Pixies

The forecast from earlier today: <crying face>

That looks like an internal reflection in the baffle tube. I flocked the one in my old Skymax 90 and it got rid of those 'arcs'.

have a look at the diagrams on page 2 of this thread, esp @Waddensky's:

@John Do you find that colours are more obvious with smaller aperture? I see colours more clearly in the ST80 compared to the dob - but that might be magnification rather then aperture, though?

I started out this time last year - although I had been using binoculars for several years and was reasonable familiar with the winter sky (the summer one, less so). It's good to learn the constellations in the east, as they rise and become more southerly later in the coming months. You'll be seeing them for 6 months or so before they vanish. And (surprise surprise) they are constantly being replenished with the next batch. My first night, it took me 20 minutes or so to find M13. Now it's 20 seconds. It all becomes second nature after a while. A pair of 10x50 bins will find it on a good clear night.

Occasionally I've been using a 4mm ortho in an F6 8" (x300 magnification). It's not very often the seeing is good enough - but I've found it useful when trying to split something very tight. I must admit, it's not relaxing.

https://www.astronomerstelegram.org/?read=14614 "Large brightness increase of V1405 Cas (Nova Cas 2021) to naked-eye visibility" - this morning, Apr 8.094 UT, we obtained V=5.740

You'll find this of interest:

I wouldn't worry about the planets. They won't really benefit from a dark sky, However, if the site allows for a low horizon, you might take the opportunity for Mercury (carefully in binoculars). Of course - if you are out all night, you won't want miss the gas giants in the early morning, but planets really benefit from good seeing, not dark skies. Mars is pretty tiny and featureless just now. What you will be able to see with a dark sky that you wouldn't normally, are faint things. Galaxies and nebulae. I've not used a 127 Mak and it won't be able to pick up very faint stuff. But there are some prime targets. M81 and M82 can be seen with some light pollution, but these galaxies will be unmissable in a dark sky. You will be able to find them easily with those bins, too. M51 (the Whirlpool). Globular clusters. M13 (oh yes), M3, M5, M92 Nebulae: M57(the Ring Nebula), NGC 6543 (Cat's eye nebula)he I'm sure you'll get lots of suggestions from those with the same scope as yours.

Just found R4 Atlas tonight. Seeing poor but transparency pretty good, and that's what's needed. It was very faint. I could barely detect it in my 8" dob. However, it's moving pretty quick and over the course of an hour and a half I could see it move around 8 arcminutes by HD108753. I wouldn't have been sure that I had seen it without observing this movement.

Saw it tonight. Despite the formal lack of astro darkness, which only ended a few days ago, the sky was as dark as it normally gets here (all 7 main stars of Ursa Minor visible). M52 as clear as I've seen it from here. The Nova is the brightest I've seen it. Easily as bright as HD220819 (as @IB20 observed)

Bit too modern for me. My dob's focal length is 2 cubits and 2 spans

SpaceX are broadcasting now. 6 minutes

Flaps are back out now.

These status changes are just the 'commentators'' assumptions, though. Nothing official.

oh oh oh.... looks promising. Vehicles leaving

It looks to be on for tonight.

Well done. I've only had an Oiii filter for a few months and astro darkness has ended up here for now - before Cygnus has been high enough for me to view the Veil. I'll need to wait until August then try it out. I'm familiar with some decent local dark sites now, so I'm looking forward to trying it out. Nice report.

The Starguiders are only 60deg FOV though, aren't they? I admit that I find them very comfortable to use compared to the wider 80deg Nirvana. That's probably down to my lack of experience with such wide field EPs. My only other wide-field is the more modestly angled 68deg 2" Aero EDs. Which again is just a case of stick your eye in and look around. Anyone reading this familiar with both the Nirvanas and the ES 82 deg EPs? How do they compare?

From the 'info' screen for the object, in question select 'more' (...) then Create New Observation. Or directly from the observation list. Usually, it's smart enough to work out what is in one session, and add the observations to that session. However, I have had times it's created a session for each observation - which is a real pain. Now, I create a named session for that evening before I start, then double-check that this session in indicated when I create each observation, if not I'll select that session for the new observation. It's really useful in the field: when you have a particular object selected, you can chose to show all previous observations and review how it went.

yep - see @Zermelo's post above. M101 is hard to see unless you have very dark skies. M33 (Triangulum) is very very hard IMHO. Harder than M101, despite what the chart says. M81 and M82 are relatively easy to find by star-hopping, and bright, too. M94 has a very bright core, and is easy to find due to its brightness.

here's a review of the reflector one:

Is that a Berlebach clothes dryer? Must get one of those!

The subject of 'contrast'/visibility and eyepiece magnification (or primarily the exit-pupil) is covered in this interesting thread from near the end of page 2:

But that's not 'seeing'. When I tell someone (endlessly) that I saw M51 last night, it's because I..SAW..M51..LAST..NIGHT. Me - with my eyes! When Darth Vader was laying on the floor of the Death Star, did he say to Luke Skywalker: "Let's have a Zoom chat". No, he said something like "let me see you with my own eyes". See - visual observing = the light side.