Nik271

I had a look at Mars around 10pm last night, it was possible to see it naked eye, but even with binoculars it was still too light to see the Beehive . Shortly afterwards Mars disappeared behind a tree for me 😞

You may find this resource useful: https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/5048 It gives a very accurate simulated view of the Moon on any hour of the day. If you donwload the high resolution image it even labels the most prominent features near the terminator.

They were mentioned briefly in the 21 century Atlas on plate 23 under the caption discussing Kies Pi. This morning I found this paper on them: https://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2011/pdf/1443.pdf It says there are three domes of height only 100 meters. I saw at least two of them very clearly at about 10pm last night with x180 magnification. The view was actualy better than this simulated view.

It was definitely a night for lunar domes for me: Hortensius domes, Kies Pi and for the first time for me: the Capuanus domes. I learned about them while browsing 'The 21 century atlas of the Moon' They are showing well tonight. I used my 100ed at 180x, the seeing did not allow for more here.

I just came back after a Moon session followed by a look at the SN with my 100ED refractor. At 30x I could not see it. At 40x it was showing up in brief moments with averted vision. Finally at 50x it was visible with direct vision. Somehow looked fainter than last time but it could be just the moonlight. M101 was not visible. I didn't even try with the 20x80 bins.

Try to look at it in daylight, or just at sunset when the sky is still light. This way the glare of Venus is dimiished. In 2 weeks Venus will be almost 30 arcseconds in diameter. with 10x magnification it may be a bit difficult, but it should be possible to spot the crescent shape. 10x will make 30 arcseconds appear like 5 arcminutes, which is the size a lentil at arms length, small but resolvable.

You can see the phase of Venus with binoculars all of June, that's always fun, but of course you don't need dark sky for that. Some asterisms should be visible with binoculars even in astronomical twilight. One of my favourites is the Coathanger, roughtly 1/3 of the way between Albireo (a great double star!) and Altair.

Some are known as quiescent prominences, and can stay for days or even weeks in places where the magnetic field is stable. There are a few of these on the sun right now. The active prominences have a much shorter life span and are fun to watch over the space a few minutes or hours. Precisely why and how promineces form is not well understood. The scale of these fascinating objects is huge indeed.

The top one is Pico, the lower one should be Pico beta, I think:

I tried again twice with 20x80 binoculars and barely spotted it with averted vision, I think my transparency plus the moonlight makes it very hard with small aperture especially when you can't see M101. Here is my star hop, which does not rely on the visibility of M101: First go 4 bright stars from Mizar in the direction of Alcor then then past the parallelogram to reach 9-th magnitude HD 122601: Then idenitify a triangle of 10-th magnitude stars about half a degree east. The supernova is about midway between the brightest of the three and HD122601. It makes an equilateral triangle with HD122601 and 8-th magnitude HD122865. Happy hunting!

It's Bancroft (formerly Archimedes A) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bancroft_(crater)

Amazing! I missed seeing this one yesterday, many thanks for sharing this!

Very nice! Your C6 will probably need more than 30 mins outside to cool to perform at its best, depends on where it was stored. Even if was stored at ambient daytime temperature, in the evening under clear sky the heat IR loss is so fast that it takes some time to stabilize. I dound my 127 Mak is OK after 30 minutes but my big 180mm Mak needs much longer, an hour at least.

Good topic! I suspect indeed the fear of losing out is a big drive of current space ambitions. It will make much more sense to pool resources and design a plan for a permanent base on the Moon with international copperation, the way it worked with the ISS. A permanent base on the Moon is going to be such a technilogically complex task, with challenges to get supplies, reliable source of power, shielding from radiation , etc., It probably will be beyond the ability of any single nation to achieve. Sadly the current political situation is not boding well for cooperation unless it is between Russia and China 😞 The US is going boldly alone, currently at the front but at tortoise pace, probaby the only thing that keeps it going (politically) is fear of losing out.

Very nice! Seems like a photo from a mission to Venus, the clouds are very detailed indeed. I regularly look at Venus with my 120mm Mak and sometimes I convince myself that there are subtle variations in brightness. I guess I need UV vision to see the clouds properly. There are still a few weeks when Venus will get larger and stay high in the sky to capture some more of these amazing images.

Good luck, its definitely worth seeing in any aperture! The supernova is roughly halfway between 9-th magnitute HD122601 and 10.4 magnitude TYC 3852-274-1, and a bit fainter than the latter.

I had a cunning plan - look at the supernova with my 100mm refractor and then start stopping it down until I can no longer see it. The night was clear, all was set and ready to go, I even had same great views of the Moon just after sunset. But I fell asleep waiting for astro darkness. 💤

This one is type IIn and quite bright. The brightest example until now was SN 1998S which peaked at about 11.5 and then lost a magnitude over the space of 20 days. Here is a light curve of it from AAVSO. So perhaps 2-3 weeks to go down to mag 12 and 2-3 months to go below mag 15 if I have to guess. I doubt anybody knows for sure .

I decided to start a new thread with this challenge: What is the least aperture of scope or bins that you manage to see sn2023ixf in M101? As far as I see the current best is a 70mm refractor, by @John. I've managed 120mm Mak, 100mm refractor and 20x80 bins on successive nights. Supernova is currently mag 11, so within reach of 60mm in good conditions. Any takers? Sadly I gave away my 15x 60 bins, so next in my equipment is 10x50 bins which is a bit of a tall order. We are blessed with clear skies for the next few days, I'll give it a try anyway.

I think it has peaked now, most visual observers put it at 11mag or just below for the past 2 days. It is expected to fade very slowly, giving us many opportunities to observe it. I could see it in my 20x80 skymaster bins last night.

Last night I checked the supernova in M101 again, this time with my 102mm F/7 refractor. The 24mm Hyperion EP gave me a 3.4mm exit pupil and a 2.2 degree field of view. I didn't even use a finderscope, just sighted along the tube at Mizar and star hopped from there. At midnight the sky was as dark as it gets, I got a glimpse of M101 itself as a very faint smudge. I estimate the supernova is now mag 11, I had no trouble making it out with direct vision. The rate of brightening has slowed down, it seems that it will stabilize at the mid 10 visual magnitude in the coming days. Type II are expected to slowly fade over weeks and months, so plenty of time to observe it. Before packing up I checked some favourites: Izar at x180 with 4mm Nirvana was an overkill but I didnt have any mid power EP with me. M13 was high in the sky and looking glorious even in my modest 4 inch.

I'm planning to have a look again tonight with my 102ED refractor. It has now been reported to be in the lower 11/ upper 10th magnitude range, should be even easier to spot. Perhaps even with binoculars.

I just had a look at SN 2023ixf and it's much brighter tonight. I estimate it about mag 11.5. It was easy to see with direct vision in my Skymax 127 at 11pm. I wonder how much brighter can it get ...

There is a supernova in M101 discovered two days ago which is still brightening. I just had a look with my Skymax 127 and it was easy to see, I estimate it's magnitude is 11.5. It's the brightest star southeast of the core of M101, roughly where NGC 5461 is. Take a look if you can, it's one of the brightest SN of recent years!

It is TAL -1T. It was a hugely poplular model of telescope in USSR in the 1980s. The letter confusing you is the cyrillic letter 'L'. These telescopes are made in Russia, hence the name. There is a lot of the history in this thread: