Voyager 3

Oh and how many of you know Neil Armstrong won the biggest foot contest ? 

PS : Don't wash the floor tiles with water for 10 million years please .

You and @Kon are just throwing up reports !!

Or maybe Paragon misspelled 🤪 ? But seriously Paracor ? Louis , I couldn't find the the 35mm eyepiece in the TS website . Are they still sold by TS ? 

4 hours ago, Kimboman said:

Hi 

I also use the Sky- Watcher RACI 9x50 finder it is a great piece of kit and a would think that other makes are similar.

I also use the Baader red dot finder as well 

Do you starhop ? If not you don't need a finder because a RDF is more than enough to do alignment of your go-to . 

I set up my 8" dob around same time ! There were a lot of features along the terminator . But the one that stood out was the "eyes", formed by craters Godin and Agrippa . The illumination was perfect as the eyes seemed as if they were sketchily looking at me !

16 hours ago, Ricochet said:

Brightness of extended objects is related to the exit pupil so these should appear to be a touch brighter in the f5 scope than the f6. 

 

It's not exactly that the F5 scope will be brighter than the F6 . In this equation , the F5 is a 6" and the F6 a 8" . So yes if the same FL eyepiece is used , the F5 will be brighter , but with a lesser magnification . 

If equal magnification is used , the F6 will be brighter . For comparison , either the magnification should be same or the exit pupil should be same . 

Better than the princely sum paid for the scope for sure !

15 hours ago, John said:

Solid cloud and rain all day here , just for Stu giving this idea . I wonder what it would be like to , if everyone gives their magnitude estimates . 

 

 

On 12/05/2021 at 18:19, Littleguy80 said:

haha It's a lovely eyepiece. I normally use my Noblex 12.5mm with the Baader VIP set to give an approximate 7mm eyepiece. This works really for me. It's a different experience to the DeLite, the wider FOV gives a sense of the object being further away. The DeLite has a feeling of being much closer. Performance wise they're closely matched. I think this experience with the DeLite has convinced me that I don't need to get a dedicated 7mm eyepiece but if I was looking for a quality high power eyepiece then the DeLites would definitely be on the short list. Another thing I like is how small and compact they are. Really nice and light.

Sorry for converting this to an equipment thread , but do you know the weight of the Noblex ? 

2 hours ago, Virtus said:

I was initially very excited about this zoom. If the 75 degree constant AFOV is true it will have a wider TFOV at 15.4mm than the Baader Mk IV at 24mm. 

I was going to get on the pre-order list but read a little more about it and it appears to be designed for daytime use with a lot of angular magnification distortion (AMD) present in the early prototypes. 

Not going to totally write it off but will definitely be waiting to read reviews once they're out before I will consider it. 

They seem to have 2 types , one for spotting scopes and one for astro ..

6 hours ago, Sweet dreams said:

Hii Nagarajan. I am from Chennai too. Nice to find someone Chennai

Hi from Hosur !

And as @Cornelius Varley says , this is a dead thread ..

14 hours ago, Littleguy80 said:

Last night I headed out to my local dark site for what will most likely be the last trip there with astro darkness this side of the summer solstice. 4 other observers from my astro society were already onsite when I arrived a little before 10pm. The first thing I noticed was Mercury, clearly naked eye visible, edging its way towards the horizon. As the twilight moved towards darkness, I set the 10" dob up and collimated it. I was surprised by how far out it was as it normally only needs a small tweak. Just proves the value of checking collimation at the start of each session. Nova V1405 has become my standard starting point for a session since I first observed it back in March. It's brightened significantly to near naked eye visibility. I tried a few times to see it this way over the course of the night but without luck. Through the eyepiece it shown brightly next to M52.

The Needle was my first galaxy of the evening, revealing its dust lane with averted vision. A unintentional but welcome observation of NGC 3593 was noted on the way to the Leo triplet. The trio showing really well, transparency seemed very good with not much moisture in the air. My attention turned to something closer to home in the form of Comet 2020 R4 Atlas. The dark skies helped with showing the hazy diffuse glow of the comet. No tail that I could detect. We each called out good targets that we were observing, it's one of the nice parts of observing in a group. I mentioned that I was going to try for Comet Palomar near M3. One of my observing buddies, decided she would also try for this. I've seen this comet previously from home, where my skies are much worse, and so expected this to be an easy find. After 20 mins of searching, we'd both drawn a blank. The comet was supposed to be near a mag 10 star but we couldn't see it.

NGC 4517 in Virgo was the last of the Virgo galaxies from the RASC NGC Finest list that I hadn't seen. It's a fine edge on galaxy which sits right next to a bright star. It was like a mini version of the Silver Needle Galaxy whIch was my next target. A quick SQM reading returned 21.25. A superb meteor streaked across the sky around this time.  Pointing up towards the zenith, I spent a happy 10 minutes or so mesmerised by the spiral arms of M51, averted vision just about bringing out the bridge connecting it to its galactic parter. Gerry's @jetstream recent report of HII regions in M101 was the inspiration for an extended study of that galaxy. The spiral structure was impressive. I picked up a number of brighter regions in and around the galaxy which I believe were HII regions. Amazing what can be seen!

Iain @scarp15 has kindly loaned me his DeLite 7mm to try. With conditions so good, this seemed an ideal opportunity to put the TV eyepiece through its paces. M108, Surfboard galaxy, swiftly followed by the Owl nebula, M97. The Owl actually revealed its eyes without a filter in the DeLite, I was really impressed by this. A brief change of eyepiece to enjoy this pair together. I rattled through M13, M57, Albireo and M56, all showing superbly. The 60 degree AFOV giving a more intimate feel to the view than the wider eyepieces I normally use. I returned to Comet Palomar and was thrilled to pick it up as very small faint glow next to the mag 10 star. I believe it have moved a little since my attempt earlier in the evening giving a bit more separation from the star. Either way, a good win for the DeLite. 

By this time, everyone else had left but I just couldn't leave with the skies so good. The rising Milky Way was making its presence known and I decided to dive into Cygnus. The Western Veil came first, along with Pickering's triangle and the Eastern Veil. Just stunning. The ISS passed near Vega as I looked up from the eyepiece. The Crescent nebula was there but gave the first signs that the skies were turning as light cloud began to arrive. The North American Nebula was a similar story. I finished the session with the Dumbbell which provided itself to be very DeLite friendly. As I locked up, I took one last look at the Milky Way with a promise to spend the summer admiring it.

So would you be interested in the DeLite Neil 😁 ?

9 hours ago, Pixies said:

The forecast from earlier today: <crying face>

Don't worry mate 😭

1 hour ago, Pixies said:

@John Do you find that colours are more obvious with smaller aperture? I see colours more clearly in the ST80 compared to the dob - but that might be magnification rather then aperture, though?

That could also be due to the refractor Vs reflector thing !

14 hours ago, Stardaze said:

Thanks Stu, I was hoping that was the case. Is there a rough calculation possible?

It totally depends on the seperation , the ∆ mag of the pair ( or more ) and seeing . The lower the ∆ mag , the lower the magnification required to split . Fine examples are Sirius and Izar .Also the lower the seperation , lower the magnification required to split . Albireo and Zeta UMa are good examples . 

At last the seeing . You may have heard Sirius , Izar are sometimes impossible to split for some . Allan Wade in Australia has split Sirius with his TV-76 . Even Thomas Jensen split Sirius with magnification of ≈64 . But some reports say Sirius b impossible at 300×+ in 8"+ scopes  . Why ? Seeing - you can have the best double star scope and eyepieces but if you don't have the seeing , you are going home 😉 . Also as Stu mentioned , collimation , cooling etc are also important .

9 hours ago, faulksy said:

sorry mine were the diamondback hd. same awsome thing though

For astro or other uses ? 

No problem Jiggy 😁 ,

I thought you used the zoom with the Barlow for powers above your 4.5mm ... I like it that you still use your BHZ , even when you own a set of BMs 👍 .

On 24/04/2021 at 13:11, Jiggy 67 said:

Have to agree with everything you’ve said Dave. I was lucky as I used lockdown and the petrol money saved by working from home to buy one a month. I don’t know if I need the full range but after purchasing the 17.5 first followed by the 9mm I had to buy the rest

 

Don't you find the BHZ as redundant Jiggy ? 

On 01/05/2021 at 02:31, Pixies said:

 

On 01/05/2021 at 02:31, Pixies said:

An Analogy (with tongue firmly in cheek)....

 

 

Visual Astronomy:

 

Electronically enhanced visual astronomy:

 

Astrophotography:

 

(puts on hard-hat and retires under rock.......)

 

EAA : 

If the mic was a real one fixed in front of the singer in the screen , I wouldn't have stopped laughing in my life 😂 .

17 hours ago, Stu said:

Looks like this should be delivered tomorrow with any luck! Expect hailstorms and floods 🤣🤣

11 hours ago, Louis D said:

We get up to softball sized hail (about 4 to 5 inches) on rare occasions in Texas and Oklahoma, though not around here.  They tend to fall closer to between the Oklahoma City and Dallas-Fort Worth latitudes.

Should I get into the ark folks ? 😱 😂

21 hours ago, mikeDnight said:

Hmmm... Fluorite... 💘💋💋💋💞

Control , gentleman 🤣

48 minutes ago, Stu said:

Yep, good deal. I think Dinesh just had too many scopes and a couple had to go, this being one of them. Wanted some more grab and go, and ended up with a Ta....... no, sorry, what am I doing, let’s not turn this into another thread like that! 😱😱🤪🤪🤣🤣

Back to 120EDs/TS 115mm etc etc

Who is Dinesh Stu ? 🤣

Do you have any focus issues with this setup @niallk ? 

6 hours ago, Dantooine said:

Nice set

+1