Pixies

If you find a single dogger, that's when you have to be careful!

Nice report. The 'chain' is pretty faint apart from the 2 Messiers. I've never been able to see it apart from those 2. Your scope is a little bigger than mine, but I think you'll need pretty dark skies.

Yep. You could try making an aperture stop for the finder, to reduce the brightness.

Me too - Thanks @JeremyS

Thanks, Yep - further reading shows the magnitudes at 4.1 and 6.7 (2.3 arcseconds). SkySafari has the bad info - it says mags 4 and 11 at 2.3 arcseconds. That makes much more sense. I should have trusted my eyes and not what I read.

The third clear night in a row! I was planning on some faint fuzzies in Coma Berenices, but once I had set up, I could see that there was a slight haze. So I changed tack and made a quick list of some doubles in Leo. I made up a list from some of the entries in "An Anthology of Visual Double Stars" (Argyle, Swam & James) and another one I wanted to try was Kappa Leonis - after it was mentioned earlier today by a couple of posters. I started on Tegmine, to see how the seeing was. It was variable but OK. I could just 'notch' the tighter pair at x170 - a far cry though, from the recent nights of excellent seeing. Perhaps not the best night for tight double stars then. First one was Kappa Leonis. Perhaps not the best idea, at a 2.2 arcsecond split, it doesn't sound too bad. But the magnitude differences are +4.46 and +9.70 and with the seeing conditions, it wasn't to be. At times I thought I had seen it, but it might just have been watery eyes (from the cold breeze). The next time we have some excellent conditions, I'll try again. Nearby was the galaxy NGC 2903. At magnitude +8.79, it's a bright one, but it was pretty faint and only observable with averted vision. So the sky conditions were as I had thought. So on with the doubles... Next was Omega Leonis. A very very tight 0.9 arcseconds. I managed to get a notched split at x300 with the 2 airy disks popping into clear distinction every now and again. Gamma Leonis (Algieba) was a pleasantly easy split at x80. The main star yellow and the secondary a slightly cooler pale yellow. Now then: 54 Leonis. This was a great double and is now one of my new favourites. I could just make a split at x40 but it looked better with a little more magnification. x75 was nice. Both stars a cold steely blue/white. Back to the trickier ones with Iota Leonis. This one is another with a big magnitude difference: +3.96 and +11.06 and a distance of 2.3 arcseconds. This one I'm pretty certain I got. the small faint secondary trailing in the wake of the main star. I hope I was right - but I don't know how I saw this one and not Kappa Leonis, which should be easier. Perhaps it was just a few moments of good seeing. It was a bit later in the evening. Struve 1555 - at 0.62 arcseconds, this is supposedly at the limit of an 8" reflector. Tonight, no chance. It's going to be cloudy tomorrow.

I also tried Iota Leonis. Magnitude difference: +3.96 and +11.06 and a distance of 2.3 arcseconds. This one I think I got. The small faint secondary trailing in the wake of the main star.

I was observing some doubles in Leo tonight. One I tried was Kappa Leonis - after it was mentioned earlier today by a couple of posters. Anyway. The 2.2 arcsecond split looked easily doable, but the magnitude difference got me. +4.46 and +9.70. Not quite the same difference as Sirius or Procyon, but a little tighter.

This sounds like a smart idea. I always hate the fact that I'm chucking away so many of the Pec Pads

Currently in Aquila. It's fairly motoring and will be in Hercules in 2 weeks and Coma Berenices in a month. Looking like it could reach mag 8. http://aerith.net/comet/catalog/2020R4/2020R4.html Anyone had a shot at it, yet?

@John, I'm sure you are trying to drive some members to drink!

Hi @Capt Slog. Sorry if I'm preaching to the converted, but I'll show how I find them and perhaps it'll help. I have Bortle-6 skies, too. And it's worse in a southerly direction, which makes these a little tricky. I can usually see the brightest 2, and occasionally all 3. Start by getting the finder on Chertan. I have a Telrad and a RACI finder, so this is where the Telrad comes in: Next, in the RACI, I'll head south, about 3 degrees, to where there's a small asterism of an angle of stars: Bear in mind that this is with a RACI, so it's normally orientated. If you have some 10x50 binoculars, they should show them too. Then east by a degree to a small star HD98388. Centre on this star. If I use a wide-angle EP, having the star central in the FOV will now show all 3 galaxies (30mm plossl in a 8" F/6 dob): Of course, in a reflector (if that's what you are using), it will look like: Indicated is the Hamburger galaxy NGC 3628, which is the faintest one. You will need to be well dark adapted.

Sounds good. I was intending to look for galaxies around Coma Berenices, tonight. I had the dob out cooling, but by the time came round, I was starting to feel a bit rubbish. I had my first Covid jab today and thought I had escaped a reaction. Unfortunately, it looks like I haven't! Enjoy your clear skies, everyone. I'm staying in bed!

And I've just realised that I wrote: "I must be getting dimmer." I mean "IT must be getting dimmer", but might have been correct the first time.

Forecasts were looking good for 3 clear nights in a row. However, I have my first Covid jab tomorrow, so thought I had better make the most of the first night, and thought I'd try for a longer session than normal. After a week of quick sessions with the new ST80, it was nice to go back to the 8" dob. All the posts about seeing Sirius' pup inspired me to have a shot. I moved a table to the northern side of the garden and set the dob up on top, so that I could get a view of Sirius. Shouldn't have bothered though - the seeing was pretty bad and disco-ball Sirius was jumping all around the field of view. No hope! Not sure if it had been the local seeing or more likely just the low angle over distant buildings. Started the session proper with a shot at the nova in Cassiopeia. After getting used to the views in the bins and the little refractor, it was good to see it next to M52 in all it's proper glory. The nova's brightness is dropping though, I think. Next up was the multiple star Theta Aurigae. The last time I tried to observe it, I failed to split/find the dim B star in the glare of the main star. However, I could see it OK tonight. The seeing was pretty good, so the issue with Sirius must have been local conditions. After that, I had a quick tour of some of the clusters in Auriga. M35 and M37 were as pretty as usual. M36 was hiding behind a tree branch! I tried to find the small cluster NGC 2158 in the same FOV as M35, but the glare above the centre of Edinburgh made that impossible. I'd love to see both together and that's a target for when I can get to a dark site next month, hopefully. Coming round south, I thought I'd try the Leo Triplet to see how transparent the sky was. I could find M65 and M66 easily, but NGC 3628 was nowhere to be seen. I decided against hunting down other galaxies in that direction, and looked east next, to Canes Venatici. M94 was bright, but I'd seen it better. Likewise for M51. I had a look around for other galaxies in the area. NGC 4490 (the Cocoon Galaxy) was clear and offered some definition of its shape with averted vision. NGC 4449 was visible too, fainter and smaller, though. NGC 4214 is fainter still but visible with averted vision, which is more than I could say for NGC 4244 (the Silver Needle Galaxy) which I couldn't find. M106 was clearly seen, though. The centre was visible with direct vision, and with averted vision I could make out its extended shape. I took a quick break from the faint fuzzies to have a look at the double star HD107341. The main star is mag 6 and is yellow. The secondary is much fainter at mag 10, it's around 10 arcseconds away, at 150 deg. I split it at x100, the difficulty being the faintness of the secondary, which made it hard to try and determine its colour. Thought I'd end on some brighter galaxies, so I paid my usual visit to M81 and M82, which were very clear. I could see them in my binoculars, too. It was getting very cold now. I had no gloves and my toes were getting cold. I wasn't prepared for this drop in temp so started getting ready to call it a night. A quick visit to M13 (lovely) and its neighbour M92 (also lovely). I decided to finish with a quick binocular view of the nova again. I could actually make out M52 in the bins, perhaps as I had my eye in from the session. I could hardly detect the nova, though. I must be getting dimmer. Luckily I forgot to turn the heating off earlier!

Had a look in the 8" dob and thought it looked no brighter than HD220770 (mag 7.8). After a session, I had a final look in my bins, and even though I could make out M52, I could hardly see the nova. Definitely dimmer than last weekend.

It's starting to look like last year!

3 clear nights in a row, forecast here. However, I'm getting my first Covid jab tomorrow afternoon, so there's a chance it might knock me for six. So I had better make the most of tonight if it does stay clear.

Skymax 90 EQ2 mount and tripod 2x Manfrotto tripods and heads 10x60 Altair Astro finder 2x 6x30 SW finders Telrad Dielectric diagonal ST80 AZ5 mount Half a dozen eyepieces Baader Mk4 Zoom 10x50 Binoculars 1:10 focuser upgrade Flight case Cheshire Books and Atlas Neodymium, UHC and Oiii filters All secondhand though!

C'mon @FLO, you'll have to do better than that! I'm not believing that for a second!* (*well, maybe)

I have the 30mm version and the edge is pretty poor in my F/6 8" dob. I'd say > outer 10% affected. The 35mm version is better, apparently.

Managed to get another shot at it last night, between the showers and cloud. I'm enjoying this 'grab and go' setup. To my eyes, it was fainter than it was at the weekend. Tonight, though: high hazy cloud, poor seeing and a cloud bank to the north. Zero chance.

I can't see any colour but my son (15) can see green.

Very smart. What size? Also - what mount is that?

The SpaceX feed froze at the moment the engines started to re-light.