josefk

...forgive the over exuberance this morning - it's been a while :-)... Initial notes looks like 19 new observations out of the 31 (the ones in orange at the left hand side of this table). I'm guessing a good bunch of those will also be H400 objects. Ding dong. Fuller report now added over here: https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/421050-galaxies-galore-in-sextans-leo-virgo-and-coma-berenices-09100424/

i've been casually waving a telescope at the sky for 30 years this year but i've only been pursuing this hobby with diligence and an aim to get better at if for 2 years exactly this month. Pride comes before a fall and all that but last night i felt like the newbie training wheels could come off :-). Super productive night with the moon out of the way and my Cassegrain out pointing (not waving) into the dark clear skies. It looks like my "haul" is 31 DSO, 29 of them galaxies in Sextans, Leo, and Virgo, with 12 sketches (!!!) and probably quite a few new "Herschel 400 ticks", and finally a brilliant hour observing purely in the "Herschel style" letting the sky drift West over a fixed scope/EP POV. I was doing this in the Markarian's chain area - hardly moving my observing eye from the scope for long periods and letting the sky develop and reveal itself in front of me. A fascinating and i think (need to check my notes) quite productive method - bringing me new observations (i think/hope) in this area which by definition are guaranteed "not imaginary" because i was only checking smudges "after the fact" (i.e after detection) to ID them. Awesome - now i need to get through a full day in the office on 3hrs sleep 🙂

That's a great book @Whistlin Bob - if you use Sky Safari and would like the monthly observing programme of that book in SS lists let me know - i have slowly slowly created those lists over the last year or so. 👍

I enjoyed that video and write up @AstralFields - looks like a very cool event.

M53 was 'my first Messier' (i.e. knowingly looked at "as a Messier object" and discounting M45 because i don't know when i first saw that) so M53 has a special resonance for me and i know those two stars you have near it very well - could you see the nearby NGC 5053 - i have managed to not see that twice in the past two years of looking - it didn't ought to be that hard so i'm not sure what the issue is...

Thanks Derek @Dek Rowan Astro and for your help on email. I've run into a "small" problem with the 12" Cassegrain anyway - basically the picture on FLO (that i used above) could do with a tin of beans in it for scale (actually a shelf stackers carton of beans in this case) 🤣. I haven't seen one in the flesh but from this you tube video i fear even unmounted i'm going to struggle humping this thing about both in person and in my vehicle never mind storing it (RC shown in the screen shot but the CC i was considering has the same dimensions)... ...so its back to the drawing board for a bit... Cheers

I have had the same update from Amazon @Xsubmarinerbut left my order in place. On the Cambridge University Press website (the publisher) it just says “coming soon” so read into that what you will but clearly a publishing delay rather than a stocking issue. i buy quite a bit of music on pre-order and have to keep a list of what I have outstanding otherwise I could not receive half of it and would probs not remember what I was missing 😂

I'll take a look at those @Deadlake thanks but my plan a and plan b is to try and do this with the az100. i don't use motors and i'm unlikely to i think...

I've recently read the book 'Solar Astronomy' by Christian Viladrich and i have to say with that new knowledge (about both the sun and its features you are capturing and also the tools and techniques required to capture those features it in high resolution as you are) i am even more blown away by what you are observing and the detail in which you are capturing it. Spectacular. From someone without a solar scope (and who may never get one) thanks for sharing these images. 👍

It was a positive list of discovery (versus a negative list of things to avoid) even in Messier's lifetime even if that wasn't entirely Messier's intention due the the generally prevailing at the time, and Messier's in particular, fascination with comet discovery as a route to astronomy fame and acclaim. William Herschel would use Messier's publications when they came out and would enthusiastically follow up new objects Messier had discovered even if out of respect for Messier he (Herschel) avoided including Messier's listed objects in his own catalogues (except for one or two inadvertent inclusions created by positional errors by one or the other of the two men). i haven't completed the list (i don't try very hard) but i like it because when you've spent a night frustratingly not seeing what you have been trying to see you can normally rely on a (typically brighter) Messier object to cheer yourself up and finish a session on a high note. M45, M44, M37, M13 take a bow...

Hi @Stu i also wonder about that top mounted bridge concept attached into both sides of the mount - i've talked about it with Derek at one of the astro shows before. The TTS panther follows that concept. A newt would be the sensible (and possibly most economic) choice, i'm aware of the fairly lightweight OO ones and APM have some truss ones too (though not so light) but actually i'm having a wonder about this Cassegrain.I like the ergonomics of a Cassegrain and i think it will suit the targets i have in mind (small things): It's a 24kg OTA - plus diagonal and EP say 25.5kg loaded. I've just realised it will be nearly a meter long (i thought it was shorter) but i assume (from having the 8") that a lot of that weight will be at the back and very close to the pivot of the mount. The safe choice would be the 10" at 17kg but the 10" isn't quite 10" (like the 8" isn't quite 8") and doesn't bring "enough" of an improvement in scale at a given exit pupil. The 12" would give me >50% bigger objects for the same exit pupil as my "not quite 8" 8". i think i'm going to jury rig some kind of overload apparatus and make a practical test with the kit i have loaded up to the weight i'm considering.

Nice links @SwiMatt i think the large pastel and one of his globes are at the Science museum in Oxford - the original Ashmolean building. …apparently even making a sphere of the globe to the required accuracy to take the gores of the map properly is very difficult (more like was very difficult pre machine age)… And if you didn’t know already, Herschel had a reputation for observing AND scope making at the highest level. Scope making was a business but he also wanted other astronomers to use them because some of his discoveries were so “out there” other astronomers couldn’t repeat them in their inferior scopes and so he wasn’t always believed.

Hi all. I have an AZ100 mount question for the SGL hive mind. Specifically does anyone have practical experience of completely “overloading” the mount with a 25kg plus (short) OTA on one side? I have this weight on the mount split across dual mounted scopes on occasion and somehow it can be even nicer than mounting a single ~15kg scope on one side (though I don’t know if I’m imagining this “even better damped” sensation). I’m considering a larger aperture scope (than my ~8” CC) and the real step improvement for the targets I have in mind would be 12” and heavy (though probably short). I really really don’t want to have to think about another mount plus new scope (…and I don’t want a Dob) cheers

Hope you don’t mind the extra post/pics… John Russell spent 40-years sketching, measuring and ultimately mapping the moon. He really took mapping quality forward in a notable way The page above about him is from “Mapping and Naming the Moon” by Ewan Whitaker. A great book.

Both lovely @SwiMatt but that globe is particularly fabulous. There is a real art and science to globe making beyond the obvious cartography we see on the surface. I may have a look into the Herschel connection but I guess the scope Russell bought from would have been something like a 6” reflector.

+1 for a “right way up right way round” view being quite satisfying at lower magnifications and especially full disk magnifications. For me it preserves a nice relationship to naked eye views, binocular views, globes, and/or everyday images of the moon.

I enjoyed your account there @AstralFields - I imagine it to be very satisfying indeed. 👍

I had NGC 2903 on my list last night @John, i noted variegated brightness within its smudge even little lumps of brightness but i was also trying to "definitively" see the brightening of NGC 2905 within it and had no joy with that. In general i was finding last night, in some of the groups that i knew to be groups, i could see the core of one or more group member (but usually one) and couldn't see the companions so i think i was clearly walking a tightrope for what magnitude/surface brightness was detectable in my aperture on this particular evening... Nice session though.

After a futile hour trying to split Tegmine i had a further fun couple of hours chasing a few Herschel discovered galaxies in Leo, Leo Minor and Sextans. I was trying out a new to me Meade 14mm UWA and i found it to be exactly what i wanted - comfy, immersive, crisp to the edge with a nice FOV and most importantly a nice 1.8mm exit pupil at x70 for galaxy hunting with my 130mm scope. The dimmest Galaxy i detected was the face on spiral NGC 2859 (with a surface brightness of Mag. 14 (MPSAS ~22), this was a real threshold detection, 50% direct/50% averted vision. The most interesting was the elliptical NGC 2974 with a striking silvery elongation clear in the EP even as i brought my eye up to it. Others included NGC 2903, NGC 3227, NGC 3190, NGC 3193, & NGC 2964. As i collect my notes this morning and check both Uranometria Deep Sky Field Guide and Interstallarum Deep Sky Guide (plus some Herschel notes) it is clear i have missed out on loads of observable detail and i knew at the time i was missing nearby slightly dimmer companions with nearly all of these galaxies (i was on the look out for groups) so all will need revisiting at some point to properly do them justice. To be honest transparency wasn't very good last night and so i was aware even in the moment it was going to be limited to detection and brief notes on shape/orientation in this session. Still good to be out in a fairly opportunistic weather window.

Resolved but not split in a 130mm refractor last night - terrible fuzzy/bouncy seeing really at magnifications above x125 and i shouldn't have spent as long trying as i did. Never mind. Using the newly learnt nomenclature i found AB to be unresolved at x125 while i had I had two resolved but bouncy balls drifting repeatedly across the FOV at x200, x250, and a waste of time x303. At these higher magnifications AB was very clearly resolved and at times as resolved as i imagine it could be without actually splitting (a real figure of eight impression). Tantalising but ultimately futile versus the seeing.

Great sketches! 👍

I was sitting very comfortably Steve 😂. Every little helps 👍

I’m flattered Greg by the request but they’re a bit rough so I prefer not 😚 Nice content on your website though and slick YouTube. Kudos to you.

Thanks @Ouroboros they’re a nice pair in the early evening aren’t they? I may try bins myself this evening. The forecast was clear last time I looked.

Is your heritage 130p fitted with a red dot finder @peanutcol? If so you could use that to get your scope pointing in the right kind of area using bright stars visible in the RDF and that you know to be near the comet. After your pointing in the right basic area then you probably do have to look through your scope to pick-up the comet itself and it will be easiest using your lowest magnification (32mm eyepiece) because this will sweep the most amount of sky in your eyepiece till you pick it up. Once you've found it you can step down your eyepieces (increase the magnification) to maximise the scale and contrast against the sky. Using your 32mm i think the comet will look like a a slightly too big out of focus glowing star (easy to miss if you sweep around too quickly). When you use higher magnification the glow becomes more obviously "not a star" and with your 6.3mm eyepiece the view could be quite satisfying with something of a comet like shape. Do you know roughly were to get looking? If not (sorry if patronising) then this is a screen shot from Stellarium for tonight (roughly useful not brilliantly useful).