josefk

Thanks for this book reference Mike - i'm going to look for it now. I have wondered myself in the past for Lunar sketching if going to the EP with a rough schematic of the area to be sketched would be a good idea - particularly to speed up the sketching process to counter the quickly evolving shadows you mention. The trouble is its difficult to pre visualise exactly which detail of the Lunar surface will become the focus of the sketch so therefore which area to pre-draft...(i suppose this is where experience wins) @SwiMatt i know you are looking at terrain rendering in your OP but in all seriousness i think sketching flocks of wading birds is better practise for lunar sketching than sketching static photo's of the moon. The "everything has changed each time you look" quality is the same. 🤣

That is a fantastic looking set-up Steve @Saganite double bino's 🙂

From the horses mouth @SwiMatt:

I agree the diff between SS III and SS V - the SS V is really quite a nice bit of kit IMO. Doesn't dew up either. I DO find an advantage to an RDF (over a magnified finder) where i only want to quickly align a push to (point at bright star with RDF >> centre star in EP >> press Ok). On the other hand while I enjoy a magnified finder for really finding, for quick alignment - I'm not sure why i get confused - but there are too many stars in view to be quick and sure using one. Probably speaks badly for my map reading...

Thanks @SwiMatt , per its variable nature - mmmh. Not sure and TBH i hadn't factored that in. I will dig into it the possible range now for my own curiosity. It isn't so bright and they are not so close i would expect glare to be playing a part but my curiosity is piqued 🙂

Another one from Sunday evening here. NGC 1857 is a "smallish" (10') Open Cluster in Auriga and an object on the Herschel 400 observing programme (Herschel VII-33). I've observed it before this weekend at a low x70 in a 95mm refractor and made the notes "a meagre group of just 6 or 7 stars". I nearly made the same mistake again this Sunday when first viewing at x100 (130mm refractor) but thankfully the central star of the cluster (HD 34545) caught my eye this time for its lovely orange shade visible this evening and i popped in a shorter EP to achieve a closer look at x200, at this magnification the group was really quite rewarding. HD 34545 was a bit of a conundrum - its a multi star system but i couldn't see the notionally brighter components of it while seeing some of the fainter ones !?*?. B at Mag. 13.05 (p17.4” & ⍬343º) is missing and while this could be explained by a lack of transparency on the night and my 130mm aperture, H which i could see is a nearly identical Mag. 13.08 C at Mag 11.10 (p28.2” & ⍬293º) is also missing (i may have caught this a couple of times with averted vision but not certainly) even while i could see F at Mag. 12.56 and G at Mag. 11.72 with direct vision 100% of the time (all values Stella Dopie). Anyway, one to come back to for those components and lesson learned (again) to vary the magnification. NGC 1857 is definitely overshadowed by its big boy neighbours M37, M36 and M38 but that central orange sun is worth the time of a short detour! Recommended. For what's its worth sketching this has been instrumental to determining after the fact what i could and couldn't see so while the aesthetic value is possibly a bit low the observation value for me is well worthwhile.

Very nice, very evocative.

Thank you for the kind words @lunator, @SwiMatt and @mikeDnight - as always the process is a brilliant aid to seeing better so i'm a happy bunny today to have got this one. I think the forecast is "as you were" horizon to horizon cloud again now for a few days...

After an initially quite thrilling Mercury (i'd not seen it in a scope before and the phase was "obvious") it was quickly apparent i wasn't going to get much more out of it due to its altitude and so i swung left for Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks - sketched here: https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/420515-comet-12ppons-brooks-240324/#comment-4472212 This was very satisfying as i had begun to fret (with our current weather) that i was missing the opportunity. I also found that it is worthwhile experimenting with magnification even for familiar objects and extracted a lot of pleasure from M37, M36, and M38 trying to balance the darkest sky against the largest FOV. ... and I think i may have seen the open cluster King 8 but i need to check how much i should see versus what i did see and finally; i couldn't see the secondary to the bright orange star (HD 34545) in the middle of the open cluster NGC 1857 (even though i could see dimmer stars nearby) but wow, HD 24545 was lovely anyway.

I don't get a clear view to the West/North-West for my usual 'on-foot' grab 'n' go location and because February and March haven't really supported anything other than GnG i had begun to fret i would miss Comet Pons-Brooks. I'm over the moon i was able to bag it last night in a second session for the weekend. What 2 clear nights in 3 days? What luxury, i can even tolerate the moon being "switched on". These observations and sketches span 45-mins or so between 19:45 and 20:30. The highest magnification view was in large part thanks to being under a blanket at the eyepiece for ~30-mins 20:00 till 20:30. First up, an 8mm eyepiece for x125 and an exit pupil of ~1mm. This is my first viewing at 19:45. I had just come from a naked eye Mercury (a telescopic Mercury was showing clear phase but loads of red and blue atmospheric dispersion). It was still 'only' late twilight. There was a hint of the sky being lighter to the North above the comet but it wasn't a tail or a column really and i couldn't detect any tail by sweeping laterally above the comet with Comet Pons-brooks outside of the FOV (i.e. i couldn't detect anything if i made the test a blind test to rule out imagination). I wondered if a larger FOV would help so i popped in a 31mm eyepiece: The comet was still detectable but at a 4mm exit pupil the sky was too light for anything other than a glowing ball. Still, good for context. Finally i decided to get in close and darken the sky with magnification. This is with a 5mm EP and ~0.65 exit pupil: It took ~30min under a blanket to get this to reveal itself. It was by no means as contrasted as this pic of a pastel on card sketch would lead you to believe but the extent and shape is as true as i can get it. Again sweeping above the comet with the comet outside of the FOV i couldn't "trip over" any extended tail towards the North. I estimate what i could see to be about 5:1 in ratio (width to length) and with about 4' of extended brightness and maybe 7 or 8' of detectable "edge" to the tail overall with a slightly longer edge on the North Western side. There was a few arc- seconds of brightness to the South East leading the nucleus that i haven't shown very well here. Attempting a binoview at 1.7mm and 1.3mm exit pupils didn't add anything - in fact perceived contrast was reduced. Overall - super satisfying and a nice addition to my very short observed comets list. Here are the thumbnails:

@Bugdozer snap for me too with Mercury last night. I’ve only ever seen it (found it) with Binoculars THEN seen it naked eye. Last night it was a naked eye find THEN telescope observation. My observation sounds identical to yours - clear phase but huge amounts of atmospheric red and blue dispersion.

Spot the schoolboy error about to happen in this picture - setting up a bit earlier than usual to have a look at Mercury then Comet Pons-Brooks. Yep I did try and observe Mercury pointing over the bonnet of my car. Doh! The Berlebach Nix II does have a brilliant high perch “Mercury” setting though 👌🏻

nice - i like the soft star glow and colours in the Leo double double.

A lovely sketch and description. Nice.

Absolutely - and indeed i thought i was (seated comfortably) but now i realise there was more comfort to be had 🙂. Fine tuned comfort.

This is a crappy picture but I had to post on here how excellent this chair is. Why oh why did I wait till now to get one? I would part company with a few serious EPs before giving this chair up - it’s that useful! No more rotating the diagonal for me (to bring it to head height) and I can even drop the seat down behind the straight through finder and pop back up to the EP in seconds (I sometimes used to end up kneeling on the floor to get under the finder). How very civilised it can be with the right kit. 🙂

And it will need a late night for a while too - I had a first go last night and realised it’s basically on my horizon before midnight and checking this morning it will be very low in the first half of the night for a few weeks yet.

How cool, that adds something very interesting over the S&T article @JeremyS - it would be fascinating to catch sight of the flickering visually before the main brightening. 😎

Just catching up on some reading this afternoon with the March edition of Sky & Telescope and this article caught my eye too - I came here to post it but I’m clearly on the back foot. 🥴 I try not to get too excited about transitory events in the “before” phase for obvious UK weather related reasons but this one appeals to me and I’ve just added it to a viewing list for my next session whenever that is. It really appeals to me to have a deliberate observation of the area and a sketch of the star field “now” before the nova reoccurs so that any observation and opportunity for a sketch during the event (if I should be so lucky) would be especially meaningful. How exciting!

A bit “dreamy” because you couldn’t buy one new now, and it would arguably be ethically a bit tricky now even if you could, but for reasonable money I wish I had bought a 5” or 6” Intes or Intes-Micro a long time ago. I nearly did buy the last M500 from the widescreen centre in 2020. I procrastinated while hoping to find a 6” s/h and the brand new compact little 5” Simon had there became “the one that got away…” 😔

Just four. When considering a 'family" of scopes most people probably make this analysis instinctively. I use a spreadsheet! 😂 I know my long term satisfaction comes from the combination of "ease of deployment" (fast and low fuss) and the "personal axis" (the "personal" axis is low or zero optical aberrations, or absence of ones that catch my eye at least). The other axis are self explanatory - the higher the score the better the quality. S+1 might be a 12" Cassegrain (i like their compactness relative to aperture) but it is currently scored on that radar diagram as a 12" Dob. If i leave acting on S+1 so long (too long) that i won't be able to handle it as a bigger/heavier scope (and prices fall in the meanwhile) it may actually be an NV eyepiece to go in the FSQ. If i do that, then other than resolution, the FSQ really would become 'one scope to rule them all'.

You too Steve - really nice to meet in person.

I'm going up in the world (literally) c/o of a very nice gentleman and SGL member Steve @Saganite. I now have this lovely Berlebach Nix observers chair. Not used in anger yet but i "get it" even messing about in the kitchen. It's immediately obvious why people repeatedly describe these as their favourite astro accessory. Though i've quite enjoyed a low stool till now (i like being near the ground with EP box close at hand) i don't think my knees and my cold feet do so much anymore... Low stool shown for scale: comfy perch shown because i can 🙂

...you underestimate our collective OCD and the satisfaction of "done" 🤣

...i will never post my untracked attempt on the double cluster here 😂😂 - it looks like a snow globe...