IB20

Had a few goes at Mars recently. Seeing has been really poor but still the views afforded by Mars at 114x are still really satisfying. Tonight, although a fair bit of AD and seemingly a lot of water vapour affecting views, a generous northern polar ice cap is visible and the unmistakable inverted y shape of Syrtis Major is segmenting the Martian planetary face.

That’s awesome, thanks. Yes I was getting rooftop turbulence and some pretty wild atmospheric dispersion on Mars, it was fairly low in the East but occasionally the image broke through. Roll on opposition!

Had some great views of craters Lubiniezky, Bullialdus and Kies tonight. Further observing into this area, I spotted an interesting region to the SW of Kies. At the time a particular crater wall appeared a bit like an upside-down dolphin (blue arrow). Looking at some moon maps I think the object I’m looking at is Weiss but it was the rille above (red arrow) this which really caught my eye. I huge line in the lunar surface which I think I’ve identified as Rima Hesiodus; which according to recorded parameters is 294km long which to my mind is absolutely huge! Iffy image attached, I was fighting the local rooftop heat turbulence!

Looking at Mars tonight and there’s a clear white Northern polar cap but there’s also a slither of brightening at the Southern polar region too which looks like an icy polar region. I saw similar a few days ago too. Am I seeing both polar caps or is it some kind of Martian atmosphere affect?

Get a 3” Tak and never look back. 😅 Seriously, the 76DCU is heaven, I wouldn’t be without mine. 1.9kg of bliss and stunning views; it shows plenty. It’s a cracking scope and excels at planetary, lunar, doubles and WL solar in my bortle 6/7 skies.

Getting pretty windy out there and the seeing is really poor. Nice to see the Martian phase though, some faint albedo marking on the disc and a brightening at the southern polar region. It’s only going to get better as opposition gets closer too and the seeing can’t be this bad again. 😅

In my experience I’m finding the Pentax XWs really excel for white light solar. I find being able to fit the whole solar disc in view really helps to frame the features and makes them “pop”. Don’t have a Ha scope but seems lots of observers use the Vixen NPLs and BCOs for this.

Looked at the full Baader clicklock range and other extensions and still none the wiser. Thread sizes just don’t really keep my interest 😅. I think this is a retailer question at this point, maybe @FLO could help?

@MalcolmM thanks, this is super helpful. I knew it wasn’t going to be very straight forward, it never is! I really like the Tak prism and not sure I can stretch to swapping over at this point in time. Hmmm, there must be a way to get this to work (no one one say change to a feathertouch focuser! 🤣)

Awesome, thank you. I guess the other option would be to replace part 46 on the Tak chart with just the reducer clicklock, as it’s the collet in particular that is causing the issue so hopefully the light path wouldn’t shorten as much. Although if I could get it working with BVs and a clicklock configuration that would kill two birds with one stone!

Brilliant! This is exactly what I wanted. Does this configuration work for single XWs and TOEs too?

Thanks @Oldfort, that’s the part I mentioned and wondering if 2” clicklock into clicklock reducer is the correct way to do it or is it a bit overkill? On FLO it sounds more like this part is for 2” prisms at the EP end.

No idea how you get afocal planetary shots like that, mine are always dogs dinners!

I’m finding that the Tak collet towards the 76DCU OTA is starting to annoy me a little when I change over to WL prism so I’d like to replace it with a 2” clicklock (replacing part C). All my prisms are 1.25” though so can’t quite work out what adapter I need between the clicklock and the prism. Not sure if the clicklock reducer is overkill or what it will do to focus travel. Can anyone suggest the part(s) I’d need (with links if possible 😅). I can pay you in likes and thanks.

Ganymede’s was the second larger shadow. Glad you got some nice views.

Well persistence certainly paying off, just had my best views all night at 114x. The two shadows and moons showing perfect symmetry, just absolutely breathtaking.

Thicker cloud coming in now, this might be it. ☹️

Love the dual shadow formation, really nice. The GRS nearly leaving the face. Must say despite the poor looking conditions it hasn’t been too bad!

No such problem with Ganymede’s shadow, it’s huge in comparison and is consistently visible. Lovely dual shadow formation when the seeing allows. Looks like the number 2 on a dice. 😁

Finding the shadow rarely has good definition. Varies from a black dot to disappearing entirely! Optimum mag is 81x.

Getting the odd ok seeing moment where Ganymede disc is peeping out of the limb and the Europa’s shadow has ingressed on the opposite limb.

Very hazy but have managed to observe Europa ingress, GRS (albeit less vivid through the cloud) and occultation of Io. Will take these conditions if that’s all I get!

Just watched occultation of Io, everything is going on tonight. Poor old Callisto must be feeling left out.

Just put the Tak out, Europa is just brightening on the planetary limb. Io in the frame too on Jupiter’s Eastern side. Hopefully stays like this, hazy but will take it.

If any night owls are up around midnight tonight and have favourable conditions, you should get to see an Io shadow transit next to the GRS. I’ll be tucked up in bed but hopefully someone gets to enjoy it! Hopefully some of the imagers get on it. 😁