josefk

If you manage to find the Tak “shower cap” “sailors hat” style soft lens cap in ~130mm friendly sizes for sale anywhere (as used on the Mewlon I think) be sure to post on here as I would fancy one myself.

I have the orbits of the planets switched on in view preferences. It’s a bit cluttering but I also find it an easy ready reckoner for other targets ….”Is X above or below an imaginary line between Saturn and Jupiter” for example.

Ignore

@Peter Drew as the owner of both ~3" and ~5" Tak OTAs i can promise you the 3" outperforms its bigger brother by quite a margin in the "carrying it up and down stairs" stakes! It may not be apples vs. apples - more like potato vs. sack of potatoes.

Hi keora - i think if you do these two things then you have cracked it "toolkit" wise. It is important to flip the view in the main Sky Safari view to match your scope EP or finder orientation (mirror horizontally (star diagonal) or mirror vertically (my finder - yours may not be) or nothing (correct image finder or naked eye) otherwise you need mental gymnastics to follow the star patterns. With the mirrored flips done in SS no mental gymnastics other than "clock face" style plain rotation are required to match the star field to the map as it were. i regular flip the main SS view in a single session because my finder and scope present different orientations and I still use the regular unflipped "real world" SS view too to maintain orientation to what naked eye stars i can see. Sounds way more complicated and more faff in these two typed sentence than it really is in practise! in practise it's 2nd nature.

very lovely indeed @Sunshine - congrats

Hi @keora - i'm not sure which features are in which version of sky safari but as you are already using it at the scope see if you have this menu behind "observe": if you do then if you go to "scope display" you can set yourself up with finder circles to match your 9x50 finder and your favourite eyepieces... this is an example: ...the larger circle there is my finder and the smaller circle is a 1-degree FOV eyepiece. Because in the main view of Sky Safari you can flip the view to match your scope set-up (newtonian, star diagonal, corrected image, etc.) it makes referencing your finder and/or your EP to the star map very easy. In my experience it makes star hopping a cinch - almost cheating. 😉

I could have staged it with the album cover if i were a quicker thinker (and a bit sad). "There is no dark side of the moon..."

A bit of an 'inbetweener' focal length wise for me - i don't really need 10mm - in one scope it even more or less duplicates a FOV i already have but this will deliver that FOV at a moderatly lower magnification/bigger exit pupil (1.9mm vs. 1.5mm for the next EP down) so so i'm quite excited to try this out looking for a brighter galaxy or two the next clear dark night. At 1.9mm exit pupil it may need a Dioptrx (and if not straightaway then at some point probably not so far away) so reading on CN about being able to mount a Dioptrx under the eye guard and picking this up for much less than a Delos swung this for me even if it will be an odd man out in my EP case. Small edit - Doh! - a Dioptrx fits the threaded top of the EP ok but NOT under the eye guard. It looks useable nevertheless but using the TV rubber eye guard. Oh well.

i was going to make that comment myself @Franklin - i can honestly say i've never seen those colours in the dark!

i wouldn't ordinarily post two in a row being the shy and retiring type but this was unusual in my home office this morning - no idea what had caught the rising sun to create this dispersion of sunlight in the (darker) western side of my house just now but i like it...

nothing wrong with a lunch box for an EP case - i linked one above as a joke but now i've seen them i'm tempted myself for a small GnG kit!

Sounds like a busy and enjoyable session or pair of sessions @Franklin - i've never knowingly seen an eclipse of a Jovian moon so i enjoyed it via your description 🙂

The Messier open clusters in your list there are really beautiful jewel boxes - i love them at all sorts of magnifications , full frame up close, and far away as sparkling little dabs with loads of sky around. There are other smaller NGC clusters in that area too so if you make yourself a star chart it could be quite productive for not too many star hops in a circa 10-degree stack. M35 has NGC 2158 on the edge of it.

@JeremyS https://www.amazon.com/LOGOVISION-Apollo-Anniversary-Patch-Insulated/dp/B0CGXJPZMG/ref=sr_1_2?crid=K6H342N3IQ67&keywords=Apollo+11+lunch+box&qid=1701549128&sprefix=apollo+11+lunch+box%2Caps%2C212&sr=8-2 will need a scrap of foam to complete.

@SwiMatt I do have a sketch myself of the double cluster that will never see the light of day 🤣 yes I do believe globular clusters are a tad easier than open ones.

Good stuff @SwiMatt. All three with the brushed pastel technique?

i find the one i use on my widest EP to feel like a super fine focus to use even after focussing. Its not 100% perfect (the prescription must not be an exact match to my own even though on paper it kind of should be) but its a huge 90% improvement over not having it.

i forget what my Finnish colleagues call snow - not the snow itself per se but something about its affect on bouncing light around once it arrives in the darkest winter months. Do you have a similar saying/concept in Sweden?

err.. my finder was icing up and slowing me down as i hopped in across a couple of other much smaller clusters [NGC 1647 and NGC 1662) coming from the Hyades and Aldebaran but as i got to M38 finally (from where i would have come down the classic Messier set here) - also my objective was beginning to get frosty so i beat a hasty retreat. i didn't have dew bands on. 🥶

Nice detail and thanks for posting because your top pic 100% validates my visual observation and sketches last night - i'm not imagining things - i'm chuffed to bits. 👍

You've got to move pretty fast @dweller25 in more ways than one. 😉

Thanks and cheap sheepskin gloves! I find them better than even quite technical mountain gloves or mitts for the kind of on-off-on again routine with astro. highly recommended.

i am loving this scope not only for its big strength (flat and wide) but also for its ability to bring me a nice planetary view from a tiny package. Out last night observing the GRS transit on Jupiter at about minus three degrees...

Fabulous session last - a "best yet" Jupiter in the little GnG. Such a shame it was a school-night and i had had early evening plans because in my location it felt like it would have seriously rewarded a long session with bigger kit. Never-mind ~21:00 till 23:30 it was super enjoyable nonetheless both for the astro and for being out on such a lovely crips atmospheric evening. I mainly watched the GRS transit the middle quarter/third over a period of about 90 mins. Great detail for a small scope, seeing felt very steady in deed for quite extended moments. Sketched over here: https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/416550-jupiter-grs-transit-in-the-frost-301123/#comment-4437018