with a bit. The 500p does not (it's Synscan, so I generally only move it with the controller anyway). Lukehurst or someone else on here should know where to source one, other than just combing the online DIY type retailers. It's quite basic, even a knob off a gearshift lever would do if you find a style you like. I imagine you head south for dark skies from Edinburgh, but if you are around Loch Tay, there is the tarmacked single track that runs up past Ben Lawers carpark and down to Bridge of Balgie in Glen Lyon. That's probably pretty good up top there, maybe around 21.8 - 21.9SQM, but watch it in winter, you're on your own and lots of snow and ice, no gritters ever go up there.

Venus is a good target to use for finder alignment this time of year if you do it at night, because it's almost painfully bright though a scope and impossible to miss once it's near the eyepiece. Venus or any really bright star that's kind of isolated will do. Capella in Auriga is another good one to use for alignment, there's no mistaking it for the fainter stars immediately around it.

Yes, take the LP map with a lorry-load of salt, especially in built up areas. In really dark rural areas, probably not a great deal has changed except increased distant LP low on the horizon from major cities and the relentless pace of development in general. A lot has to do with your 'micro-environment'. I can get an SQM reading of at least 20.3 or 20.4 from home and have seen the Flame Nebula from here with a 20" dob and all of the S&T Pocket Atlas galaxies in Leo except three of them with a 12" dob on an exceptional night. As I'm surrounded by relatively tall (and currently unlit) buildings, this makes an awesome light baffle, despite the greatly restricted sky views, and there is only LP coming from <180 deg around me. A mere 100m away, it's a completely different story. I took a reading of 7.07 SQM a few nights ago. Not 17.07sqm, but 7.07SQM near some streetlights where the LP map shows 20.4! I didn't even know it went that low. I've been using my SQM meter a lot this past week, but clouds or trees reflecting light back will skew the reading, think a totally clear night in an open field works best.

It's always cloudy for at least a few days anytime someone buys new astro gear! Sounds like you have good conditions there, I'm sure you'll have a bash soon. Get that collimation accurate if things don't look nice and sharp at lower magnification! It's a little complicated at first, but becomes second nature once you've done it a few times. Once the secondary mirror is adjusted, it usually stays put, the primary mirror will perhaps need more frequent checks, but can stay well collimated for long periods if the scope isn't bumped around to much. A 250p will show lots of interesting DSOs as well as planets. Enjoy! A good forum here btw, they've helped me immensely.

You are spoiled for choice really. Much more widefield and not a planetary eyepiece, but if you are looking for mega-budget EPs, the bog standard 28mm 2" SW eyepiece is cheap as chips and actually ok and great for lunar. Someone might even give you one as they come standard with different SW scopes and usually get chucked in a desk drawer. The eyecup is very comfortable and adjustable. Sure, it has some coma on the edges in faster scopes, but it didn't bother me for almost a year until I became pickier! I also bought some second-hand13mm and 8mm Celestron plossls for something silly like £7 each and have 2x barlowed them on Venus a few weeks ago when seeing conditions were very stable. They are also decent in my book. The Seben 8-24 zoom is another bargain, I have one and it allows you to quickly zoom in to the limit of the sky conditions, good for planets I suppose. Beyond eyepieces, accurate collimation of the secondary, then primary mirror is critical. After this, giving the scope time outside to cool down outside so heat thermals don't rise off the mirror and blur things is as important as anything else, especially for high mag viewing. An 8" scope shouldn't take too long to cool down if stored inside, and virtually no cool down time if stored in unheated shed etc.