Kon

I think seeing is the best we had for a while; M42 is showing nice colours a lot more vivid than last night. M1 was amazing with nice details with the OIII filter, Californai nebula bright with the Hb, but still buzzing about the HH ( i will write something tomorrow).

I think I may have got the HH tonight with my 8" Don and Hb filter; amazing nebulosity on the Flame, bright with dark lanes with direct vision , much much better than last night. NGC2023 was showing nebulosity (not a show last night) and there it was a faint faint nebula running from N to S and on my E (Dob side) missing a bit of nebulosity the size of half thumb.

Nice that you managed to observe it. Unfortunately due to work, I have only managed through my car, but it did look great. Nice shots and glad you made it back into the car.

That's fantastic for a mobile!

After nearly 5 weeks of not having a proper observing, I managed 4hrs last night. I used my 8" Dob with mostly the ES 24mm 68degree EP. Where necessary I tried my OIII and Hb filters. I started the night with the clusters in Auriga: M36/M38 and nearby NGC1907/NGC1893. M38 displayed a nice orange central star and it was nice to see the NGC1907 in the same FOV. I then moved to NGC1893. A nice small cluster but I was after the nebula IC410. Without any filter I could hardly make it but with the OIII the nebula popped nicely, covering the stars of the cluster. With the filter still on I tried the other part of the IC410 nebula near AE Aurigae but I could not see much (maybe a hint of nebulosity). Moving on further South, I had a nice look at NGC1857 and NGC1778. In this constellation I failed to see the NGC 1931 nebula #1 failure of the night. I was after NGC 1788 since I failed to observe it due to clouds before. The stars looked nice and with the OIII the nebulosity popped around the stars but not completely covering them, more discontinuous. I then moved to Orion. M42 looked great without any filters and colour was popping again for both the trapezium (teal green) and pinkish red for the nebula around it and reddish for the wings. M43 was showing some weak colour as well. A lot of nebulosity and details; I tried both filters and the OIII revealed more nebulosity. Overall I prefer the unfiltered views. The colours seemed to be going on/off as transparency was changing. I then had a look at NGC1999 (one of your targets that I stole Joe @Epick Crom). I could not detect much structure to it but it looked like a diffuse star. I tried to up the magnification but it did not bring more details. Further up M78 was displaying nice nebulosity. Since M42 was looking so good, I then went to Alnitak . I popped in my Hb filter. The Flame nebula was easily seen with darker lanes. Following the discussion on the HH I moved the star out of my FOV. I think I spent nearly 1 hr trying to hunt it. I could not detect the NGC 2023 nebula. I think transparency was coming and going since I was every so often popping back to the Flame and it was there and not. So I do not think I spotted it - #2 failure of the night. Further up the NGC 2169 cluster looked nice. Moving to Gemini, M35 and the companion NGC2158 clusters looked great. I liked how the M35 appeared as two squares with a central star in each. The NGC2158 was not very well resolved and it appeared as a smudge in the same FOV. IC444 was #3 failure. Not a hint of nebulosity with or without filters. The IC443 displayed some nice nebulosity with the OIII filter but it is just huge and hard to really make any structure to it. Rosette Nebula looked nice with the OIII and could see the darker core standing relative to the surrounding. Further up I tried NGC 2264. The cluster looked nice but I could not detect much nebulosity with the filter, #4 failure . I think eyes were getting tired, I was freezing and called the night. It was an amazing feeling to be out in the dark skies and look through the telescope again. It was supposed to be clear tonight again but it is looking cloudy at the moment.

Nice report and targets there.

With my 1x magnification 👀 the crescent moon, Jupiter, Pleiades and Orion rising. It is looking excellent tonight and I have a long list of nebulas and clusters to go through. Dob cooling down soon and after tea start with the observing. I will report tomorrow.

Mine looks like that. I will look to get a new one since it seems to be a design fault.

It was not much on display today was it? I had a look at the following site https://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/ and I thought that it was not worth bringing the Dob out.

I really like this shot and as you say it puts into perspective especially the size of Andromeda; I have seen it with my Dob several times but not in this context of the night sky. The are several more DSOs that are also very large and the nightscape composites that some APs are doing also give you a feeling of the vastness. Thanks for sharing this capture.

Some clear skies here as well after a long long time; a quick look at Orion and Pleiades before the clouds rolled in. Rest of the week is looking promising!

I see that's similar to the Astro Essentials; in the 1.25" extension tube in the 200P only the bottom part fits, right?, my issue is the play in the 1.25" focuser.

That's exactly the issue I am having; it stops at that lip and I think it causes the play, unless I am missing something. Is that the Stellalyra in my second link I included?

I have a Skywatcher 8" Dob (200P) and when I bought it, I also got an Astro Essentials Cheshire Collimating Eyepiece (https://www.firstlightoptics.com/other-collimation-tools/astro-essentials-cheshire-collimating-eyepiece.html). I have not had to use it to collimate my Dob yet since it was pretty spot on from the factory and star tests show nice concentric circles. But with the bad weather we have had I thought to at least get in grips with collimation or learn how things look down the focuser (although I was not planning to make any changes as yet). I noticed that the particular Cheshire has a lot of play in my focuser (EPs are fine in the focuser), even when I tighten both screws, therefore depending on the position it shows my telescope is not collimated at all or it is. I think I may have to change the Cheshire for when I do actually need to collimate (I usually move by Dob 5-10 meters from the sitting room to the garden and I think it keeps collimation very well). I saw this one in FLO (https://www.firstlightoptics.com/other-collimation-tools/stellalyra-premium-cheshire-collimating-eyepiece.html). Or are there other Cheshire that you recommend or the Astro Essentials particular design is not very suitable?

Happy New Year Joe, it seems 2022 is being great for you already. Fantastic you managed to see the comet. Orion and it's surrounding are always excellent sights Nice that your family shared your excitement.

I have seen plenty of clouds recently, does that count? I think we need an Observing Clouds section at SGL, it will have plenty of reports ☹️

@KimbomanI had the most memorable Orion viewing at the beginning of season but since then it has been a struggle. The few times it has been clear, it has not lasted more than 15-30mins Max. It is sad looking at the observing section and there are hardly any reports from the past few weeks.

Yes the weather has been absolutely pants recently. It's nearly a 5-6 weeks since my last proper night out, so I really enjoy reading your reports.

I have been following the sun spots AR2916 for the past week when weather has allowed me. I am not much of a sun observer due to work commitments so it was nice to have the cloud breaks this week while I was off work. The AR2916 is rotating out of view and this is probably my last chance to observe them. The details today where not great with my EPs probably due to location of the spots. The umbra where easier to be spotted but the preumbras no so much. I managed a quick shot with my DSLR on the sun and a photo of the incoming clouds with my mobile. I hope you all have a great 2022 with more observing time at day and night. It has fun observing AR2916!

Good effort. Looks a bit like my observing through haze yesterday afternoon.

Yes it is quite a heavy holder. Not sure what you mean about imprecise since I have not noticed; i find the controls very smooth although it would be nice to lock the positions on the EP once you have them. I like the fact you can control the z-axis as it is great to bring the camera to the right height on the EP.

Excellent report Joe. One of my favourite clusters in Persei is the double cluster NGC884 and NGC 869 (full of different star colours). I am looking forward for the Pupis to come higher in our skies later in the season to observe some of the clusters you mentioned. Keep the reports coming since we seem to be under clouds for the foreseeable future 😭

I have been lucky with the afternoon weather and I have managed to observe the recent sun spots changing/evolving over the past couple of days. In my EP the 2916 sun spots are the most prominent. The umbra on the right hand side of 2916 seems to have separated since yesterday. The 2918 pores (from my photos) seem more dynamic as well and a couple of new ones are also present. Seeing was very nice today. I also stacked a few frames together and the details are much nicer than previous efforts. Close up of the 2916 region from yesterday and today for comparison.

That looks great. The tail is not very uniform in the 135mm shot as if a 'smaller' piece of the comet has broken and following from behind.

I think we all know how bad the weather has recently been in UK and this is the kind of weather we are fighting against for any visual. I though the sky looked great last night and while I was setting my Dob, I put my mobile (Pixel 4a) against a rock on astrophotography mode (4 min) and that's what the beautiful night sky turned for the rest of the night. PXL_20211226_232202138.NIGHT.mp4