Nik271

I managed a quick view of Mercury with binoculars at about 7:30am today, a rare moment of clear skies here.

As long as it isn't the age of Atlantis....

Wow, that's 80mm focal length eyepiece in the photo! My calculator shows that it's maximal apparent field of view will be 2 arctan(5/16) or about 35 degrees, and this is assuming a 50mm field stop.

I guess the legs on which the rocket will sit can be adjusted to keep it vertical on a variety of possible slopes. But yes to me it seems an unnecessary extra complication, incluidng the elevator the astronauts will need to get off and on. I suspect by the time the rocket becomes operational and ready for human passengers it may look a bit different from the promotional pictures.

The met office forecast was correct! The dismal weather cleared, not perfectly but good enough for a quick planetary session with my Svbony 102 ED refractor. I expected that the seeing will be iffy and indeed it was, I could not go over x120 on Jupiter. All four of the satellites were visible and Jupiter was showing the two main equatorial belts and the much finer south tropical belt and zone. I swund onto the Moon (of course!) and was rewarded with a good view over the western limb, with Gauss and Mare Smythi (I think) showng nicely. The final highlight was the double star Gamma Ceti, I suspected the seeing will not support high mags and I was right, however for double stars sometimes I have found that pushing the magnification to the max and waiting for a lucky moment of settled air can yield a momentary successful split. This was indeed the case this time: I suspected a spilt with my 4mm Nirvana (x178) and so I tried my recent buy, a 3mm LER EP from FLO giving a very ambitious x228 with this scope. The primary was dancing about, however northwest of it there was a recurring tiny dim speck. I esimated the PA at 310 and back in the house checking with stelledopie puts it pretty close at 298 degrees 🙂 Well done for my entry level ED scope, the separation is currently under 2'' and the magnitude difference is 2.5. Incidentally I learned the Arabic name of Gamma Ceti: Kaffaljidhma. Fancy that! Wishing you all some clear skies at last!

I'm supposed to get some clear sky tonight between 9pm and midnight. But... the wind will be gusting at 40mph and the moon will be up. Still bettr than the current rain, fingers crossed.

If you have sunglasses in the absence of filters they work on the moon too :-)

The base looks like a rail compatible with most red dot gun sights. They are lots of models available and cost very little, the only diwnside with them is the dot tends to be too bright for astronomy, because it's designed to be used in daylight as well. Not a huge problem, I have several of those and they are still useful when pointing at bright stars or planets.

There is no perfect optics, even the Takahashi triplets like TSA-120 have spot diagrams which are a bit bloated in violet light. Between 450nm and 650nm they are as good as it gets. This Askar triplet seems to be well controlled in visual, not as good as a Tak triplet but I expect will give the doublets a run for their money at this price. I like that the tube can be shortened to accommodate binoviewers, to visual observers this is a nice bonus.

I have noticed a significant increase in resolution between my 102mm refractor and 120mm Mak when planetary observing, but no so much for DSO observing. My take on this is that even small 20% increase in aperture it noticeable when trying to tease out fine details on planets. For DSO observing I need about 50% extra aperture to see one magnitude deeper. Since large reflectors are mostly used for DSO observing this may explain why the aperture jumps for Newtonians are at 50% increments, whereas for refractors (where fine resolution is the key quality needed) smaller jumps in aperture are required.

Just came in after observing Jupiter and also asteroid (704) Interamnia. Apparently it's the fifth largest asteroid but very dark so never above mag 10. It was discovered as late as 1910. Currently it is mag 10.4 so well within reach of my 4 inch refractor. It is relatively easy to find, 1 degree south of M37. Accurate star chart is required since there are quite a few 10-th magnitude stars in the area:

For all of you out there looking at Jupiter tonight, watch out for the emergence of Europa from behind the shadow of Jupiter, sometime between 19:02 and 19:09, it will a be gradual brightening. Then 10 minutes later Io will be eclipsed behind Jupiter. Looks like I will miss the show due to dinner commitment, but hope to catch GRS later.

Quite good seeing on Jupiter tonight after 10:30pm when the haze cleared. I observed the planet at x140 with my 4inch refractor. Io's shadow is very clearly defined and some irregularity in the NEB was also showing up. The Moon was great as well, Rima Petavius standing out near the terminator. It's cold but the views are worth it!

I use my 180 Skymax Pro on the Skywatcher EQ5 with the 1.75cm steel tripod. The scope with 1.25' diagonal, small EP and finder weighs about 8kgs. It is marginal for the mount, I need to balance it carefully and then it is steady for visual. The compact form of the tube helps. What I found often is that if the balance in RA is not just right the worm gear starts to stick in certain places and the tracking gets harder. I would not put anything heavier than that on an EQ5.

When I want to get an idea what an object looks visually in near ideal conditions I check this site: https://www.deepskywatch.com/astronomy-sketches.html The guy made the sketches from the Negev desert with a 8 inch Newt so normally I expect to see only a half of it in my backwyard, but it's helpful.

I still use my red line Svbony eyepieces, even in my F7 refractor. They just live permanently in my diagonals instead of dust caps. Sure, there is more field curvature near the edge than in my F12 Mak but to me the convenience of a 68 degree FoV eyepiece weighing under 100 grams which I can fit in my jeans pocket (and costs peanuts) is just hard to resist. They are excellent for grab and go action.

Same here, it was clear an hour ago, now completely clouded over. The forecast says it will be clear after midnight, so I've set up the scope under a waterproof cover in case it indeed clears up (and I manage to wake up)

Absolutely. It's just me being lazy: since 90% of the time the seeing is not good enough I end up setting up the smaller scope 100% of the time. And I keep saying, yes if the seeing is good I will make another trip to the shed for the big scope. Guess what happens after that - my big Mak stays cozy and snug in the shed all night 😞 Back on the topic of this thread. Most of the time I alternate setting up either my 100mm Svbony refractor or my 127 (actually 120mm) Skymax. True the star images of the refractor are cleaner, the Mak has brighter 1-st diffraction rings when I look carefully. BUT in my case I have found that the extra 20mm aperture of the Mak beats the refractor by a little bit on double stars and planets. I can see deeper and split closer doubles. Granted the Svbony is not a Tak, not by a long way, but its still a decent refractor, similarly the Skymax is not a premium product, just a run of the mill scope, so the comparison is fair. My experience shows that a little extra aperture is actually worth more than the central obstruction penalty you have to pay with a Cassegrain design.

I use the Skywatcher 180 Mak on EQ5 and it is fine, the scope weight is about 8kilos with finder and diagonal. But I have to agree the EQ5 is much happier with my smaller scopes. And with the unstable weather we are having recently my lighter scopes get used the most. I'm starting to believe that for the UK seeing conditions anything over 5 even 4 inches of aperture is hardly ever needed.

I have found many magnitudes of extended objects (on Wikipedia and elsewhere) are completely misleading. In this particular case I think 7 is the integrated magnitude of all of IC434 which includes the Flame nebula in its northern part. I have tried but cannot even see the Flame nebula from my suburban garden (SQM 20)

I saw it last evening at 6:30pm when it was near Zeta Aquilae. It was easy to spot in my 20x80 bins, quite large in size as others have observed. It is also moving very rapidly, about 10 degrees per 24 hrs. This should be the expected peak of its brightness as it is passing very close to us - less than 0.2 AU away according to Stellarium.

I think it was the first 'comet look-alike' object observed by Messier. His records show he found it on 12 September 1758 when searching for a comet. It turned out that it was already seen by John Bevis in 1731 so he is credited as the original discoverer.

I just managed this image through clouds a few minutes before the occultation. Perhaps better luck in an hour.

Each night I've seen NCG 604 I had a brief look at Andromeda at low power and M110 was also detectable as a dim oval smudge. Last night I was looking again at Andromeda, trying for NGC 206 (no success) and while panning around I lost M110 completely. Looking up I saw high cloud veiling the sky. I had trouble spotting even M32 after that and packed up. I think M110 is a good test for sky transparency. In 85mm aperture a magnitude 12 object like NGC 604 will be hard, but I believe possible in dark skies. Good luck!

Well done, Malcolm! Its one of these features where everything has to come together - correct illumination, good seeing, quality equipment and of course, a sharp-eyed observer 🙂