josefk

That is a great pic. Really “sells” the hobby.

Really nice sketch too!

It looks from your signature that you're assembling or have assembled three really cool EP sets. “Minimal glass” ortho’s, high end “best of both worlds” Vixens and now “ultra wide” Nirvanas. Was that always the plan? You’ll never be short of the right tool for the job.

Sounds great Rob and an interesting comparison of the two approaches.

Another short binocular session in Burghley Park last night. I wanted to confirm NGC 7789 Caroline's Rose from the night or the 27/09 and indeed it was correct. It is quite a bit bigger in bino's than i was originally looking for but also very much fainter. A hazy fingerprint in an oblique parallelogram arrangement of four stars to the west of Caph. I also took a look at NGC663, NGC 654 and M103. All open clusters in Cassiopeia and all three sit in the same binocular FOV. NGC 663 is the brightest and prettiest at this scale. For me NGC 654 could be missed if it weren't colocated with the others. I finished on M34. Found by panning west from Mirfak. I couldn't definitively identify NGC 752 a few degrees even further west but its highly probable the next distinctive group of stars in that westwards pan is NGC 752. This is my "grab 'n' go" in the lovely dark park. Jupiter showing above.

I may need that quality when the time comes. This case is hidden in my home office. if i mis-time "being seen in public with it" i risk getting locked in it. 🤣

i can @badhex and i will but i just know even then it will look like a dog ate the cavity part out and not like the "laser cut" "custom fit" perfection my OCD demands! i did an eyepiece case in shadow foam last week and that required only small cuts in a firm foam and it still looks like mice did it 🤣. Good job these things get used in the dark.

no i'm afraid not - its layered but layered in slabs not pick 'n' pluck...i can practise in the lower hidden layers at least 🙂

Important piece of the puzzle missing here i think. mmmh. At least i'll be able to transport my hopefully imminent new OTA in this SKB case delivered yesterday. As long as it fits!!! Does anyone have any tips for cutting foam really neatly? Cheers

Stick a lightweight dew shield even on the Dobsonian @bosun21. I have a cassegrain and a diy lightweight dew shield has made all the difference on recent nights even while every other surface around me was dripping wet (including the inside surface of the dew shield).

Just a short 15x binoculars session last night. Breezy here in Stamford and a school night. Ostensibly I was going out for a look at Jupiter but it wasn’t very satisfying. I think I need to get my eyes checked to see what my new astigmatism prescription is - Jupiter was very spiky. 😞 M31 was nice in Andromeda. Very wide left to right and a strong glowing core. In Cassiopeia and a bit below it the Owl Cluster and Double Cluster were both very nice and Melotte 20 was just rising over the tree line - very bright blue stars. I was really looking for Caroline’s Rose a bit higher up but didn’t find it definitively- I think I had the wrong expectations looking for a small sprinkling of stars (like the owl) when I think at 15x this may show as a small patch of haze (which I DID see). Will hopefully try again more carefully later this week. cheers

Have you clicked through the photo's on that link @badhex. I have no idea why but all my hobbies lead to shops that look like that! Hope you get the trip.

love it 👍

Thanks for the tip Peter. I'm thinking of two strategies going forward - adding a very mildly heated pad in the bottom of my eypeicee case and hooking the case up to a dew controller or adding a slot in my eyepiece case for a hand warmer arrangement (i need to have a think about these two). The other is having a hand held fan of some sort to blow air across them in between use or in-between views while being used. I'm not sure this will work just blowing air at ambient temperature over them so may need to do an experiment one cloudy night. 🙂 Cheers

For anyone with time on their hands this Sunday morning a longer report posted here -

Fantastic (and breakthrough) session for me last night in Northamptonshire. Early evening rain had left behind lovely clear skies and without aa moon it was fabulously dark. Managing condensation was important all night, I made it till 01:00 before finally losing my eyepieces to condensation. Notional targets: Jupiter (aiming to bank it in case it is cloudy for opposition next weekend) and September Herschel targets. In the event the dark skies were so nice I diverted to Planetary Nebula and Bright Nebula at high angles and with a new UHC filter and gave Jupiter (in fact all the planets) a miss as they were glaring and shimmering in what i think was still quite a damp atmosphere at lower angles. Steve O'Meara's "Herschel 400 Observing Guide" schedules the H400 for the year in multiple nightly (and seasonal) sessions. I cheat and transfer them to Sky Safari as a list for the month. September has 19 targets and i'm now only missing 5. One of which (The North America Nebula) i won't be able to observe with my current kit even though i did try (and failed) again last night. NGC 6823 (H VI-18), NGC 6830 (H VII-9), and NGC 6885 (H VIII-20) are three pretty Open Clusters in Vulpecula. All were nice and easy (with push to) and aesthetic targets early in the evening. NGC 6885 is quite near M27 the Dumbell Nebula and i thought i would take a quick look as i have a new UHC filter to try out. WOW. M27 was unreal - i've never seen it so big and i thought the filter had just paid for itself there and then (80x, 2.4mm exit pupil, UHC). In the event it wasn't only the new filter. I tried without and it was also bigger than i recall previously. I §don't think i've looked at M27 without a moon in the sky and the darker skies were clearly contributing enormously. I cycled through 80x/2.4mm exit pupil with and without UHC and 140x/1.3mm exit pupil with and without UHC and 200x/0.9mm exit pupil without UHC. All brought something to the observation though 80x with UHC and 140x without UHC were the best tools. If i'm honest i still didn't see the "hour glass" brightness within the oval as it appears in photographs and good sketches but i did see more variation and contrasted brightness differences across it than i've seen before. Superb. Encouraged by M27 i moved round to The Eastern and Western Veil as these have been frustratingly missed for ages. I was ecstatic to see the Eastern Veil part (NGC 6995) using 2.4mm exit pupil and the UHC and see tendril like detail within it even. Fantastic. My widest TFOV is 1 degree so i was scrolling around the arc of it for the observation. i could detect but couldn't really "see" the Western Veil part and couldn't detect either without UHC filter in place even while being parked in exactly the right spot. New success with M27 and NGC 6995 encouraged me to take a look at NGC 6826 (H IV-73) the Blinking Nebula and NGC 7008; Planetary Nebula in Cygnus. The Blinking Nebula is funny. It blinked for me last night fully off/on with 80x/2.4mm pupil/UHC and blinked leaving behind the central star at 140x/1.3mm exit pupil. It didn't blink at all at 200x. The highest magnification was least satisfying. NGC 7008 was the other way round. Blinking on and off at higher magnification but not at lower ones. NGC 7008 is a lower magnitude PN than NGC 6826. Three slightly harder targets (for me) finished the session; NGC 6905 (H IV-16) the Blue Flash Nebula (not blue and no flash) no discernible shape or features but it is small and pretty dim. NGC 6934 (H I-103) and NGC 7006 (I-52). These are also Caldwells and are small and dim Globular Clusters in Delphinus. For me in my scope these are hard to describe as Globular Clusters. No contrast to their edges and no resolvable stars. NGC 7006 in particular very hard to describe as a GC and i'm not sure i would have been able to see this at all on a brighter night. Other than a sweep across the planets at the very end these targets finished the session. Id been taking great care to keep my eyepieces covered and where possible a little bit warm throughout the session but i finally lost the battle to condensation and that was the end of that. The scope itself though it wasn't dewed on the mirrors was absolutely running with water! Cheers all.

I can't believe i nearly talked myself out of going out last night - the late afternoon/early evening rain was off putting. In the end i had a super session "ticking" a few Herschels identified as September targets by Steve O'Meara (mostly open clusters in Vulpecula) and an absolutely breakthrough observation session on various Nebula targets in Vulpecula, Cygnus and Delphinus including a first for me on the Eastern Veil (i've never seen it before) using a newly acquired UHC filter. High altitude targets were fantastic from Northamptonshire - and the dark skies a real treat. All my kit was swimming in condensation by 01:00 though and in the end foggy eyepieces curtailed the session - till next time 🙂

i hesitate to call my efforts sketching @jjohnson3803 but i kill three birds with one stone - using this "Really Useful" box to; 1) keep everything together, 2) to use as a makeshift table on my knee, and 3) to keep the lid on when not actually in use to try and keep my notepad as dry as possible...

Finally got round to this - repurposing a tin that was otherwise surplus to requirements in an older project. Sadly not as neat as i would have liked - i found the shadow foam a bit of a wrestle so will probably stick to pick and pluck next time... Cheers

…and on paper heavy. Till I’ve handled it for myself I’m slightly dreading it but I’m also using the waiting time to throw some dumbbells around 😄

A little one to get me started...i may not be able to hide the next one in the corner under my tripod when it arrives, i'm already intimidated by the size of that cradle 😬

sigh... yeah. 🤣. I personally have a strategy for that urge - when i've completed "the lists" for 4" and 8" i will "deserve" a bigger scope...

Like @Simon128DI also super recommend having both. These are books you can enjoy on a Sunday afternoon planning and scheming. I transfer the 4" and 8" targets [in the Deep Sky Guide] to SkySafari Pro lists so the books don't need to go to the scope and risk getting damaged/damp. Cheers i should add the Deep Sky Guide is so aesthetically pleasing it is a decent armchair "fix" when nights are cloudy.

I’d like to hear how you get on with that quick changer @bosun21 I’m not sure I can accommodate the extra 11mm lightpath in the configuration I want to run but I don’t like the T2 coupling nut particularly. I keep over tightening it in one direction or the other. Cheers

With the dew point and air temp being the same last night and relative humidity i think in the high 90's% i took precautions 🙂 No benefit to it being insulating material but its light and supports it's own weight/take a shape and stays there...