IB20

Glad you’ve had opportunity to have a night Astro session to rejuvenate the mojo, really enjoy reading your observing sessions especially your range of instruments and choice of targets. I guess we’re all in the same boat when it comes to solar, I haven’t seen the sun since the 40°C degree day!

I’m kinda not bothered that it’s been full cloudy over a lot of the summer so far, like you say lack of darkness and atmospheric warmth aren’t conducive to good observing sessions. It’s made me not want to stay up really late to see the planets too which has helped me not be a state the day after. Really, really looking forward to the evening planetary extravaganza round the corner however!

I have one but rarely use it but I’m in bortle 6-7. I think if you could pick up a cheaper 2nd hand one, in bortle 3 it could probably be quite a useful addition.

Had a rubbish day today but always good to get home and see a postie drop off from FLO. Got a real bargain on this so couldn’t resist, may get a 2nd for binoviewing potential if it’s any good.

Anyone fancy having a go at GLASS-z13?

Just over 40°C in Leicestershire. 🔥

Some nice images of Messier 74 yesterday from JWST. Credits: @gbrammer and Judy Schmidt.

This is from JL Dauvergne on Twitter, outstanding capture with a Tak Mewlon 300.

I have a 1.25” Lunt Herschel wedge which I use in a 3” refractor, it has never even got slightly warm to the touch.

A nice image of Jupiter’s ring here. 😃

Ah thanks, that’s very kind. I do sometimes but they’re only single phone snaps, feels a bit intimidating going up against proper imagers! Being primarily an observer I natural gravitate towards this part of the forum too.

If seeing is good you can see plenty of detail in large sunspots. The darker region of the sunspot is the umbra and the greyer area surrounding the umbra is the penumbra. It’s possible to see striations and filaments in the penumbra in good seeing. The activity is “still” however but does change from hour to hour. If you monitor sunspots over days you’ll notice quite a lot of change from the sun’s activity and its rotation. I use a specialist solar wedge and a green continuum filter which I find brings out the detail a lot more than without one, especially the lighter contrasting areas called the faculae. Heres an unprocessed image straight from the eyepiece on my phone and a mono shot I’ve run through Adobe. I must say that the sharpness you see is better than the unprocessed version which at times can be astonishing clear. I love white light solar viewing, what’s not to like about astronomy in the sun and warmth!

This is a nice video if you’re looking for a cheap solar system scope.

Firstly that refractor will most likely be garbage. It doesn’t seem to be from a well known manufacturer and looks to be the sort you’d get at a department store. It has a short focal length of 400mm making it a focal ratio of f5 which is quite “fast”. It will put a lot of strain on cheap eyepieces and I’d imagine there’d be quite of lot of aberration when looking at anything through it. I have at least heard of the Celestron although I haven’t used one. I’d almost certainly bet my life on that being a better scope entirely. Collimation isn’t that hard but depending on the type of reflector and its focal length can increase difficulty of doing it. Have you looked at the 2nd hand market? There’s an awesome https://www.astrobuysell.com Canadian community which you might be better off sourcing a scope from. You’d get a good 2nd hand dobsonian mounted reflector for little more than what you’re looking at.

The zoom out 🤯

Interesting. In comparisons between my 3” Achromat & APO in Continuum filter WL solar, the biggest noticeable differences were ability of the APO to take higher magnifications but also faculae seemed to pop more.

Really well detailed.

Lovely clear blue skies right now and some decent detail on the sun’s disc. AR3053 is huge, seems to have an umbral tail crackling through its penumbra. It’s good to have the morning sun back!

Today’s early sun in white light. Tak 76 DC, Pentax 7XW, Tak TOE 4mm and Baader solar continuum filter. Afocal hand held single image captured in Halide as RAW with iPhone 11. Processed & converted to mono in Lightroom.

Rupes Recta with the Tak & Pentax 3.5XW. Same capture details as above.

Chucking my first effort in, not huge amounts going on at the minute that plays well with phone cameras. This evening’s gloaming evening moon. Taken with a Tak 76DC, Pentax 10XW & 5XW with a hand held iPhone 11 using Halide to capture RAW images. A single image processed with Lightroom.

Well here’s an “OK” TEST image… If it doesn’t have spikes, it’s a galaxy 😃

This is the thing I really like about Astronomy. Everyone has their thing! Mine is planets, but there are galaxy hunters, imagers, winter fans, solar and lunar. Sometimes you just have to wait until it’s your turn. 😃

I haven’t bought a scope for a while, starting to get that itch…