josefk

Nice one @bosun21 - i'm doing this more and more these days - i'm finding it quite interesting to note how dark adapation of the viewing eye is degraded away from the EP even in a dark spot and how even in a dark spot fully shading the EP with a hood or a blanket really deepens the view. I can imagine M13 really sparkled for you.

Great stuff @YogSothoth it was a busy disk wasn't it 🙂

I tried to draw it this afternoon but lost my way with it - like you say loads of detail.

I've had three goes at white light observing/sketching today. First at the end of an all night observation session (between something like 05:30 and 07:00 this morning - seeing was fabulous, (crystal clear and rock steady) even at a lowly altitude of circa 11-degrees. This is my favourite sketch of the daylight day and a lovely hour with the early morning sun. This is by far the best observation and the most careful capture to paper. I dried my dew soaked kit off as well while doing it so win win: Next up was a rather rubbish right way up right way round observation with a spotting scope. This was 12:00 and seeing was horrible. Big lumpy heat bubbles passing through the FOV and very low contrast. I'm not posting the sketch. I quite like a lunar observation in an erect image orientation but i find solar a bit confusing the right way up for some reason. This obs emphasised for me that the quality of the view going forward is 90/10 about timing versus kit. Late afternoon i had a third go. The lone sunspot 3702 on the eastern limb was showing the Wilson effect superbly. My sketch doesn't capture it properly but it appeared like a proper indented saucer in the solar surface: I also tried a soft capture of AR 3698 - i'm very much on the learning curve at this game trying to find the right balance of detail without over egging the contrast (contrast was anyhow reduced this afternoon over this morning)t: I also tried for AR 3700 but saw a kind of teddy bear "likeness" in the leading group - once i'd seen it i couldn't unsee it so my sketch ended up looking like a care bear and went in the bin. Likewise i had another go at AR 3697 - it was quite changed/developed even in the 8 or 9 hrs since this morning. Its a tricky group with a lot of the detail in highlights rather than darks and in trying to capture that it got away from me so that went in the bin as well!

This group has been just fantastic all day. Superb.

I’m neglecting the family on a family picnic. So snap 🥴

Thanks @SwiMatt this one this morning is with just 85mm but it’s a good 85mm. Phenomenal 85mm really - I don’t think anybody told it it’s a small scope. I was also using a binoviewer which helps and the seeing before 07:00 this morning was also very very steady so there is that. I’ve just tried again with a decent 95mm APO (cyclops style) and although the sky looks clear blue to the naked eye - through the scope it’s swimming and milky, nowhere near the same resolution of detail.

Well a few minutes turned into an hour. I’m sure sketching sunspots is a bit like sketching Jupiter. It seems to evolve if you go too slowly. I assume this is AR 3691 - I’ll check later with a coffee. Edit: the breakout detail is actually AR 3697. Looks like it will be a good target today. AR 3691 which was huge on bank holiday Monday is the much diminished spot group in the WNW (11-o’clock).

Mars and Saturn! The nearly closed rings of Saturn look great. Mars was a bit of a blobby mess. This was at the end of a dusk till dawn all nighter. I think I saw my faintest galaxy of the year so far too NGC 3066. Mag 12.8. Not sure if it’s the lowest surface brightness so far this year though till I check my notes later. It was difficult seeing as it was never properly dark. if I get a few minutes of white light Solar in before packing up it’ll be a full house. 👌🏻

Dewey dusk till dewey dawn was a whopping four hours (just barely) and damp throughout. Astro is a smash and grab activity these days 😞. Sticking at it was rewarded with a finish on Saturn at about 04:30. The narrow rings look great. airing off now before packing up. I was hoping for a bit of white light Solar before calling it a night for the “full house” in one session but rising cloud is currently beating the sun to the tree line. Looking west: looking east: with a dawn chorus soundtrack:

Sounds like a couple of extra steps with Android versus how it works with apple devices then. You'll get on with it now you have it though - i have more lists than clear nights to get through them 🙂

I think @wookie1965 and IIRC you simply click each file in your downloads folder and it opens in SkySafari. Once it’s opened in sky safari it is retained in sky safari. It’s been a while since I imported a list “from the wild” so I may have misremembered. Will check shortly. Later: yep - looks like I remembered correctly.

Great read on your build diary there @inFINNity Deck. Inspiring.

Now you (both) tell me! 🤣

i'm on record on here a few times moaning about them with my Classical Cassegrain. I'm ambivalent when they appear across bright stars (they can sometimes even make a nice aesthetic change) but they are ruinous to my appreciation of Mars and Jupiter (unless viewing Jupiter in at dusk or dawn). For planetary observing i appreciate the "in orbit" sensation (sharp planetary disc with black sky) and the planet width diffraction "beams" of my Cassegrain put a scope in between me and the planet in a way that i can't get passed/ignore. I knew within 5-seconds of first light with the Cassegrain on Mars that it was going to cost me anther scope without vanes.

i have every intention of making a similar "before" empty sketch @Nik271 for the same before and after comparison/satisfaction myself (weather willing) 👍

white light observing through the french doors (i.e. from the comfort of my lounge) - lazy lazy boy!

and another couple of spots just now; AR 3685 and AR 3686 which i've been watching since Friday and AR 3695 (also seen with AR 3691 above) and AR 3696. The faculae plage (if i use the right description) around AR 3696 looks a bit strong on my drawing but actually it was this vivid as high thin cloud blew through darkening the rest of the disk. It wasn't this vivid without the assistance of the cloud.

A third day running with AR 3691. I do like a good series 🙂 Its grown hugely in the 24hrs since yesterday - if i understand the stats on solar weather correctly its now 720 millionths of a solar hemisphere and ~ 2 million square km. It's beautiful and fascinating to look at but very difficult to capture the visible detail in a sketch without it getting clumsy and over egged as i'm afraid this one has become.

AR 3691 has evolved a little bit in ~20 hours. Additional sunspots within it and larger overall this afternoon. Fascinating. This is with the Baader filter mounted on a 120mm Achromat - if i keep using this scope i will need a dark purple pen for the umbra and a yellow pencil for the edge of the limb 🙂 On the other hand the additional aperture of this scope (coupled with additional magnification) indicated to me there is no "replacement for displacement" as it were. Granularity clearer in the darkened limb (than a smaller scope the last two days). Faculae much brighter and more vivid than i have captured here and much more "coarseness" rather than density in the umbra. You wouldn't think it from the sketch but it took about three hours dodging rain showers and thunderstorms to accumulate ~45 mins of observation and sketching time. The irony of this game is not lost on me seeing as i only bought the solar filter finally due to prolonged cloudy nights 😂

Thanks @SwiMatt H-Alpha is a possibility but i'm not sure a probability. In all honesty I could do with borrowing a decent H-alpha scope to see how i get on and how much i enjoy it because everything i read about them suggests the etalons are a quality minefield and with lots of potential for disappointment unless you're either lucky or go "all in" with front mounted double stacked solarscope etalons sized 60mm and up (i.e. throw some real money at it to guarantee quality and ensure satisfaction). I have a touch of "perfect being the enemy of the good" with H-alpha. I'll see how i go on with white light (including probably a Herschel wedge in the near term) and build some experience before taking the H-alpha plunge i think.

This is only my second attempt at a sketch of solar activity - and in fact only my second observation ever of our sun so go easy. After a long time thinking about it i finally dipped my toe in the water with a Baader solar film based Kendrick filter this week. The tipping point and trigger to buy the filter was another nearly full month of zero clear nights here. I make the dedicated effort to look at the moon through a scope approximately once a year (dedicated meaning going out on purpose just to look at the moon) and i was a bit concerned that the sun could be similar. However I realised immediately on looking at the disc of the sun i was dead wrong to be concerned. I found it easy and immediately fascinating and satisfying. I fear i have opened the door to an expensive new avenue of the hobby; though the filter will fit my 95mm spotter scope (nice right way round view), my FSQ and "my" 120mm Achro, i think i will get a solar wedge for my 130mm APO with continuum filter etc.. This is a focus on AR 3691 near the solar limb. The Baader solar film was mounted on my FSQ 85mm refractor w/ MaxBII binoviewers at x65. I was lazily viewing over roof tops so the view was swimming a bit but there were periods of freeze frame clarity with umbra, penumbra, faculae, and marginal granulation on show. Granulation wasn't sharp but near the limb it was detectable - especially in contrast to the streaky plain white facular plage near the limb which were stronger, more contrasted, bright white streaks through the eyepiece than in this sketch. I found this feature particularly fascinating. How civilised too - Friday i was observing/sketching from Burghley park with a cricket match as soundtrack in the background and yesterday evening i was sketching through the open french doors of our lounge with music on in the background and a cup of tea. The filter goes in a bit of tupperware for safe handing so with a birding scope, lightweight tripod and bit of tupperware i'm set for days on the beach, picnics, birding outings and mountain tops. My family have lost me on sunny days! 😄

Really nice renderings @AlcorAlly and i enjoyed the notes. 👍 I think i prefer the larger aperture in both cases too though i appreciate the "narrow" split appearance of Gamma Virginis in the 65mm and the secondary component sitting on the diffraction ring of Raselgethi with that same aperture too.

A galaxy alone is wondrous enough but yes it is an exotic and exciting challenge to try and observe something else within such massive structure that far away. I 100% agree. I failed with NGC 604 at the time of Nik's thread last year but that thread and my trying (because of that thread) coincided with a bad run of weather so i was always behind my smallest (GnG) scope trying for it at that time. I certainly learnt the star field in that area really well while attempting it and i think i know exactly which foreground star you mean! I've been conscious to try again this spring but M33 had swung around and gotten quite low by the time my opportunity evenings had gotten dark so while conscious of it i haven't actually tried for it since that thread. I will do again though this autumn. With these challenge objects (challenge always being relative to whatever kit you are using in whatever sky) i am very conscious to try not to fool myself. I go out bird spotting and if i wouldn't bet my house on a bird ID i don't count it - i'm the same at night with astro - i don't want any asterix next to items in my observing log. I will go back to NGC 2905 above for example "to be sure". i think the ones in M101 could be reachable with a good night and maybe 10" aperture - possibly also with O-III or UHC filtering to shake them out. I WILL be trying those again too 🙂 . I think you could probably create a list of ten or a dozen extra galactic objects that are difficult enough to be very cool and satisfying to observe but that are not so difficult to need a 36" scope half way up a mountain somewhere.

Hi @SwiMatt nearly all my pastels are Faber-Castell Pitt Pastels. They in the pencil format - i.e not pastel sticks - that would be messy fun in the dew! Are the Lyra ones you mention also in the pencil format? I like trying new ones...