josefk

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. 🥶

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

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

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.

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.

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).

A full moon and breezy to boot so just a quick grab and go specifically to make sketches of a few well known targets. If you saw me trying to sketch juggling a fluid head tripod, reading glasses, red light and sketch pad you would laugh. Nothing is ever in the right hand at the right moment. Anyway Otto Struve 525 and Zeta Lyrae sketches collected in Lyra and 31 Cyg and 16 Cyg sketches collected in Cygnus. I hadn't appreciated before that 16 Cyg and the Blinking Nebula NGC 6826 could be observed (and sketched) in the same FOV (70x/1-degree). NGC 6826 visible with averted vision at 30x once it was obvious where to look as well even under the terribly bright sky. A quick finish on Mars and even at only 70x it was looking nice. No shimmer or glare (though no detail either). Cheers

i would add a wow and probably express a (slight) preference for the second one. Wow.

Hi there, i'm a newbie to a structured approach and while it's not the be-all and end-all of things recently i've found it helpful to check what the Astronomical League look for in observing notes for different categories of objects - for any object its always location, instrument, magnification and sky quality but then there are helpful prompts per different object type for observing and recording characteristics/qualities in a repeatable way. E.g Planetary Nebula: https://www.astroleague.org/al/obsclubs/planetarynebula/planetneb1.html E.g Double Stars: https://www.astroleague.org/al/obsclubs/dblstar/dblstar1.html and https://www.astroleague.org/files/u220/double star log sheet.pdf What i've found helpful from this are two things - 1. make notes on sky quality in a structured and repeatable way (descriptions like "steady", "steady and clear", "very steady", "pretty dark") even when recorded with moon phase info lose a lot of meaning months after the fact whereas the AL scheme for sky quality is very simple and easy to use and keep note of and 2) use specific prompts to remember to note certain things (size, brightness variation, elongation direction, central star visibility, colour, etc) - i have quite a few "dim smudge" notes that are meaningless once memory has faded whereas i could have been prompting myself to note all sorts of specific and comparable qualities (even recording negative qualities - things i couldn't see) if i'd set off on a better footing. Cheers

Cloud stops play at 02:00 am. I'm not normally floodlit like this - i was experimenting with a light for sketching on this evening - too bright!

I would prefer to call them diagrams rather than sketches ahem! NGC 40 / ARO 1 and Herschel IV-58 ...and IC 2149 / ARO 23. This latter one i find interesting as a demonstration of what this O-III filter does and doesn't do. The star HD 39863 is hardly diminished by the filter so field ID still key to really identifying the stellar PNe.

Well it was a toss up between a few hours out in the cold last night or a glass or two of chilled NZ Sauvignon Blanc. Unbelievably a couple of hours in the cold under a super bright moon won out. I am going round the bend surely. It really was indeed bright - SQM 20.47 using a the iPhone app "Dark Sky Meter". Transparency "fair" and seeing i thought was steady until the double stars got tight 🙂 Five double stars observed (all Astro League ones so drawn too) - 118 Tauri, Zeta Piscium, Gamma Arietis, Psi1 Piscium, & 65 Piscium. All very pretty and so far so good. The first and last in that list are <5" but split obviously and easily so I then tried Alrischa (p1.8") and completely failed at any magnification. What was really weird is that is i couldn't even detect the double here - it didn't elongate in any way at any mag'. The scintillation was pretty huge at high mags (i'd been using "just" 140x for the first five) so i assume what i thought was a steady sky wasn't so steady after all. Three PNe where also observed. NGC40 - one of the Bow Tie Nebula. No Bow Tie for sure but some arc-seconds of quite prominent (relatively speaking) nebulous gas and the central star an easy and bright spot - observed with and without O-III. it didn't need O-III to see the halo. Then two really contrasting stellar PNe - IC 2149 and IC 3568. IC 2149 was detectable in a way straightaway but then it took nearly an hour to be sure. I was using 24mm EPs at 105x w/ and w/o O-III and a 17mm EP at 140x with UHC to really increase confidence on the ID and I drew this with and without O-III so i'll be interested to look again at those attempts later. It was never bigger than a "smidge out of focus" stellar and several other stars in the FOV "beat" the O-III filter so it was never on it's own. IC 3586 on the other hand was a text book blink - in a star field with others w/o O-III and completely isolated w/ O-III. More extended PNe were just not visible for me last night - i failed to see Jones-Emberson 1 and M1-7 Mars was fantastic to the naked eye all night - really like a hard shard of copper sticking out of the sky (i have astigmatism ;-)) but through the scope on several attempts throughout the night it was wobbling and glaring - filling my eyepiece with orange glare in the atmosphere. Sauvignon Blanc - not missed. Cheers

...always the limiting factor in the daytime...and often why i'm putting even more hours on the bino's instead! Have fun.

Thank you Ian - in the event the "129mm" version of spacing worked and though i didn't try the "140mm" version i took a photo of the travel so i should be able to simply make the calculation today if it will work. The focuser itself is great. "fixes" things i never felt lacking in the stock version - the "feel" is great and the micro focuser needs only the lightest touch - that is especially nice. It's definitely staying. Cheers Joe

Hi Ian, It's the GSO 8" Classical Cassegrain sold under the StellaLyra brand. The stock focuser has a 50mm draw tube, the Baader is 80mm and has a greater diameter to boot. The extra draw tube travel of the Baader is useful at the "out" end because an extra couple of mm at the other end of travel will be nice to bring a particular mono eyepiece to focus without needing to pull it up in the EP holder. I'll find out tonight hopefully if i still have enough in-travel for BV with a 25mm spacer (but where the draw tube won't reach the full extent of its in travel). On paper this set-up should work but i will need to make a bump stop so i'm not clouting the back of the business end of my scope in the dark. Even better will be if i have enough in-travel with a 50mm spacer as that spacer would prevent fouling - i think this one will be a question of 1 or 2 mm and dependent on eyepiece focal plane. i'm not holding my breath this configuration will work. Its a question of 129mm vs 140mm light path consumed before the diagonal and BV...🤞🏼 Cheers

Notwithstanding the conditions that sounds really nice @ScouseSpaceCadet. It was similarly damp here last night with the atmospheric damp and the lower lying mist lit up radiantly (and actually very beautifully) by the moon. Nevertheless it was good for a few doubles and some are Astro League list doubles so sketched too! Astro League - 94 Aquarii, 1 Camelopardalis, 6 Trianguli, Lambda Arietis. "in the area" - HR 890, 59 Andromedae, HD 13746. All at low magnification (<70x), all pretty in their own way and all near bigger land marks for easy finding.

That description of the Kowa makes me a bit jealous - i bought the Swarovski when i didn't need it for double duty under the stars (i had access to my sons 120mm "semi-portable" frac at the time but he has fully reclaimed that now). That meant i could focus on pure "birding qualities" and the Swarovski won out at the time (i didn't really future proof the choice). I really enjoy the flat field and it is sharp edge to edge but i'm only stressing the glass at 30x to 70x and with extender to 120x so not stressing it at all really. SLC 15x56 bins - these would be the last bit of optical equipment i would ever give up. "Out of my cold dead hands" as the rather unsavoury quote goes. I know from reputation and reviews your Zeiss are probably the same. I've said it before but i can never get over i can be filling the EP with a little shore wader during the day and a few hours later filling the same EP with Andromeda! I guess from your sig your also a birder?

Thank you. It's Burghley Park Stamford - it's a great spot and i'm lucky it's on my doorstep. It is a spotting scope and i use it for grab and go - i can't justify an astro scope in this size while i have the spotter. The IP rating was handy tonight! i sometimes wish i'd looked harder at Kowa a few years ago as it would have given me EP freedom. Do you bump up the power on yours or stick to wide field? Cheers

...erm. Doubles i think tonight 😉

100% absolutely 100%

Well the postie brought it yesterday actually. I jumped on an "open box" offer at @FLO to "fix" a small niggle with my current focuser where it can slip a little at zenith with heavy EPs or BV's hanging down on it or need a tiny bit of external encouragement to travel in (up) in the same orientation. Spent last night scratching my head wondering if i'd done the right thing as the longer draw tube on the Baader SteelTrack focuser fouls the inside of my Cassegrain. I can prevent the internal collision with a longer spacer or a DIY bump stop on the outside of the focus draw tube BUT these both effect in-travel/back-focus for BVs. It may be nip and tuck. The Baader focuser itself is excellent - especially the lightness and smoothness of the micro-focuser. An unexpected upside is how well baffled/matted the inside surfaces of the Baader are.