Nik271

I couldn't stay late last night, so decided to try some difficult bright doubles in twilight. I brought out the Skymax 180 from the (now overheated) shed and let it cool for a couple of hours outside. I decided to go all the way to high powers, so used only two EPs, one 15mm giving reasonable 180x and the other at 6mm providing crazy x450. Venus was looking great naked eye just after sunset in the north west. Had a quick scan for Mecury with the 10x50s but no luck, it's too dim and too low now. So back to business at 10pm. It was quite light but Arcturus was easily visible high in the south and from it I jumped to Izar with the finder. At 180x Izar was an easy split, the diffraction rings well separated into orange /blue circles. Seeing looked good, so jumped straight to Zeta Herculis, didn't even bother with 15mm and went straight to 6mm. Hmmm, a bit of mess, there must be some thermals in the part of the sky, or perhaps 450x is just too much tonight? I decided to test a different part of the sky and went for an 'easy' one, the Double Double in Lyra. Wow, at 450x the 4 stars just about fit in the field of view. The diffraction rings were perfect this time and there were big gaps of dark space between the close pairs. So... seeing is good, it's just thermals after sunset. It was time to be reckless so off to Dubhe. This is a very difficult one which I have never seen. The separation is the best in decades, but still only .8'' so not for the fainthearted. Well, today was not the day, the first diffraction ring was shape-shifting all the time, maybe there was a faint bump to the north for some moments but I'm not sure. To be tried again in the future. By this time it was 11pm and Zeta Herc was higher so I gave it another try. I have seen it before so knew exactly where to look. This time the seeing was quite a bit better and the little companion resolved itself just east of the first diffraction ring of the primary. I decided to quit while I'm still winning and packed up. A pleasant hour, nice to be observing without hat gloves and jacket

Looking forward to it! The seeing has been superb in the past couple of nights. The only issue here is that in the Thames valley mists come up at odd moments and ruin the transparency. I tend to stick with bight doubles and planets at this time of the year.

It's better to go to sleep early and wake up very early, I recommend 3:30am. Had a nice view this morning at 4am, definitely worth getting up for.

I got up at 4am today with the goal of observing Jupiter and Saturn and I'm glad I did. The seeing was excellent and Saturn's Cassini division was visible at x170 in my Skymax 127. Jupiter's moon were all on one side to the west of the planet and the outer two, Ganymede and Calisto were very close together, perhaps less than 5'', they looked like a double star. Many cloud belts were visible on Jupiter and some wrinkles in the equatorials belts. Already I had a better view than all of last year, a good start to the gas giants season!

I tried too on the evening of 29-th but while Venus was easy to see Mercury was not visible even in binoculars. Being so much fainter and now lower on the horizon than Venus (its only at 6 degrees altitude at 9:30pm) I think observing is pretty much over for this apparition of Mercury. The next one is in the week of 9-th July, in the morning.

I should try to get up around 4am for a good view then. After 5am there is too much light in the sky and Jupiter demands good contrast. Last year it never got above 15 degrees in altitude, and the views were poor. This year should be much better hopefully!

Congratulations on your first views of Jupiter and Saturn, they are unforgettable aren't they! I was up at 5:30am today and had a look at Jupiter. The colours were washed out but at least the north equatorial band was visible. Did you see the great red spot? It is supposed to be visible from 4pm to 7am but there was too much daylight and I couldn't see it. Have to get up earlier...

There is a new active region (2827) in northeast of the solar disc. I counted 4 sunspots almost in a straight line, quite small. My seeing is poor, I used x100 magnification with Skymax 127 and white light solar filter. I tried adding a UHC filter in the eyepiece, but it did not improve the view - there is too much heat turbulence after the mist lifted.

Well done! Observing in gaps in the clouds is great fun and you have a really portable set up there. It was 100% cloud and drizzle here sadly.

Nice images, John! It's always an impressive feat to image Mercury in a telescope, requires a careful choice of location, luck with clouds, experience to find and photograph. Once they go down to 5 degrees in altitude the light path through the thick air increases 10 times and more, so the seeing goes down dramatically, even without clouds. And in addition the chance of hitting a cloud with the longer light path increases proportionally to its length. This year Venus will be difficult too as @CentaurZ has plotted for us. Jupiter holds the best promise, it should get as high as 25 degrees in opposition.

I transferred my photos and managed to find Mercury on them! It was easier in the binoculars, but still unexpectedly faint against the still bright sky. Looking at the timestamp I got the best images around 10pm, which means Venus was just about 4 degrees above the horizon and sinking in haze and cloud: And cropped to show the two planets: Today they should be even closer, but my weather prospect does not look promising. Asking for a clear horizon down to 4 degrees is just too much from this weather. Nik

Stellarium tells me that tomorrow, 28 May Venus will be within .5 degree of Mercury around 9:30pm. I went out today armed with my 10x50 and saw them together, about a degree apart. Mercury is very faint -around mag 2, so 100 times fainter than Venus at -3. I had to wait until about 9:30pm when both were just 5-6 degrees above the horizon. Took some photos but haven't moved them to my laptop yet. Mercury was invisible with naked eye so relied on binoculars. If you have clear north west horizon tomorrow give it a try! I think around 9:30 to 10pm is the best time. Clear skies, hopefully! Nik

I managed to observe Jupiter today in daylight around 5:30am, about half an hour after sunrise. The colours were washed out but several cloud bands were easily seen at 100x and the view was holding up until 170x. I used Skymax 127, which came out warm from the house, but the view was pretty good nevertheless. Jupiter is perfectly visible until about 1 hour after sunrise in 10x50 binoculars, that's how I found it first. Currently both Jupiter and Saturn are about 20degrees above horizon at sunrise in the UK, which makes them already better placed than all of last year

I was just looking at them in white light, with my Skymax 127 and solar filter. AR 2826 looks like a tropical archipelago with little tiny islands dotted here and there. I couldn't resist imaging it: Visually it was pretty close to this view, albeit a bit smaller at 100x.

A sad state of affairs. As if clouds and atmospheric light pollution was not enough now we have to dodge thousands of artificial lights in the sky

I have too many clouds for telescopic observation this evening, but there was a small gap half an hour ago and the Moon was looking very nice in pinkish cloud. I just love the first hour of moonrise near full Moon, there is such contrast with the sky. I had a brief look with my binoculars and got my camera ready for the next gap. Enjoy and may you have better luck with the clouds!

You could use a star diagonal to add distance to back focus if all else fails. In fact the reason you need so much extra extension is that the focusers of these telescopes are designed with the visual user in mind who are expected to use a diagonal.

PS. On second thought I suggest a more fitting name: the Millennium Falcon

I call it 'the horseshoe' It appears to be several small depressions filled with darker mare material but it has not been named on any of my maps.

I found this informative article in Sky at Night website by @astroavani: https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/news/rimae-sirsalis/ I tried observing the Moon last night but there was too much high cloud and could only see the big features, Rimae Sirsalis was out of reach. I've seen it at other times and it is spectacular when traced all the way.

I think the cap is only 50mm and the scope is 1200mm focal length, right? Apart from losing resolution from small aperture the cap will make your scope F/24 and the image will be quite dim. Solar filter over all the 8inches is the way to go. The extra aperture is a big plus if you decide to do any kind of imaging as well.

I have both a 5 inch and a 7 inch Mak-Cass. Their advantages are that they are simpler to make than SCs - they only use spherical surfaces and because of this they tend to be cheaper and have almost no quality issues (as far as I know). The advantage of SC is that above 6 inches they are lighter, because the front corrector is thinner. While there are very few Mak Casses above 7 inches there are plenty of bigger SCs, the 8 inch being the most popular (at 5kgs the 8 inch SCT weighs only as much as the 6 inch MakCass). For planetary the MakCasses have a slight advantage since their focal lengths are larger. For DSO the advantage is with SCTs because they give wider views. SCs can be used with reducers, as far as I know focal reducers don't work very well with Maks.

At the scope I use Tom Kerss 'Moongazing: beginners guide to exploring the Moon', which has 16 labelled photographic plates with many of the main features listed. It is pocket sized which is great but of course it cannot have the really small detail or the libration features. The LROC map is superb for labelling even the most obscure feature but not really portable, I'm not even sure it will run on my phone. So have to go back to the house, check the LROC map on the desktop and try to match from memory. Sadly the LROC map does not show the libration and illumination. For this now we have the NASA simulator. In combination they all complement each other and it makes the observing more interesting, at least to me

I didn't know there was a crater named for Isaac Newton on the Moon. Yesterday I was observing around 9-10pm and noticed a jumble of peaks and valleys south of Moretus and Short. I have printed the beautiful LAC maps in A3 format which are a joy to consult but they don't have the limb regions. So I turned to https://quickmap.lroc.asu.edu/?proj=10&tracking=b888488e-80f5-4dc9-a905-b0a55c2b7be9&layers=NrBsFYBoAZIRnpEoAsjYIHYFcA2vIBvAXwF1Siylw4oNEQBmOOR9RHfS870oA and it identified this region as Newton. The NASA illumination map of the current time confirmed this was exactly what I was seeing: It is actually a jumble of craters on top of each other. I was using a Skymax 127 with 9mm EP giving x170. I could clearly see the central peak of the main crater and the dark shadow of the basins of the satellite craters. The LROC map gives the most detailed view (which sadly we can never see from Earth): Apparently Newton D is the deepest crater on the nearside: 6km from rim to floor. I generated a cross section running from Newton A to Newton D and it does indeed show it: These limb features are quite fun to observe, you never know what will be showing up Clear skies! Nik

The views on the terminator were very nice, once the seeing settled a bit around 10pm. I observed from 9pm to 10:30pm and during this time here was visible change in the illumination of Shiller.