josefk

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...

BTW. The homemade dew shield worked a treat - it is blackened on the inside!

It was a session between clouds and fog last night. It was cloudy till 22:30 or so and then haze ran in about 01:30 . The haze turned into a full on fog bank by 01:45. Nevertheless in the middle of this wet sandwich was fabulous seeing. At steep angles the seeing was rock steady! The location was my normal dark sky sight in Northamptonshire. Dark sky being highly relative last night with the full moon :-(. My basic plan was a mix of doubles in Lyra (chart 11 in the Cambridge Double Star Atlas) and making a start on Steve O'Meara's Herschel targets for September with a look across at Saturn and Jupiter in between. Mission (other than Jupiter) more or less accomplished. First up Saturn - possibly the best i've seen it this year. I used a mixture of binoviewers at 152x and mono eyepieces at 203x and 305x. There was some glare (it was never "etched") but i don't think I've seen so much detail on the planet so far this season. There was a very clear sense of the rings going behind and in front of the planet and clear shadow of the upper (southern) ring (in my scope view) above the ring on the face of the planet. i think i may have even seen colour in the shade and mild bands on the planet face. Bizarrely even though this was great i wasn't sure i saw the Cassini Division last night. I think i may have but it was at the intermittent level where it could have also been imagination. Titan, Rhea and Dione to the east. There was too much glare for me to see other moons (they were all pretty tight in last night according to Sky Safari). Though Saturn was great; Jupiter at higher altitude was horrible for me - a visibly boiling edge. i could see the NEB/SEB but little else and I didn't hang about. I more or less turned my back on the southern view then (and turned my back on the moon) and started looking for targets i had earmarked in Cygnus and Lyra (with a small detour to Cassiopeia). Collinder 33, Collinder 34, and NGC 1848 in Cassiopeia were all observed. I spent nearly 30 mins trying to pattern match C33 and C34 but gave up in the end. I'm not sure i was seeing all the stars i think i should see there so probably needs a darker night and especially darker for my eye around the eyepiece. Around in Cygnus, NGC 6866 and NGC 6910 were new to me. These are Herschels in the September target list. Both very pretty. NGC 6910 has a very hot looking needle like star in the middle of the array. Near here was a Planetary not on my list for the night but it was close so i took a look - NGC 7027 (PK 084-03.1). It was clear and obvious as a very slightly elongated "star" that wouldn't come to focus (at 200x and 300x) even though everything else around it was sharp. It was a plain grey but no details (it's tiny). On a darker night apparently this one may have some blue to it so i will come back. Finally i had a few doubles on my list (actually i had a lot but i only saw a few). I have put Chart 11 in the Cambridge Double Star Atlas into Sky Safari as an observation list so started to work (cheat) through it. For 61 Cygni and 56 Cygni the seeing was unreal. Rock steady. This is the first time i've had 300x to use in this scope and the diffraction rings were perfect. These are not difficult doubles though the companion to 56 Cygni is faint and i could only "easily" see it at 300x. At 200x knowing exactly where to look i could make it out but at 140x it got a bit lost. As an experiment because the night was so clear and steady i had a look at Albireo at high mag (300x) and really didn't like it. The diffraction rings though perfect "diluted" the colour that is so lovely in this pair. I also went across to the double double - this is my benchmark or calibration double pair. I have never seen them split in such a perfect text book way - car headlights and figure of eight diffraction rings with one ring in the gap for each pair. E2 sharper and more defined than E1. Next up in Lyra was Sheliak. This was a perfect view. Really perfect but i'm not exactly sure which star in the four is "F" and i didn't draw anything. if Aa1/aa2, Ab, B and F are the "four" stars that are tightly grouped and other than Aa1/Aa2 of even magnitude (ish) then i saw the group. Finally (for this post) i observed HD 172865 and companion, HD 174022 and companion, and HD 179709 and companion - all in Lyra. None of these are difficult vis a vis separation and mag differences. These are the ones i saw but there a few misses in this chart 11 list that i haven't kept a record of (it was too wet for paper note taking). The haze had come in by now and as i packed up this haze turned to fog in a matter of minutes. My eyepieces had been getting foggy for the last half hour but by the time i was packed away everything was running with water. Thanks to Clear Outside for the session. If i'd have checked meteoblue i would have stayed at home! Thanks for reading. Cheers

Super report Malcolm. I "think" the moons of Saturn you would have seen would be Titan - farthest out to the east, Rhea next moon in after Titan, then either Dione or Calypso. I myself think i saw Dione based on arc minutes between it and Rhea and between it and Saturn but it was close so there is a possibility of a mistake on my part there. Your sketch also looks like Dione. Great night for Saturn wasn't it!

Two new to me Herschels last night NGC 6866 (H VII-59) and NGC 6910 (H VIII-56) in Cygnus, Saturn as good as i've seen it this year, a small PN in also in Cygnus and a bunch of doubles in Lyra. I had to wait a bit for clouds to clear (getting on for 23:00) but when they did seeing at high altitude angles was fantastic. Rock steady. Not so good around Jupiter though for some reason (boiling) and in any event everything was dripping wet by 01:30. High haze turned to low fog in about 15 minutes. As @Zermelo remarked; Clear Outside was spot on. If i'd have carefully checked Meteoblue before setting off i may not have bothered and i would have missed the session. longer report here: https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/399611-between-clouds-and-fog-saturn-open-clusters-and-doubles/#comment-4287829

Thanks For posting Israel. That’s another considered but also poetic description of what is a familiar object. Your approach to “zooming in” and describing each step motivate me to want to go and look at the same object (sometimes again) to see for myself the characteristics you have described. As others have said - your index to the Messier catalog would make a good field guide when completed. Field guide to the actual observing “process”. Lovely. Joe

...and "a quick squizz out of the kitchen window" is with my own eye in daylight mode so not a great indicator at all really... 🙃

I did thanks and thankfully. It had been on a spreadsheet for a while (LOL) but i was triggered to prompt action when i saw the price go up at FLO. i've had a quick squizz out of the kitchen window and its not instantly comfortable but that's at 300x and 0.6mm exit pupil. i trust it will be a bit more relaxed in its intended role later and should give me a nice pupil 1mm, a nice mag 125x and nice framing at that mag at nearly 50'. I have bright small DSO in mind primarily.

I hope i haven't made a big mistake here. My first 100 degree eyepiece so i'm not sure what to expect from a general comfort and eye placement POV - forecast is clear for Saturday here so will soon find out. A silly 300x in my Cassegrain but should be a good 1mm exit pupil eye piece at more middle of the road magnification in a shorter focal length 'scope on the way.