Ships and Stars

Ouch, that qualifies as suffering in my book. I used to live in a flat with a gas/electric card meter (total rip-off!) and it would always run out unexpectedly about five minutes after the local shops shut. Woke up several mornings able to see my frosty breath. I was so happy to get to work because they had heat!

As long as no one suffers or their food spoils, I love a good power cut!

Good luck there! LP map looks promising for that area, even north of the firing range. If there are any farms, you might even be able to ask a farmer if you could set your telescope up on one of his tracks. All they can do is say no thanks!

Hi Barry, I had a quick look and there's a little place called Stelling Minnis that the LP Maps says a small area just to the north is 21.15. Still in Kent I think, the LP map shows another slighter darker band from near Newchurch running SW towards East Guildford, with the darkest patch about three miles ENE of East Guildford running south down to the coast and a 'Neath Road' in particular. Above all, look around Lydd MOD Ranges and/or Dungeness, Romny Marsh and Rye Bay near the coast - that should be the best bet by far for anyone in Kent if you can find a place around there to park? There's an MOD rifle range near me, and you can walk on it when no training is taking place, and most importantly for us, you can use the car park (it's unlit I believe), but I've no idea about Lydd. LP Map says that area is a 21.42-21.48, which is Bortle 4 going on Bortle 3, roughly the equivalent of my nearest dark sky spot here in NE Scotland, which is pretty decent, really. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lydd_Ranges https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeness,_Romney_Marsh_and_Rye_Bay Good luck! PS try to toggle the transparency slider (top right corner on a desktop/laptop PC) on LightPollutionMap back and forth and it will show the darkest areas more easily👍

Ah yes, love the photo. That's a 70 series tray-back Ute! The 70 series are legendary, but they don't sell them in the UK or Europe, though a few imports squeak through. They used to sell the LJ70 series here, but stopped in 1993. I had a 1988, they are worth a small fortune now for one in good nick but rare as rocking horse poo. If they did import the new 70 series, you'd probably be looking upwards of £60k for one. Not really practical unless you have a farm or work offroad of course! Sorry to go off topic, I want to try Ursa Minor tonight if we get a clear spell and compare it to my SQM meter.

The first day I had my 500p, the delivery driver was in a rush (and I was as well, so I could temporarily hide it until I broke the wonderful news to the boss!) so I picked up the base with mirror assembly/mirror cell (no primary mirror, it was packed separately). I did lift it, for a very short distance. Bad move. I didn't drop it, but later estimated it was around 55-60kg without the mirror, and when I sat it down very gently I properly pulled a muscle in my back and it took going on a month or more to heal. I've tried to shift my 300p fully assembled a very short distance when the object I was viewing went below the building next door, and I gave up in equally short order. Not so much sheer weight, as it is bulk, SW should sell an optional wheelbarrow handle kit for their dobs - they'd sell like mad! I'll tighten up my azimuth a bit, it's nice to track with when it's calm, but a pain when it's breezy out. Have fun with it. Scarp15 just wrote an observing report with his 8" on star clusters, there's a lot to see despite the LP. If you have a car, try a darker site sometime, it's like using a scope twice the size!

Do you take the OTA off the base before taking it out? I set up my SW 300p Flextube base first, then lower OTA onto the altitude bearings, takes about 5 minutes to ready everything, including attaching finderscope. I can carry the base with one hand but cradle the OTA carefully when on the move. Being a flextube, it's easy to move when the upper assembly is lowered down and locked. My azmiuth bearings are almost too smooth, it will rotate around and weathervane in anything over a breeze so I need to devise some type of braking system or simply tighten the nut up a half turn The altitude bearing system is rudimentary and attracts some criticism, but works great for me. I have some clear epoxy for boatbuilding, I'm thinking about sealing all surfaces of the chipboard base, especially exposed chipboard, and re-assembling it this summer. They are great scopes!

I'd love to visit Namibia. That's been on my list for a few years now. Did you take binoculars or did your lodgings have a scope? Toyota Land Cruisers (especially old ones and any of the 70 series) are my other weak spot besides astronomy, so I'd imagine there are a few kicking about there.

Auriga has lots of interesting objects but abounds in star clusters based on my fairly limited knowledge. My 15x70 binoculars are a bit of a tease in Auriga, I can pick up good hints but not much resolution, especially trying to hand-hold them. Hoping the older 20/40x100mm obsy bins I'm working on will be ace on star clusters, but will be this summer before I've welded up a fork mount (or give up and buy one, ha). There is something dazzling about watching a star cluster come into the FOV as you move the scope around, a much grander arrival than chasing faint fuzzies! I remember my first view of the Beehive Cluster in Jan or Feb last year, it was through 25x100s Celestrons on an AZ4. I was parked up a logging track south of Banchory on the edge of a clearing in the forest, and it was like looking at a handful of diamonds someone had scattered across a black carpet. Moving around Auriga with whatever scope or bins I can get my hands on is probably my favourite, there's so much in that constellation. Thanks Iain!

Thanks Gerry! It's clear again tonight out at the dark site and virtually no wind, plus the 10mm BCO arrived this morning...but I'm shattered! A bit frustrating to run out of steam right now, but might get the 300p out here. I only jotted down some NGC numbers yesterday before I left so was ill prepared. Hectic yesterday, basically cleaned my wife's office out yesterday as they are locking up her work probably until summer! If I get a burst of energy, might head out of town a little, but a bit drained. Hoping to get my head around these galaxies a bit better before summer, but tonight is a tough one to miss!

Yes the unihedron puts to bed any ideas about the LP map being way out. I have squeezed 20.35 from home, but that's about it. I stopped and took readings along the way last night, popped my arm out the window at a traffic light (no cars around) and took a reading in a small nearby town - only 7.07!! It's reassuring to see if a site is givig a good reading. I think Stellarium probably shows the most, but did print a paper close-up chart of the Virgo cluster that was in the appendix of the deep sky atlas. I'm glad you were able to get out Iain! Frustratingly for me, it's clear again all night at the dark sky spot and no wind, but I'm shattered! Might get the 300p out here at home though. Cheers

Could they have been shore-based obsy binoculars to detect approaching aircraft, etc?

This is something I've been meaning to try just to see what my eyes can pick up. I was under 21.80-21.85 skies last night, a solid Bortle 2 approaching Bortle 1 territory, and it seems like everything is visible, just right there... The flying minnow asterism in Auriga was directly observable, that's always a good sign to me. Need to check magnitude on those stars. Hoping to go back tonight in the wee hours if possible.

Bit of a struggle at times, but another great night overall with the 500p at 'Dark Sky Alpha', the darkest place I can get to within a reasonable night's drive from home and back. Was armed with a shiny new SQM-L meter and three APM/Lunt 20/13/9mm 100 deg EPs. Happy days! (or nights) At long last, I finally got to try out the Unihedron SQM-L meter to get some proper benchmarks. I was a little disappointed when it first said 21.62 during astro darkness, then increasing to 21.74, 21.78 and so on. By 11pm onwards, it consistently read 21.80-21.85 (!) the rest of the night with tests about every 20-30 minutes, and I’ve been there on what I would consider darker nights. So 21.80-21.85 on one night, versus the LP map which says 21.89-21.92. Works for me! I absolutely love this spot when the wind is down… because it was very windy again much of the night, had to remove the truss shroud (again) to reduce windage and keep moving the van to help shield the scope from gusts, but it finally died down around 1:30am, though I was beat by that point, as I braved the half-empty shops yesterday and then cleared my wife’s office so she could work from home. My biggest challenge - had a massive power wire meltdown from my leisure battery cable at the power socket end(!), don’t know what happened, think a strand of wire internally pierced the insulation and shorted, so I lost my alignment but fortunately didn’t damage anything and didn’t blow any fuses, though I wonder why not?? That’s what fuses are for! Hmmm... I had to scratch my head for a solution and thought I would be manually driving the dob around trying to find tiny galaxies, but I ended up taking the executive decision to cut and splice the cable from my new dew heater controller into the alligator clamps for the leisure battery and a spare 12v socket, as the dew heater cable was marked red/black and I could be fairly sure I wasn’t reversing polarity in the field without a multimeter and fry the encoders! I did this the dark with a Stanley knife and a red LED, lost 30-45 minutes doing this and realigning just before midnight, but it saved the night and I kept my dark-adapted vision. Field expedient solution! Observing at last -Horsehead/Flame Nebulae were the first stops early in the evening (pre-electrical meltdown) to check seeing before they set – HH was initially a little confusing to hunt down as it is now rotated at a clockwise angle through the EP this time of night/year, but suddenly appeared very nicely with direct vision – 17.5mm Morpheus with Astronomik Hb filter worked best. Again. A good start, but lots more to visit. -Seeing on M42 was initially abysmal and worrisome – I think it was due to a combination of atmospheric turbulence, too much mag and a still-warm primary from the van trip. M42 was just above the horizon which certainly didn’t help, but it looked like watching a candle melt through a waterfall, haha. Things shaped up considerably as the mirror cooled and I moved to higher targets. -Rosette Nebula – spur of nebulosity running off in the 4 o’clock position, clear as day. Could spend ages looking at this under dark conditions, so much to see. Love it. -Hind’s Variable – used the 9mm APM 100 deg at 222x – excellent! A unique sight, even among DSOs. -M1 – very good, but wouldn’t say I saw structure! Just a bright cloudy puff but plain as day. -Bubble nebula – excellent, could make out a fair bit of detail in this. -IC405 flaming star – excellent, best I’ve seen it. Nebulosity to me is not in your face bright, but quite extensive, the whole area seems to have a patchy glow of nebulosity of various magnitudes extending well away from the core and even beyond the FOV of the 20mm 100deg Lunt. -Little Dumbbell – another best view, wonderful. -Cocoon – yes? I think I can definitively say I got it this time. Popped right into view with the Hb and could tease out faint detail with averted vision. Very low on horizon. Galaxies – this is where it gets tricky because there are so many in the EP under dark conditions. I almost need an A3 chart hanging next to the scope with all galaxies in a given area down to say Mag 15 or 16 and a pencil to tick off the ones I can locate. -South of Markarian’s Chain – I lost count again. I am definitely seeing galaxies that aren’t in the S&T Atlas and some that aren’t on Uranometria, but despite being small, are excellent and directly visible. Must be PGCs/ARPs/Hicksons, though I don’t know much about these at all. Stellarium seems to show more than any other catalogue I know of, though I cannot say they are all on there. Again, mind-blowing. Wow, there are a LOT of galaxies, says this novice... I really don’t know if I ever would be able to learn my way around many of these galaxy clusters by memory. A really, really good alignment is critical for saving time and frustration here, and the 20/13/9mm APM 100deg EPs are awesome to use both to find faint galaxies by virture of a wide FOV and also just optically. Glad I bought the 9mm, was going to skip it but it’s already proven itself. Only offers slightly more detail on small galaxies than the 13mm, but more engaging of course, as objects get larger (though not really brighter). I then went to Ursa Major and NGC 3998, a 13.01 mag surface brightness galaxy in UMa that @Jetstream recently mentioned to me. Found that easily along with the smaller NGC 3990 and think there might be a tiny, and I mean tiny galaxy in between that went in and out of vision, but could have been a very faint star. I then started following two more pairs of galaxies in the area, some on the fainter side, but all easily visible with direct vision. UMa is a whole new kettle of fish, I’m still trying to get my head around Virgo cluster! Just wish I could definitively identify which galaxies I’m viewing – some are extremely faint and must be PGC/ARPs/Hicksons that are perhaps not frequently observed. Something I need to work on and be more organised, but time is limited. Then onto M108, excellent, lots of detail visible last night in this large galaxy. Another best personal view. M97 Owl Nebula (planetary nebula) - I’ve seen this a few times now this year, but last night it was AMAZING. The ‘owl eyes’ were directly observable and the entire planetary nebula just popped out like a glow in the dark sticker. I dare say it was bright and impossible to miss. I did a quick scan with the 15x70s once everything was packed, but was dog tired and had a long drive ahead. Next time need to organise list better, but was just lucky to get away for a bit last night. 👍

Great report. Anytime I can see the flame nebula from home under moderate LP I count that as a win. I tried for the HH in a 20" from home several times on the better nights, no joy. SQM readings 20.1 to 20.3 so far (only had the meter a week). I have a 300p as well, was really tempted to go for the 14" 350p but now not sure the SW base would have fit through the doorway! The 300p just squeaks past. The OOUK bases are much more svelte. The good thing about a 14" I imagine is that you can still take it out to darker spots with most cars should the urge and timing come together!

I was messing about with Stellarium (no idea why I'm wide awake tonight) and came up with these simulated eyepiece views on NGC3998 with the 13mm vs the 9mm. I see it has an estimated surface brightness of 13.1 mag, sounds like just finding it for me will be a challenge! If I do find it, I'll work out from there and try to ID any others.

When I had my 9mm Delite, I did use it a few times on PN and a handful of times 2xbarlowed even (think that gave 444x in the 500p). It gave decent views, despite the really high mag for UK skies and greatly increased darkening (the exit pupil must have been pretty small at 444x). Regarding seeing, do you mean seeing vs transparency for PN and fainter galaxies? I haven't given that much thought to be honest? Since picking up the Unihedron, I suppose I will be able to investigate the overall conditions a bit more, though. I never felt confident enough yet with NELM estimates, too many personal variables such as dark adaptation, level of experience, etc. I might have misunderstood the question though, still a rookie overall Might be off track, with seeing though, I guess a stable sky would help reveal a really faint galaxy that otherwise might be mistaken for an equally faint star? I suppose at the challenging end of observing, both factors are needed to make a positive ID?

Sorry Gerry, meant to say I use the 300p more from home, not the 13mm. Need to watch my careless use of pronouns, haha.

It will be a challenge as I mainly use that one (300p) from home, but it's a good benchmark and rewarding in a way to finds DSOs from home. Best SQM-L reading at the ranch (a very small ranch, haha) so far was 20.3, was hoping for better! I'll take the 300p out again soon though, a fun scope, quick to set up and easy to steer. I actually saw the flame nebula from home in the 300p one night, but conditions were pretty good with comparatively ink black skies for home. That was December I think. 3998 will go on the must try to see list!

I'm really curious to see how the 9mm does hunting galaxies, and whether or not it's a bit too much mag for most nights. It might work better in the 300p since that's less mag and more nudging around to track small objects. Might be good for PN too?

True John, my 17.5 Morpheus gets a fair bit of use, but mainly because I don't have a 2" UHC or Hb filter. The 31mm is good for widefield and star clusters I suppose, though that hasn't seen a great deal of use lately. The 42mm was an fairly inexpensive impulse purchase, but can be a fun ep just cruising around for a casual look. I guess it and the 31mm have very similar overall FOV though, as I think the true fov on the revelation is a wee bit less than advertised. Hoping to give the APMs a good run here soon, especially curious what the 13mm and 9mm show in the denser areas of galaxies. Hope to report back soon on these. PS the 17/92 is well regarded also!

Thanks Paul, took some head scratching, but after my 13mm Ethos went, it got easier. After using the 20mm Lunt, I have high expectations for the 13mm and 9mm, though the 20mm will see the majority of use. Shall report back, hopefully soon!

I'd like to have kept the Ethos @John, but my main worry was damaging one, plus it freed up some money for other items, bit of a hard call in the end. If I observed mainly from home, I'd probably have kept them. The 17mm Ethos always intrigued me, I've read comments it gave more contrast/darker skies then the 21mm due to the increased mag, but still retained a fairly wide FOV, though I guess the 21E is still king of the hill, so to speak. I'm afraid to try either of the Delos/Pentax XW line now in case I find I prefer them and have to start over! 🤣 Admittedly it's fun to test out different equipment though, and I would like to try either if I am observing with someone who has some. I think I'm on track now, but there's a gap between 20 & 31mm, so perhaps I'll find an excuse to buy one more....

Finally received these 20mm/13mm/9mm APM/Lunt XWA 100 degree beauties after a major revamp of my eyepiece collection. The XWAs should be excellent in both my dobs, but particularly for watching DSOs float past in my undriven 300p flextube. I think at last I have achieved my 'as good as it gets' set of eyepieces on a reasonable budget - 'reasonable' being a relative term of course. I've had the 20mm Lunt for a couple of weeks now, but have only used it once, and that was on lunar. It was exceptionally good I thought, with little ground between it and the 21mm Ethos after repeatedly swapping eyepieces back and forth for about an hour (literally). The 21 Ethos seemed to snap to focus a bit easier and it felt like there was more than 1mm of difference in magnification and overall FOV to the 21E's advantage, maybe more like the APM was 19mm and not 20mm, but I am truly splitting hairs here. I've not tried either one head to head on DSOs, but have read good things. The Lunt 20mm is considerably lighter though and of course there is cost... My EP collection now stands at: 3x Lunt/APM XWAs Revelation 42mm 65 deg 'finder' or super-widefield EP ('giant squid' exit pupil at f4 notwithstanding) Baader 31mm Aspheric Baader 17.5mm Morpheus Baader 10mm Classic Ortho (on the way) I also have a few pairs of inexpensive plossls, but those are of course for my binoviewers. Hopefully I have my bases covered now on affordable EPs. After the Leica zoom's wide-angle FOV, I am spoiled in the zoom dept, so I probably won't bother with another zoom, unless a Leica WW ASPH falls into my lap. The cost of all this was high - it meant selling my beloved 21mm & 13mm Ethosesss (ok, Ethoi) and my equally beloved Leica WW ASPH zoom, all of which are truly brilliant in my book, but as much as I stumble around on dark observing sites far away from home, I always felt fairly nervous using these super-expensive EPs due to potential damage or dropping/leaving one onsite (ouch!!) under early morning fatigue after an all-night observing session. Highly unlikely, but so is dropping a wallet full of cash. It does happen. Does anyone have their mid-range/budget EPs they have settled down happily with over the years?

I'd say keep the reports coming anyone who can. I'd imagine we all find some relief in reading these observing reports, no matter what anyone has seen with naked eye, bins or a big scope. I'm hoping to get out soon, the commander is hinting she will release me from domestic duties for a night if I am back before dawn. I've a few new EPs (10mm BCO en route!) and of course the SQM-L meter to test out before we lose true darkness for the year. As always, I will shamelessly copy the list of UMa galaxies you mention above and see what I can tease out 👀 Time here has been limited to work on much of a list recently, so this is always helpful. I've had a pretty good go with the brighter Leo galaxies serveral times this year, and have identified all but three lone rangers in the Leo area listed in the S&T pocket atlas from my 'so-so' dark site with the 300p/500p, plus a very small handful of the fainter ones listed on Stellarium and Uranometria which I failed to identify at the time (didn't show on S&T, but were quite faint). I'll be opening Stellarium soon to start an end of season list, hoping to have a nice happy Synscan alignment soon and get back to business. That's one vote from me to keep the reports coming when possible. Cheers