Spier24

1 hour ago, adyj1 said:

Yup, the ISS was doing a flyover at that time.

To check, I used the Sky Safari mobile app, set it to 20:54 yesterday and searched for the ISS (in fact I used have notifications set so it would tell me when there was a flyover). 

Obviously you could use Sky Safari to check real-time as well 😉 

I used the sky safari app to check what it was. Although I assumed it was either a satellite or the ISS

Only my fourth every observing session last night and I managed see what I think was ISS Zarya was I was aligning the telescope. Appeared at 20:54 GMT time next to Rigel. I wasn't sure what it was at first because it was pretty bright! It moved up into monoceros as it started to gradually dim before disappearing.

2 hours ago, Paul M said:

I think that these days it's impossible to watch the night sky for more than a few minutes and not see a satellite. They're everywhere!

Every single time I'm using my guide camera to polar align I see a satellite pass through the field of view. The area towards the Pole Star sees a concentration of Polar Orbiting satellites as their orbits converge over the pole. In the lighter months the sun's light reaches far over the horizon at those orbital altitudes even at midnight so they can be quite dazzling!

I remember a time when I'd be excited to see a satellite. Now they're a nuisance! 

Just no one mention Starlink... (oops!)

They're more common than I thought then. It was only my second night of observing so I thought seeing one streak across the eyepiece was quite interesting. Couldn't help but crack a UFO joke or two 😂👽 especially because I was observing M81 and M82 as I saw it.

So I was out observing in the back garden earlier and I saw what I think were two satellites within about 10 minutes of each other. One travelling straight across the sky from the south to the north and another moving across the western sky. 

Then as I was looking at M81 I saw something quite bright fly across the field of view in the eyepiece, I looked up to see if I could follow it but it was gone. 

Happened between 19:30-1950 GMT time.

A bit late to this thread, but i recently got my first scope and M94 was the first galaxy I saw through it. Managed to notice it quite easily despite being in bortle 7 skies. A great target for a beginner.

7 hours ago, Pixies said:

M101 is very faint, don't worry. M51 is a lot easier to see, but depends on your conditions, of course. You will probably need to use averted vision.

Try M81 and M82. You should be able to get both in the same view. They are nice and bright, although not quite as concentrated as M94

I think I may have tried to view M81 without success but I will try again. I was very pleased with my view of M94 though. 

Tonight was the big night. My first outing with a telescope! I planned to observe originally from about 7-8pm although unforseen cloudy skies delayed my outing in the back garden until 12am! 

When I finally got out I had have my first crack at doing the two star alignment. After a few minutes of nervously trying to pick out an easy start to get to I went with Regulus. It was my first time viewing a star in a telescope and I don't think I'll ever forget it. I then selected arcturus as my second star, the scope slewed over to it and it was pretty much bang on in the middle of the eye piece. 

Now it was on to picking my first target. Obviously I had to scrap my original plan do I decided to fire up sky Safari on my phone and see what was good at the time. I decided to go for the M67 open cluster, I didn't want to start with something too tricky and thought it seemed like an interesting target. It was actually better than I expected! Quite a pretty looking thing to observe as it showed up well in my 23mm eyepiece. 

Next it was over to the beehive cluster, it was only target part of my original plan that was still observable at the time. I can see why it's called the beehive now due to its shape, I think M67 has a bit more about it but the beehive was still nice to see.

After that I decided to be a little more ambitious and try to go for a galaxy. A target that was suggested to me on the synscan DSO tour was the M94 spiral galaxy near Ursa major. Despite my Bortle 7 skies and not having a large 8 inch + dob. I was still able to make our the core of the galaxy after relaxing my eye and having a look for 5 minutes. It appeared as a faint smudge between two stars. One star quite close to the south and another star slightly further away to the north.

I then decided to finish off my nights observation with a globular cluster and decided to go for the great Hercules cluster. I was pleasantly surprised with what I saw, a neat tight fuzzy grey ball in the center of the eyepiece.  

Im very pleased with my first experience actually quite pleasantly surprised with what I can see even in the urban skies here. 

I used an Orion Starseeker 130mm reflector.

Targets that I tried to observe but failed to see:

- M101 

-M51 

I'll be staying out for when Virgo comes into view too. There seem to be lots of DSO's around virgo.

8 minutes ago, Pixies said:

Lots and lots of galaxies in Leo - but faint and with Bortle 7 might be very tricky to see without practise.

Better bets near Ursa Major. M81 and M82 are a must see. M51 might be visible too.

M94 in Canes Venatici has a bright core, too. Well, relatively bright for a galaxy.

Is Auriga placed OK for you? Quite a few open clusters reside here. M36, M37 (a favourite of mine) and M38 are there.

Thanks for that given me some new stuff to check out. I think Auriga might have moved out of view but I'll double check.

Soooo weather conditions mucked up my viewing schedule and I've had to delay for a few hours anything any of you would recommend near Leo, Hydra and Ursa Major? Thankfully the beehive cluster will still be in view.

30 minutes ago, Gfamily said:

If your phone is using Android 11 there's a problem with the version available from Google Play (1.17.0) , but a compatible version is available from the Skywatcher website 

http://www.skywatcher.com/download/software/synscan-app/

However, as you say, Sky Safari has a 'tonight's best' option in the Search bar. 

I am in android 11 so that'll be the issue. Sky safari is good to couple with the handset, you can check to see if what the handset is suggesting on the tour mode is visible in the area of the sky you're observing.

5 minutes ago, astrocanito said:

Install the skysafari app. It's the best IMO.

I already have skysafari on my phone, I've been using it to plan my first night out with the scope.

47 minutes ago, Gfamily said:

You might find it useful to download the SynScan App - although it's meant to be used to control Skywatcher telescopes via Wifi - it comes with a "tonight's best" function (under the "Utility" icon), and that gives a quick and easy list of objects, with rough position and magnitude.

It lists DSOs,  Planets and Double Stars separately - and as it knows your location it gives results that are specific to your observing. 

Can I also be another voice to suggest you seriously consider getting Turn Left at Orion - there's a Google Books preview under the link  

I did try the synscan app but it doesn't work on my phone, there seems to be quite s few bad reviews about it with other people having similar issues. Lucky that I paid extra for a setup that came with a handset! 

The handset also has a tonight's best function that'll show you some of the deep sky objects that are visible in your area at the time.

My birthday is coming up soon so turn left at Orion will go on my list along with a good Barlow lense.

1 hour ago, John said:

Does your GOTO tell you which targets your scope is likely to show well and those where you might recognize something in the eyepiece ?

One of the great things about the book is that the targets are carefully chosen to be those which small instruments and new observers can both find easily and that will be interesting to observer.

GOTO's, when set up properly, are great at pointing the scope at object X or Y but many objects may simply be either incredibly vague or invisible when you actually look though the eyepiece at them.

 

 

Unfortunately it doesn't but I imagine that'll be a future feature of GoTo scopes. That's why I've already done a bit of research about which objects are easy enough to see with the scope I have and what part of the sky they're in since my back garden is south facing. 

I know that some of the fainter DSO's won't be viewable due to my Bortle 7 skies and my telescope size, although from what I've read there's still plenty to look at along with the option of going to dark sky sites

2 hours ago, Spile said:

Almach and the 37 are great. I would also recommend a copy of Turn Left at Orion.

If I didn't have a GoTo scope then I'd buy a copy, seems to get good feedback.

12 hours ago, ScouseSpaceCadet said:

If you plan to observe the Beehive, then another open cluster, M67 is close too.

Near to Pleiades is the cluster Hyades the head of Taurus.

While you're thee clusters M36, M37 and M38.

All in the above are south east-south west mid evening.

 

In the northern sky try galaxies M81 and M82. They will fit into the 25mm eyepiece field of view. Small smudges but galaxies nonetheless.

That lot should keep you busy on a first time out. Don't give the targets a quick glance. Spend some time looking and they should pop.

Install a mobile app like Sky Safari or Stellarium.

That's given me some food for thought for tonight. Thanks I'll be observing towards the south at first.

If the weather clears up then I plan to try out my new (and first) scope for the first time! Struggling to joke the childish excitement. 

I have a 5 inch goto reflector and unfortunately I live in quite a light polluted bortle 7 area, what dso targets would you recommend to start off with? I'm already planning to have a look at the Orion nebula the Pleiades and the beehive cluster. Any other suggestions would be much appreciated

Having a little bit of trouble entering my longitude and latitude on the controller. I know what they are but I'm not too sure how to type it into the controller. Especially because my longitude starts with a minus.

48 minutes ago, Tiny Clanger said:

That was a long gestation period, hope the delivery goes well ! 🙂

Indeed it was, the one thing that held me up was the non collimateble primary mirror on those scopes, Although after speaking to and reading from people who've owned these scopes I feel more assured. Happy with my choice.

1 hour ago, wibblefish said:

Congratulations! Takes a lot of deliberation I found 😎 Hope you get clear skys soon and let us know how you get on!

Cloudy skies here for all of next week unfortunately but next week should be better. Will let you know how it goes 

After a lot of back and forth, reading reviews and looking at various scopes etc. I finally settled on the Orion Starseeker IV 130.  Not much else to say except it feels pretty exciting! Now all I need is a clear night...

3 hours ago, Zermelo said:

I use a Skywatcher Star Discovery wifi enabled mount, with Synscan app running on Android 8.1 (I know, I know). I've never used a handset so I can't compare. I had to do a little detective work in getting it all going, mainly because the instructions were very poor. They now seem to have created a better user guide. The Synscan UI won't win any design awards but it behaves itself reasonably. My biggest complaint is that it shuts itself down after a few minutes of running in background, but I suspect that's down to aggressive power management in Android, and seems to be impervious to any tinkering with settings.

One reason for manufacturers using wifi on cheaper scopes is that it costs less than providing a handset, and I was happy to go along with that. Another reason is the possibility of integration with other apps. I use Sky Safari Plus for creating observing lists and recording observations, and it integrates very smoothly with Synscan, showing me where the scope is pointing on its map and relaying goto instructions and fine adjustments.

The small issues you've highlighted there are the ones that niggle at me. With the Orion skymax 127 it only costs about £3 more to get the model with the handset. What's sky safari like to use? I've heard a few things here and there about it but I haven't actually learnt about it in depth.

3 hours ago, Geoff Lister said:

Yes, I have issues.

I have the Celestron Cosmos 90 which has a WiFi interface. I (very, very, occasionally) use mine with my Samsung Android tablet, but much prefer the handsets with my (mechanically equivalent) Skywatcher Skymax and Celestron Skyprodigy mounts. I found that the tablet would revert to my home hub, often leaving the mount in an uncontrollable slew, so I added  power "kill" switch to the mount. I also found that, whilst looking through the eyepiece, I could not easily locate the virtual up/down/left/right buttons on the tablet's touch-screen - not a problem on the other 2 mounts with real buttons and the tactile feedback on their dedicated handsets.

There have also been times, during the SkyPortal alignment failed attempts, when I have disagreed with its conclusions, and been very tempted to do my own re-alignment with my 4-pound lump hammer!

Geoff

I saw a video on a Celestron astro fi kit. The guy tried for hours to get it to work and ran into multiple issues and eventually gave up. There have been quite a few complaints about that particular range. I was leaning towards a WiFi mount but a handset is the safe option.

What are your experiences with WiFi mounts? I've been looking at the Skywatcher az gti mount but remain undecided as I know some people have had issues with various WiFi mounts. 

10 hours ago, johninderby said:

The Skymax150 OTA with diagonal and 50mm finder is about 6.4kg and add a bit more for whatever eyepiece you would be using.

Just had a look, the Orion 150 optical tube weighs in at about 5.5kg and the capacity of the star seeker IV mount is 6.0kg.