IB20

This isn’t lunar x but caught my eye tonight and looked extremely X-ish. I am trying to find out what this feature is but having no luck so far.

I've always enjoyed spending time on the planets and I've been really enjoying viewing Mars in between the appalling weather, on the occasions it's been clear I've had some really nice views with my BST starguiders. I can see albedo features and the SPC, last night I could see white mists/clouds over the northern pole for the first time with the 8mm and 15mm 2 x barlowed. The 12mm barlowed was giving me really pleasant views last night and a few weeks before the opposition the 5mm gave occasional glimpses of good viewing. I picked up a 2x televue barlow and it has been a real treat, a definite improvement from the celestron omni I had. So it got me thinking, with Jupiter and Saturn due to be higher in the sky next year, should I save and invest in a real premium planetary eyepiece? My scope is a 200P skyliner dob so it's 1200mm, f/5.91 and from my experience the EP sweet spot seems to be around 8-6mm on the planets. Can I improve the performance of this scope for planetary viewing with a higher quality EP? I'd prefer to focus on an increase in contrast and sharpness over sweeping wide fields. If anyone could advise or make any recommendations I'd be very grateful!

Another +1 for this. I had a much smaller version for my very first scope and it gave me wonderful views of the moon and Saturn.

Nice views to wake up to, perhaps early morning viewing is the answer to when I return to work.

One day hopefully!

Wow, wow, wow. I was sort of hoping I would struggle to tell the difference between this and my old Omni Celestron barlow but I’m getting some belting views of Mars with my BST Starguiders, particularly the 18 & 15mms. I must resist the temptation to look on FLO...

A thing of beauty courtesy of @PeterCPC! Hopefully not the start of a slippery slope either 😅. Can’t wait for my next Mars session!

Wanted some 15x70s for a while and £89 seemed a mad price! Hopefully get a chance to use tonight.

Th Bino UHC pairing worked a treat tonight! The North American nebula looks fantastic. Thanks for this excellent tip. 👍

This is pretty much how I have started out, primarily because of the advice given from experienced SGLers (and some lockdown spare cash!). Extremely grateful for it too as I have seen some wonderful sights in 4 months and look forward to many more months and years with this very capable set-up.

I have just tried this, although slightly awkward and not entirely dark I could definitely see big smears of light near Deneb! Now to fashion a filter holder to the end of my binos!

Did you accidentally lock the focus with that central screw at the base?

Great tip, will try next chance I get, thank you!

With last night's clear forecast I decided to find some new targets and try again to see the elusive Veil! After last week's incredible moment with Uranus I decided to find Neptune as it was in a favourable portion of the sky. Conditions seemed quite hazy and there seemed an awful lot of light pollution about, so I started out using Psi 1-3 Aqr as my beginning and took it from there. It feels like it took me way longer than it should but thanks to using the bins I realised I was overshooting Neptune's position and ending up at some mag 9+ stars. After locating Neptune I swung the scope to its position and admired the tiny light blue dot that was 4.3 billion km away, another one ticked off my list, very satisfying. Moving on, I'd noticed Cygnus was overhead and more neighbours were turning off their lights meaning my darkness was improving. So I swung the scope up at Sadr, had a look at M29 and then down to 52 Cyg and stuck the UHC Astronomik filter on, alternating between a 40mm SW and 25mm BST. I think I could make out wisps and filaments but barely, but I'm really not sure and there just seemed so much background noise?! I'm in Bortle 6-7 skies, should it be easier to spot than this? Then I went up to the North American nebula and I could definitely make out lighter patches of cloud/gas but it still feels like I need a darker site to get the most out of the filter. Would the OIII improve my viewing at home or will I get a similar effect as with the UHC? Next up Mirach caught my eye, so I decided to have a look with the scope at Andromeda, a big grey fuzzy blob but one that never fails to catch the imagination. Then looking at Skysafari I saw that there was a nebula I'd never heard of right near my location, the Blue Snowball Nebula, and after following the trail of lambda, kappa and iota Andromeda, I found the little beauty. Wow, what a fantastic little object, it looked really good through the 15mm BST too, I was very impressed with the clarity and spent way too much time looking at it. Nearly 3.5 hours after starting, Mars had entered my south facing domain and I'd noticed it'd gotten very transparent. It's a shame Cygnus had disappeared over my roof at this point, or I'd attempt another pop at the veil. I went straight in with Mars at 5mm BST and the variable polarising lens. Honestly the best I've ever seen Mars, I was astonished at how good it looked through my 8" SW Dob. Previous attempts I'd been using averted vision to occasionally see surface detail, but last night, it just stayed detailed throughout transit across the eyepiece. I swapped between the 5mm and 8mm and both EP worked ever so well, I haven't had much chance to use them since purchase but I was incredibly pleased to have them last night. I even gave the 3.2mm a go for a laugh, but it did actually give some passable views, which was a nice surprise. I don't really know why the conditions improved so much to get views like I did on the Snowball and Mars, but I was very happy to get them! Attached is a sketch of Mars through the 5mm on my phone using the Paper 53 app, as I've found this is the easiest way to document my views. Then just as I was packing up I saw the Pleiades were visible so got the 8*42 bins back out and had remarkable views of easily >20 brilliant blue stars, staggering beautiful, very much becoming my favourite object. I then dropped lower down to see the Hyades and beautiful golden Aldebaran twinkling away, stunning. What a brilliant night!

Had another crack at viewing and sketching Mars tonight using some of the helpful tips from this forum i.e. no dark adaptation, high mag EP and polarising filter. Much better seeing conditions too. The most prominent features that stood out were a small white south polar region and a dark belt just underneath which looking at the Mars Globe app is probably Terra Sirenum. Very much looking forward to it getting ever closer!

A great choice. Last night I set my 200P SW dob up in less than 90 seconds and enjoyed views of the moon, Mars, Uranus, the Pleiades and the Hyades. I can’t recommend a decent star app enough for a manual scope, SkySafari plus is worth every penny.

The scope was an uncooled 200p dob, this was taken at 100x mag with an iPhone 11 just at the eyepiece. No bells or whistles.

Just a quick update, the Pleiades and Hyades were absolutely sensational through these last night and genuinely couldn’t count the number of stars in the Pleiades. I also used them to locate Uranus which is 2.87 billion km away. Lovely stuff.

Although just a tiny blurred aqua dot this is one of my favourite images I’ve ever taken. I could have looked it at for hours through my scope & bins last night. It’s currently 2.87 billion km or 159 light minutes away and that I get to see it from my back garden is just marvellous!

Last night there was finally a cloudless window although somewhat dominated by the moon! Not letting the opportunity escape I pushed my 200p dob to the doorway and had a lunar gander with the unbranded 40mm skywatcher?? plossl my dad had lent me with a variable polarising moon filter. iPhone pic attached. I’m guessing the EP was fairly cheap but I really like it and may look into getting a 40mm myself. The real reason to set up was my first ever look at Mars with a decent scope. Very underwhelming at first as just an incredibly bright orangey-pick disc. So decided to tackle it with the moon filter but then clouds started to roll in! However still bright enough to pierce through the clouds and although not great viewing, did manage to glimpse occasional diagonal dark brown/grey banding; fairly poor digital sketch attached. Certainly looking forward to it getting closer and spending more time on it.

Hello, I’d say the best bang for your buck would be the heritage 130p (link in the above post) or the larger and newer 150p flextube! https://www.rothervalleyoptics.co.uk/skywatcher-heritage-150p-flex-tube-dobsonian-telescope.html

Spent the last session with temporary blindness after looking at the moon for so long, a much needed purchase. 😁

SQM of 17.52 with a 96% moon, SQM of 20.55 with a 1% moon. Somewhere between city and suburban skies, bortle 6-7.

I would definitely recommend to read this thread to ensure your expectations aren’t out of proportion to what a small scope will offer you. I recently purchased a 200P dobsonian skywatcher and I have nothing but praise for it. It’s big enough to capture enough light for me to be happy with but is also about the right size and manoeuvrability. Lots of more experienced users here are bang on when they say the right scope is the one you’ll use!

Used the auto focus setting (this seems to be around 0.7 rather than infinity) on Halide with exposure 1/390 and ISO 32. 👍