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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...

Very nice - love the delicacy @Fraunhoffer

i have "field pastels" and "desk pastels" here - the field pastels can get a bit soggy/sticky in damp autumn/spring nights. I also put mine on a heater some mornings to dry them back out 💧💧💧

wowzer - that is fantastic!

i love that @SwiMatt - fantastic. I particularly like the rendering of the mountain range in the lower part and the shadows of the individual peaks nearby. Feels very vivd.

It pains me to break this lovely pairing up (Tak clamp directly bolted to the mount) but needs must as i want the flexibility to mix and match new dual mounted combo's on the AZ100. Before (nice and neat, elegant even and totally secure): After - HD Losmandy for Tak clamps: I guess the product manager at ADM follows the "value based pricing" school of thought rather than "cost plus". ahem. 😞 Splitting the Tak clamp off the mount above (as much as it pains me to do so) allows me to use a second saddle there to mount different scopes on the left and therefore indirectly now enables this new set-up on the right hand side of the mount so i can use my FSQ as a super finder for my ACF if i ever get outside with that scope...

easy peasey 🙂 - i'm not an electronics engineer but i work in that environment (sort of) and going back a few years I used to spend some of my time hand making early prototype bits and bobs. My job has moved on and anyway we no longer prototype in house but it was one of my favourite pastimes within the job because its incredibly relaxing populating a PCBA. Not so relaxing when it won't fire up at the end...

good stuff @SwiMatt - i'm really enjoying the solar sketches 👍

if you come up with any bright ideas on the last bit then let me know - i'm not sure i need to (i haven't had 1st light on my SCT yet) but if i need to then i want to try and do it without sticking anything to the OTA itself... mmmh.

Sounds good @bosun21 - sounds like you may have enjoyed M13 quite a little bit 🙂 Insulation next or not needed till the autumn do you think?

Well. Thanks for the original heads up @JeremyS - what an excellent book this is. Great historical context/scene setting all in one place, Messier’s own observing notes translated directly as “the catalogue” (rather than piecemeal quotes used in other guides), and then really effective use of the large format for the full descriptions and images of each object. I am strongly motivated to complete my own Messier observations before reading the second half of the book as the descriptions are so thorough as to prejudice one’s own “discovery” process. A reference work indeed. 👍🏼

Super stuff @Lurcher - how do you manage your dose of red light when you're sketching galaxies - have you cracked how to keep it dim enough?

Nice one Ed, On a night a couple of weeks ago when I was supposed to be finishing a session on the sparkly high of M13 I also picked up this galaxy (for the first time). It was pretty subtle with an 8” at x141 and skies probably SQM ~20.5 or 20.6 or so. Though subtle it wasn’t terribly hard so a little bit strange why it was a first for me only recently given it’s location. I think you probably do have to look for it quite deliberately; in my skies you wouldn’t see it “by accident” when looking at M13 or drifting off it or hopping to that cluster or away from it. At least I haven’t. cheers

Yes @JeremyS sounds like it (maybe a very small print run?). For me personally it’s now fixed because still with a June ETA mine has been despatched this morning for delivery today. Not typical for Amazon.

Queue jumping! 😜 My original Amazon order is still not shipped - very weird.

That’s very nice @AlcorAlly - I like glow around the open cluster.

it was easy so far @ST_Steve - there is a handle on the back plate (doesn't really show in the pics) that is very convenient - it could do with a complimentary one at the front end for a two handed lift. I may look at adding something on the Losmandy if it feels a bit treacherous/slippy in the dead of night when cold and sleep deprived... It's keeping me busy and i haven't looked through it in the dark yet!

Thank you @Nik271 - i have higher confidence to go after NGC 2905 again then for a definitive "tick" with a carefully prepared red light readable map i think. With M101 sadly i think i have answered my own question with a bit of further reading - any bright spots i would see with my aperture could only be foreground stars x wishful thinking 🙂 Never mind.

to add another perspective, @cfinn has kindly allowed me to degrade (desaturate) and annotate his recent picture of M101: If i really was picking up for example NGC 5461 within M101 in that lower arm then the nearby galaxies NGC 5474 and NGC 5473 would have been positively jumping out at me (as out of focus "stars") wouldn't they? They weren't and didn't!

This is not exactly an observing report though there are observations, I'm using this post to actually ask a question about observing spiral galaxies and HII star forming regions within them... A couple of weeks ago i was observing NGC 2903 (with 185mm of aperture) with the express intent of trying to see NGC 2905 within it. I used exit pupils between 1.3mm and 0.6mm (!) with magnifications between x140 to x305. I'm not convinced i observed NGC 2905 but my observing notes for NGC 2903 are: Seen in all EP’s. All EPS used to try and tease out NGC 2905. Some bright (stellar) spots seen but i don’t think NGC 2905 conclusively. A rough edged and patchy “smudge” with bright soft stellar spots. This is the eyepiece sketch (unfortunately the bright bits are not correctly located to actually be NGC 2905 in this case 😞) This week with 85mm of aperture and using an exit pupil of 1.5mm (predominantly) and a scale of x56 i observed and sketched M101 like this: Notes: Easy find starting at Mizar, (STF 1831 & STF 1831 on the way). Took a while for it to first reveal itself as an averted vision smudge. Disappeared with any use of red light either to navigate SSP or sketch. Growing dark adaptation brought it more definitely even for direct vision. Large, hazy but with variation in the haziness. at least two stellar points or bright spots within it. No sign of the arm structure. Later returning from M102 with the 14mm in the diagonal it was markedly brighter and more definite. Sketch: the tidy version looks like this - it is sketched as i observed it at x56 but in this tidy version i have used the brightness of M101 i could achieve with a 2.6mm exit pupil (x32): My question is...when we observe nearly face on spiral galaxies and see brighter lumps and bumps are they brighter parts of the galaxy i.e. dense star concentrations and/or (if they are in the right place) even the NGC star forming regions (eg. possibly NGC 5461 at 8 o'clock within M101 above) or is it something else at play? Maybe a foreground star or stars perhaps or even "just" the core of the galaxy that we are not seeing as centrally as we possibly would in good conditions? With averted vision it is not easy to be precise with the exact location of these "bright" spots... Its unfeasible for me that i could see a Mag14 NGC within the Mag7.8 M101 with 85mm of aperture though i know that it can be funny how surface brightness works for concentrated objects. I'd love to hear the thoughts of experienced observers. Cheers

If it works @bosun21 then it may get a bit of aluminium tape as well as a treat. Actually I already did take a crafty look at gold foil on Amazon for a tongue in cheek JWST type look 🤣 I have a good dew band inside here (under this insulation) a few cm back from the font glass. This insulation is foiled backed camping mat. Foil on the outside. I have an aluminium dew shield on back order so when that is fitted that and the front of the tube will also get a layer (temporary - I.e. each session) of car windscreen foil shield or “reflectix” type material. Till the dew shield arrives I will just use a wrap of reflectix as the actual dew shield. I feel like I have crossed some kind of rubicon with this OTA.