Pixies

Had a look tonight in the Vixen 80. I'd say it's between H220819 (mag 6.6) and HD220057 (mag 6.9), nearer the former. So 6.7

It's looking like a very clear night here, tonight. I'll set the dob up for it, as I still haven't had a chance to see it yet. Looks like the nova in Cassiopeia is brightening again, too!

The Nova is Cas is getting jealous! All this attention to some fly-by-night upstart in Hercules who shows off for a day or so then burns out! "Over here - look at me!"

I've set that list into a Sky Safari observing list and I'll give them a shot over the next few weeks (hopefully)!

The Bresser has a ES-style finder mounting bracket, but you can swap it out quite easily for a Baader universal which will allow you to use the usual Sinta style ones. I have lots of black nuts and bolts which are the correct sizes to fix the bracket to the tube, so if you ever go down that route, give me a shout and I'll post some to you. The Bresser focuser is a big leap in quality over the standard Skywatcher and makes using a DSLR pretty simple, too. The AZ Pronto mount suffers with having the dovetail clamp on top, so the scope's centre of gravity causes it to fall back as you near the zenith. A mount like the AZ5 has it mounted on the side which allows you to find a good balance point and not have to worry about it tilting.

It's not the Maglite itself, it's the 4x D-cell batteries!

Cool-down. 30 mins in the summer, 45 in the winter. I take it out before anything else and spend most of the time faffing about getting stuff ready, like EPs, etc. I'll test the collimation too. 95% of the time it's fine and even if not, it usually just takes a minute to adjust.

Right up near the zenith is "Dobson's hole", where many a dob user has never returned... Arghhhh! Seriously, it can be a bit awkward right near the zenith, especially trying to follow something, but I find it similar with a refractor on an alt az mount. I don't find mine difficult to use. Like you, I have to move the scope around to different parts of the garden, depending on which part of the sky I'm trying to observe. I have a Bresser dob, and just lift the tube or of the mount and move them separately. I will occasionally move them both in one go, but only if I'm moving it several feet. I'm sure a SW is similar.

I think an 8" dob would compliment your current scope quite well - wider field and fainter objects. Obviously you are familiar with finding objects and following them. Your current eyepieces and finders will work with both too. I am in lighter skies than you and can see plenty with an 8" reflector.

Do you mean the absorption 'dip' is obscured by the dominance of the emission line, or that the gas cloud has dispersed significantly enough to reduce its absorption?

Too hazy here, too. Can barely see Altair, naked-eye and through the ST80, I can't see anything past mag 7.

OK - didn't realise it was an OOUK! In a more common-or-garden style Mak, the baffle tube is the thin tube that passes through the primary mirror to the visual back: It's can be very shiny on the inside.

The most benefit will come from flocking the inside of the baffle tube. See: With the scope apart, it'll be easier to flock the baffle tube. I wrapped the small piece of flocking material (adhesive facing outwards) around a pencil, so it was narrow enough to fit inside, then pressed the pencil out and rotated it against the inside of the tube so that it stuck and unwrapped from the pencil, onto the inside of the tube. Made a big difference in getting rid of these bright circular reflections that would appear as a bright star approached the field stop.

Is all that fizzy pop to keep you awake during a long session?

Yep - I've easily seen M101 with 10x50 bins in a Bortle 3 sky. I would imagine it's pretty impossible at this time of year with anything, visually.

Beautifully clear and warm all day. Now it's raining...

Lol. Okay! 🤦‍♂️

In jeremy's chart: 1 - FF Aqilae - HD 176155 (mag 5.3) 2 - HD 175743 (mag 5.7) red dot marks the spot: Good luck, everyone!

Here we go again...

Not sure you can use an RA motor with an Alt-Az mount! Tha AZ5 is a lovely stable mount with good slo-mo and will fit on a chunky photo tripod. It's £159 new just now, so might be in-budget if you can find one secondhand. Here's mine, on a Manfrotto 055:

The FLO Astro Essentials on is pretty good, apparently. It look just like the SW one, so could well be made by the same factory. But put a wanted ad up on this site, you might get lucky.

Thanks everyone. I'm not expecting super dark and neither am I planning anything too serious. We are only there for a few nights and me vanishing off for an all-nighter won't go down well. Just wondering if there was somewhere suitable on-site, away from the trees - even if only facing in one direction. It's mid-August, so should be a little darker.

The issue with the Baader zoom barlow is that you can only use it by screwing it in to the bottom of an eyepiece barrel. So if you are wanting to swap between different EPs, it takes a little more effort and time. With an untracked mount, that might mean losing the target. However, with the zoom, that doesn't matter.

Clear again as maximum approaches!

I can see it now - but clouds approaching!