josefk

Gratuitous shot of the mk2 DIY dew shield (camping mat - matt black on the inside) - not as good as the mk1 variant (kitchen worktop heat deflector). I think mk1 introduces glare, mk2 curls over and into the line of sight. Mk3 will be bought fit for purpose!

So last night i got to the halfway point on the Astro League Double Star observing programme. I'm not going at it full blast but rather using it as an infill activity on manual find grab and go nights or when the moon is high and bright as it was last night.

It's a superb programme - not so much for the double stars to be observed - "listing" and picking from lists is easy. More it is improving my discipline at the EP for note taking and sketching. Huge fun (not) trying to determine West near Polaris at only 15x in binoculars and ordinarily not something i would bother trying to nail down but this programme kind of asks you to and it is definitely improving my methodology.

Last night i was trying to use my larger scope on tighter doubles that i can't split in my GnG. Unfortunately the seeing wasn't cooperating and i was failing at the 5" level (diffraction rings just looked like squirming finger prints).  In between views of Mars I moved onto three wider targets in Cepheus (Xi, Beta, Delta) and one in Lacertae (8 Lac) and trialled first light in my new Baader Polaris I illuminated reticle. It's a bit of a game changer. 

While not the nicest EP to use; having a narrower FOV than i'm used to (and i have a non tracking mount), a little tendency to black out on this first use and having a hard cold eye lens rubber surround, i have to say as a "tool" it's great. Easily used to align with the exit of stars at the field stop of the eyepiece to the west its then great for narrowing down position angle and separation by giving the eye much smaller nearby markers to check against. The example below isn't a difficult one but where my notes 8"...10" are wrong the sketch is "spot-on" for the separation of this pair at 2/3 of a reticle division (21" per division in this scope using a powermate, separation = 14").While i would still use a "regular" eyepiece on the same target before or after for the most aesthetic view i'm really happy to add this EP to my toolkit.

Super chuffed and i highly recommend the EP. I believe it is discontinued so mmh...

Obviously other stuff was happening last night so after a first session of doubles it ended like this in a second and third session respectively with the lunar occultation of Mars entry and exit (not a sketch at the EP so no excuses for the rubbish moon):

Cheers all

With a less understanding partner i could easily be in trouble this morning 🤣 - making a racket coming in passed midnight last night after trying to take in as much of Mars as possible on the evening of the 7th. Alarm at 04:00 this morning to get out for the start of the occultation. Back in for a brief warm up and change of kit then quite noisily back out again for the exit of the occulation. 

In between all the Mars observation I got to the half way mark in the Astro League double stars programme last night including 17 Cep, 8 Cep, 27 Cep and 8 Lac. Seeing not great - couldn't split two targets at 5" separation.

Now for a coffee. 

30 minutes ago, Nicola Hannah Butterfield said:

Got this of Mars and the moon, 25 frames 10's apart, a lot of cloud, sod had his hand at play because when Mars re-appeared the moon had dropped below the shed and clouds had p'd off

Excellent - i can use this to explain to my partner what all the fuss was about!

A nice mix of things there Joe and through your descriptions a nice bit of observing by proxy first thing in in the morning after yet another cloudy night here in the UK. I will make a note to check out the PNe NGC 1535. Cheers

Hello and welcome to SGL. 

I would like to improve the quantitative aspects of some of my observing notes (particularly doubles) so thought i would give this a try. I can get it it to 100x (and 200x with a power mate) in one scope and will be something like 40x and 80x in another. I'm ok on position angle usually (+/- 15...20 degrees) but my brain does get mushy on simple divisions of the EP FOV for size or separation at times...

Hi Rob - In my observation notes for NGC 1647 I have notes to the effect of "remember to come back and spend more time here on a pitch black steady night". It is lovely isn't it.

Atmospheric pics @scotty1. Nice.

On 23/11/2022 at 23:52, Ratlet said:

I spent the last couple days flocking my 130PDS and blackening the edges of the secondary which had some overspray type of thing going on with the silvering.  It was supposed to be cloudy tonight but honestly there was more gaps than clouds so I dragged everything out for a quick test.  Ran through the usual suspects M31(which was visible easily by eye) M45 which was delightful as always.   What was less delightful was the triangle that formed around the stars when I was in or out of focus.  Must have put the mirror clips back in a nip too tight.  I had a quick squint at Jupiter and Mars with the 8mm/2xbarlow but, well... I'll get back to them in a bit.

I tried something new tonight wiht M33.  I'm still struggling with star hopping but getting better.  I think using the 32mm plossl as a finder might not be the best bet.  It gives too many stars and it makes it disorientating.  I managed to find M33 easily enough from Mothallah.  A distinct bright patch although still very faint lying smack dab in the middle of an equatorial trangle of stars.  The glow filled almost all of the area within the traingle.  I got a sketch off, but it needs some more work on the galaxy.

The clouds started to win the battle for sky about now so I decided to pack up.  I normally use my Ramsden 4mm as a dustcap for my scope since it's apparently borderline useless.  For a laugh I threw I put it in and pointed the scope at Mars.  Got to say that despite the fact that my eyeball was basically touching the eyepiece, the FOV was miniscule and the field stop was more of a field gradient it handily knocked the spots off my 8mm BST and 2x barlow in terms of the actual target.  I'll put money on the line that I could see colour variation, some slightly darker regions visible in the infrequent good seeing.  I swung to Jupiter when the clouds covered mars and again the eyepiece was great.  Best view of Jupiter I've had so far.  The red spot wasn't facing, but I'm pretty sure that if it was I would have been able to see it.

Edited:. Added the sketch.  It was remarkably faint, but definitely there.

just a cheeky word to the wise @Ratlet - I've liked your sketches before and noticed you sketch light on dark (i think you're not inverting). If you do i've found sketching on index cards rather than in a pad to be utterly transformative and they come in black 🙂

https://www.amazon.co.uk/A6-Black-Card-Stock-Sheets/dp/B00UQ3FM54?th=1

Murky hazy sky here in South Lincolnshire last night and twinkling badly too so just a few doubles in Taurus to relax. 

62 Tauri (Struve 534), Chi Tauri (Struve 528), Kappa 1 & 2 Tauri (Struve 541), and Omega2 Tauri. 

At the start of the session i couldn't split Theta Auriga (4.4") and at the end of the session Mars had astigmatic/diffraction spike like light beams (in a refractor!) shooting off into the damp in all directions so i think both seeing and transparency pretty bad!

It was like 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' all evening though. The RAF have been drilling low level night flying here every evening this week. I don't know what they're flying but they're pretty big and pretty cool.

Sounds brilliant @Astro_Dad - i learnt my own lesson earlier this week to keep banking Mars during these few weeks - it will feature or be checked in every session for me from now till xmas i think! 🙂

7 minutes ago, markse68 said:

strange- SkySafari doesn’t show “C” 🤷‍♂️ I’ll have to have a look!

Lovely sketch btw! I keep thinking i should get sketching again it’s such a good thing to do but it was just too cold and damp last night

Mark

It doesn't indeed and thats why i missed it the first time round! Even knowing exactly where to look on a second attempt it is tricky. This will get tidied up to an index card later but here is the EP "sketch" from last night. I'm enjoying recording my observations like this but my dark adapted eyesight is so bad it's a complete Mr Bean faff glasses on/off, red light on/off, drop pen, knock scope by still having glasses on when going back to the eyepiece... etc...

Sigma Orionis is the letters group - C not seen to start with but finally seen and marked (in the little group outside the EP FOV) and Struve 761 is the numbers marked group to the west. 

Cracking couple of hours in Burghley Park again last night - my 'birding scope' is getting more sky time than the bigger kit. Very cold at the end again. 

39 Ori, 34 Ori, 48 Ori (& Struve 761), 43 Ori and 44 Ori observed ad sketched in the doubles set before just enjoying M42 and the surrounding area.

Lambda Orionis (39 Ori) at 4.4" quite difficult - seeing wasn't perfect and the primary was twinkling over quite a big space. 

Sigma Orionis (48 Ori) observed for the second time in three days - this time "camping out" to observe the fourth component "C". It was much harder than i expected at 8.8 Mag. Is much much dimmer than i expected so i assume washed out by the (AaAbB) group at a separation of 11" - very easily missed at the 70x mag i am using. 

M42 (and then Mars again to finish) just fabulous.

Dodgy sketch of M42 and neighbours attached 🙂

As @Franklin points out - this is where your picture of the bright heart of M42 is @Seoras - the trapezium stars (the blurry tight group in your picture) and three bright stars  in a line below them in the sky but to the left in your star diagonal view (themselves all just below another Messier - Messier 43).

which in the bigger picture is here below Orion's belt:

Absolutely loads to see in this area :-). As Franklin says UHC and O-III filters all help bring something out with Orion but then so to does good dark adaptation and a clear sky - it's so bright filters are the "the cherry on top" but its lovely and rewarding without.

i appreciated this heads up and reminder @paulastro. I've been struggling with Mars in recent weeks and had kind of given up till December when i hope to have a new refractor to try again. However your post here yesterday afternoon spurred me to try again last night and "try harder" as it were and in the end i had a great observation and feel like i've got one in the bank now for this opposition. Thanks.

Orion is fabulous isn't it?  So much to look at there and in an 8" scope you should get loads of variation and interest in the various patches of nebulosity. 

Fantastic "grab 'n' go" in Burghley Park last night starting with a couple of discreet Struve star pairs just inside or on the edge of the Open Cluster IC 348 near 40 Per (Struve 437 and 439) and culminating in a view of Mars where i could actually observe it as something other than a glaring orange blob. Using a small refractor even at very low magnification (70x) was infinitely more satisfying than it has been to date this year using my Cassegrain. No glaring diffraction "beams" to ruin the illusion, no atmospheric shimmer and a small (ish) exit pupil for a manageable (not too bright) image. The darkness of Syrtis Major was almost creating a "donut" like effect so very definite and very pleasing.

In the middle of the session I  also had a lovely "right way up and right way round" (erect image) walk up Orion from NGC 1980 (and the doubles there) through M45 and M43 to NGC 1981. Everything bright and lovely though i didn't see obvious nebulosity in the NGC 1975 segment at this aperture (95mm) or i didn't note it properly if i did.

From there i hopped up to Sigma Orionis to sketch it for the AL-DS programme but failed - all clear and easy i thought but when checking this morning i have realised i missed "C"! It didn't ought to have been missed at Mag. 8.8 ish but i think i was too distracted by the brighter "three" stars in the system and there's a lot going off in the FOV here in general.

Absolutely freezing though by 22:30 ish. 🥶

27 minutes ago, niallk said:

It's a 30+ year old design very much based on practicality and functionality, and parts readily available in a DIY shop (bar a couple of custom cast items), but to my eye, aesthetically beautiful too!

To my eye too!. Absolutely gorgeous.

A game of two halves planned last night except cloud stopped play at half time!

I DID plan to spend a few hours before the moon was up chasing tricky targets i have failed on before at least once (but this time failing methodically for the AL-PNe programme) and then spend the second half of the night enjoying Orion amongst other things. As it happened i spent:

• 45 mins observing and sketching NGC 6894. A difficult Mag 14.4 (surface brightness 22.4) Planetary Nebula in Cygnus. O-III essential for me last night. A good start and good use of the darkness. Then...
• 45 mins NOT seeing the very faint PNe Jones-Emberson 1 but drawing the empty space nevertheless so i can count it as a definite negative observation.
• 30 mins NOT seeing Pease 1 the PNe in M15. Similarly sketching what i couldn't see to record i was looking in the right spot 🙂. M15 looked great.
• 45 mins NOT seeing ARO 205 / Abell 4 a dim PNe in Perseus and again sketching the empty space. M34 next door looked lovely though!

So 3 hours or so then it clouded over and stayed clouded over! 1 proper observation to show for the session.

Funny hobby this...

Nice one @Captain Scarlet  should be pretty dark the first half of tonight as well. Fingers crossed for clear as well. Have a good one. 

Also a quick sky grab between clouds here. Three more doubles on the AL list observed and sketched. Its a great "training programme" for double star observing.

• Beta1 / Beta2 CAP, 
• Alpha1 / Alpha2 CAP (Though this is only an optical double pairing. They are each independent double systems but i didn't split them individually on this occasion), and
• 57 AQL.

All three are quite nice EP FOVs for sketching. 

Cheers

17 minutes ago, Astro_Dad said:

Nice report and sketch of your field of view - good to see these.

i'm going after the Astro League double star and PNe pin badges 🙂 - drives good habits. Sad.

On 25/10/2022 at 15:36, astrolulu said:

The night of October 17 in my area turned out to be particularly fruitful in terms of astrophotography - thanks to exceptionally good seeing. The quality of photos details taken that night clearly exceeds what I have been able to achieve with the SCT telescope of the same 8 '' diameter - and even what I was able to get with the larger C9.25. I looked closely at my photos made so far - I've focused for example on Clavius - and I must say that this inconspicuous 8 '' Newtonian really surprised me by showing what he can do with good seeing!

Here are the fruits of that amazing night:

 

Hi @astrolulu - i just wanted to let you know i've "borrowed" the last image in this series to use as my new desktop wall paper - it is absolutely fabulous and i'm enjoying it very much! Thanks.

19 minutes ago, josefk said:

i can tip you off on another potential one then though i couldn't do it last night - 32 Cyg and 31 Cyg/30 Cyg easy enough but 31 Cyg/30 Cyg could also go with NGC 6884 (another stellar PNe) a little to the south-west. The PNe is certainly in the FOV with both at 30x/2-degrees and remains in the FOV with 31 Cyg/30 Cyg at 70x/1-degree but i couldn't see it like that. I had to move the PNe up into the middle of the EP (and therefore 31 Cyg/30 Cyg just out of frame) to see it 9with averted vision).

Full disclosure and as described above i can't see it as i've drawn it here. i have to increase the magnification and also move the PNe up into the centre of the EP. However even in this 30x/2-degree FOV I know the PNe is there from the field stars around it. Have fun.