Pixies

Hi, 1. Very, usually. The ST80 is quite a wide-field scope, so you might be able to find bright large objects (like the moon) without a finder, but otherwise, it could be an exercise in frustration. You have to focus it. The wider part of the finder barrel is the focuser and you can turn it to adjust focus. There will be a lock-ring to keep it in place, too. 2. Your finder is a little telescope - it's objective (large lens) is much larger than your pupil, so will catch more light and let you see dim objects. That's the point of telescopes, really: not magnification, but amplification. 3. You start by locating an object you can see - then you do something called "star-hopping", where you move the scope and follow star-patterns according to whatever chart you are using to find your target. I'd suggest getting a book, called "Turn Left at Orion". It goes through all this as well as showing you loads of the best targets in the sky. Set it all up in daylight first and get used to how it works. If you can't work it in the light, you won't in the dark! You need to align your finder, so that what you see in the scope is what you see in the finder. I'll see if I can find some helpful material for you To start with use the finder with both eyes open, and

Hi there. Your scope is commonly knows as an "ST80" - sold in various guises by different companies - Celestron, Skywatcher, Orion, Meade, etc. Theer are many recent threads about them, as well as going back over the years. It's a good scope and an excellent entry to the hobby. 1. Yes. And if you removed the diagonal and attached the eyepiece directly, it'll be reversed too. Different types of scopes have varying orientations, so don't worry. You'll get used to it. What sort of diagonal do you have attached to the scope? Some come with a 45deg one, which flips the image the correct way. This is designed for terrestrial viewing. The 'star diagonal' is 90deg and flips things up, but a mirror image. See: 2. The silver pin should be sprung and you can't screw it. The others are screws and push against the pin in 2 directions. It should have some resistance to it. teh finder should have a rubber o-ring fitted in a grove which fixes inside the holder and acts as the fulcrum when you adjust it. If you have any issues, take a pic and post it here. 3. This is called kidney-beaning and results from your eye being to close to the eyepiece lens. Does the eyepiece have an eye-cup that lifts/rotates up to help position your eye? Also, the basic EPs that come with these scopes can be a bit rubbish.

Last night was clear but a half moon meant anything too faint and fuzzy was out of the question. I was aware that Boötes is good for double stars, so made a quick list of some likely targets in the area. After hunting down the recent nova again, I switched over to the 8" dob and looked SE. Zeta Cor Bor - easily split, but I forgot to note the magnification. Primary slightly larger and a slightly warmer white to the cold blue white of the secondary. Mu Boo - "Alkalurops". A triple with bright primary (A) and 2 very close fainter secondaries (B&C) about 2 arcseconds. B and C unequal brightness, B larger and both looked yellow. B & C split at x100 Epsilon Boo - "Izar". The famous double. 'A': large yellow. 'B': small and white. Split at x120 magnification. The orientation at the eyepiece, with A above and smaller B immediately below it, made it look like a tiny hot air balloon floating by! Xi Boo. 'A' star large and yellow, 'B' star small and red. Split at around x80 Pi Boo. Easy split at x80. 2 white stars. Then thought I'd try some of the globular clusters nearby. M53 was barely visible with the bright moon, an unresolved grey disk. I tried to get a wide view including NGC5053 but that was far too faint to be seen in these conditions. M3 and M5 were also both unimpressive. Little resolution available in the conditions.

Got the edge of the Bubble Nebula, too.

Found it in the ST80. It's definitely no brighter than yesterday, to my inexperienced eye. I still think it might be fainter. After all this, M53 and the Bubble nebula are going to be some objects I can track down in my sleep!

Just in from using the bins, and yes - I'd say it looks a little fainter. Might be the moonlight though. I'm just setting up the scopes.

SN11 is up! Aw pants! It's a repeat of SN10! Sorry folks - someone posted a fake 'live vid' Ignore me Admins - delete this if you want.

Thanks @Littleguy80, but I don't want to take credit for @Waddensky's initial sketch which was what really helped in locating the Nova. I know exactly what you mean about a shared experience. It's nice to often think about a few people all trying to observe the same thing - like comet Neowise.

The forecasts are suggesting clear skies here after midnight. This is starting to remind me of the nights spent persuing comet Neowise, last summer.

1) Dark sky site 2) Astro event of some kind 3) Meet some of the folks I've chatted to on SGL 4) Beer and curry at some local establishments

I remember this topic caused a bit of a lively debate last year! I spoke to my friend/neighbour about it - as she's Canadian Inuit. She understands that most outside Canada don't realise that it can be offensive and it's used in innocence, thinking it's an appropriate term. But if she hears it used, she'll ask for the term "Inuit" instead. So I won't use it now. NASA aren't either, but they don't control what others use. It's up to individuals to use whatever term they want to, but like I said, I won't now that I know. Now - not all native Arctic people are Inuit, and some don't find the term offensive, apparently. It's all to do with context, I guess. Any comments from the Canadian members? Any Inuit members?

Hi. Bortle 8 will make it a bit trickier to find stuff and the faint targets, like a lot of galaxies and nebulae might not be visible. However, if you can see M31 with bins, it might be better than Bortle 8 suggests. SkySafari calls M33 the "Pinwheel galaxy". M33 is normally known as the Triangulum Galaxy, and Pinwheel Galaxy is a term usually used for M101. I don't know why SkySafari does this, but it really threw before I found out. I've never seen either, using bins or scope from my Bortle 6 garden, so well done. Most will suggest M33 is much easier to find with the wide-view in binoculars. As for finders. The light pollution at your location will make a RDF only suitable for finding the brightest stars to start star-hopping from. And then trying to star-hop using a scope with a long focal-length is tricky. I remember trying to do that when I started and it's an exercise in frustration. It can be done, but once you lose your place and have to start again, it's maddening. I'd suggest getting a magnifying finder, like a 6x30 or even a 9x50, which will show you a very wide field of fainter stars you would normally not see through an RDF. These can all be found secondhand, to save the expense a little. The real game-changer for me was using a combination of a RDF (Telrad in my case) and a RACI (right-angled - correct image) finder. The latter provides views like your binoculars (correct image) without having to get into awkward positions to view through it. You need the RDF to align the scope with your starting-point, though, as the right-angled finder makes it hard to do that. This might seem like overkill for your 114 Newt. But they can be transferred to your next scope, if you decide to upgrade. Stick with it, though. It gets easier. The first time I went looking for M51, it took me about 30 minutes. Now, it's about 1!

Cheers. Some discussion already in the Observations section:

Through ST80 refractor, Baader Hyperion zoom - 24mm. Usual refractor view, North up, West to the left.

This was the binocular view 10x50 (FOV not shown). Average seeing with some high haze. It shows 4 Cas as part of @Waddensky's rhombus and the triangle below it. Nova is marked. M52 was not visible.

Success! Easy to find with binoculars - thank to @Waddensky's brilliant diagram. The 'rhombus' is directly North of the nova, which shows as the East-most point of a triangle to the SSW of the rhombus. Of that triangle [nova, HD220819 (mag 6.6) and HD220770 (mag 7.8], the nova is between mag 6.6 and 7.8 I'm just sorting out some sketches. It was a bit tricky, getting a few minutes between clouds.

Oh! The clouds have cleared. I'm off outside.

"The position of Nova Cas 2021 precisely coincides with that of the W UMa-type eclipsing variable star CzeV3217, which lies at a distance of about 5,500 light years." Can't find how bright it is normally. But using the chart builder from AAVSO that Jeremy posted and the same location. By varying the limiting magnitude of the tightest view, it appears to be around 15.5

Apparently mag increased from +9.6 to +7.5 (today) in one day https://astronomynow.com/2021/03/19/new-nova-in-cassiopeia-brightens-rapidly/

Link with pic: https://www.nao.ac.jp/en/news/topics/2021/20210319-nova.html

Yep - that's where my SkySafari-Fu gets me too.

@Skygazerlass. A quick way to check would be to remove the eyepiece and have a look down the focuser at the reflection in the primary mirror. You'll soon see if anything is wrong. Point it at a pale wall and take a pic down the focuser.

Had a shot at it tonight, using the 8" Bresser dob. Very good seeing tonight. Split pretty easily, actually. Used the zoom and it was clear at 8mm (150x magnification). Did a sketch of the view using the 7mm UO Ortho (170x mag)

ready for the summer

Yep - saw them in my 10x50s a few nights ago. The sky was very transparent (all 7 main stars of Ursa Minor were visible naked eye to me) I follow a different hop to find them, this was from @John: