PeterStudz

Not just me then. For me just observing but same here in Southampton. I thought it was a little extreme getting up at 2am in mid-June & still early hours In August but now I’m glad that I did.

In Southampton the forecast is for 100% cloud cover with possible drizzle later on

As Alan says. I’ve been into this for less than a year but I now have a Skywatcher 1145p on a wobbly EQ1 with a cheap motor drive and a Skywatcher 200p Dob. Occasionally I’ll prefer the 1145p, especially for lunar and open clusters. Eg with lunar I can keep the moon in view, even at high magnification. This has been useful when pointing out lunar features to my daughter without the faff of having what we are observing drifting. When she wanted to know where some of the Apollo landing sites were I even attached the phone, put it on live video view and pointed out the sites on the screen. Then back to the eyepiece. All without having to nudge anything. And if the view remains steady you can often relax and see more. At first an EQ mount can seem a confusing faff. But once you practice and get use to the setup it becomes second nature.

I haven’t got a PC which means no stacking for me. This is my second go at taking a video of Jupiter with my phone camera. With the likes of Jupiter and Saturn, taking a frame from video seems to produce better results than trying to taking a single shot with the camera. But that might just be me. Seeing was good to very good. Skywatcher Skyliner 200p with BST StarGuider 5mm. Video 4K at 60 fps with standard camera app, zoomed at 1.7x on a regular iPhone 12. Later manually selecting what looked like the best frame, taking a snapshot (for simplicity & speed) and editing in the standard iPhone camera app & Lightroom, zooming in a little cropping and resizing in Image Size. I like to try and do everything on the phone. The result doesn’t match up to the experience of observing last night but I didn’t expect that. At least the black dot that is Ganymede can be seen!

Nice images. And the moon isn’t in an ideal position at the moment.

Yes, I also saw a meteor at the same time and place. I’d put money on it being the same one!

Just popped in for a quick coffee. For once I have good seeing here in Southampton. My experience has been much as @Stu describes.

Don’t worry! I think it’s good that you’ve posted your experience and effort. Amongst other things it gives people starting out a feel that it’s not that simple. And Jupiter, Saturn too, is very tricky with just a single shot using any camera.

Surprisingly steady here in Southampton. But plagued by high clouds and iffy seeing. At one point Jupiter completely disappeared, then reappeared about 5 mins later. But I could see the shadow and occasionally seeing would suddenly go good for a few seconds at a time. At the end I could also see Io close to Jupiter plus the shadow which was nice.

I haven’t given the moon a good look in a while and with the moon getting higher in the sky the views are generally getting clearer. I took this yesterday morning at the end of a Saturn and Jupiter watch. Seeing reasonable but could have been better. The Sea of Crises (love that name) looked beautiful up towards the terminator at higher magnified. And best to make the most of the conditions. If the forecast is to believed there’s a change something more autumnal with cloudy and showery weather next week. Skywatcher Skyliner 200p, sIngle shot, iPhone 12, basic smartphone mount, 12mm BST Starguider, standard camera app, small about of editing in app.

Similar here in Southampton. Looks clear, Saturn & Jupiter very bright but not a patch on yesterday. No wobbles but the views are hazy. Yesterday I could get 300x on Jupiter. Tonight 170x. There’s also a lot of dew.

Some of the best seeing in Southampton for Jupiter and Saturn that I’ve had since I started looking at these two at the start of June. Yet the night before was complete rubbish with a ton of wobble. How quickly things change! @Nik271 - I know what you mean about that darkish band on Saturn. I hadn’t seen it like that before and assumed it was shadow. But I think you might be correct in that it was the inner c-ring. It was quite obvious too. Also had a quick look at although the moon at the end of the session. Although it was nearly full I got some excellent steady views of craters and mountains along the edge. I haven’t seen the moon like that in a while. And of course the moon is starting to get higher in the sky which helps.

Thee wobbles I had yesterday are all gone And my daughter is staying up too even though it’s a school night. Ah well!

Much better here in Southampton tonight. Well, so far!

Clouds cleared now! I can see it but very wobbly.

Clouded over now. But a possible clear slot coming in - frustrating!

I’ve been observing from Southampton to. But like others seeing is horrible, although I can make out the GRS. Signs of high cloud increasing too. Fingers crossed.

Should work now. I think that the GIF file name was too long/wrong. Please ignore the video file below. FullSizeRender.mov

Not sure how this will look here. First attempt at taking a video (well, taking anything) of Jupiter. with the assistance of my daughter we made an animated gif with a sort of eyepiece view. Seeing was reasonably good until the fog came in. Zoomed in a little but I don’t think it’s too bad for a smartphone video. A little tricky to get the moons showing too. Skywatcher Skyliner 200p using an iPhone 12 and basic smartphone mount.

Keep at it. And it’s good that you’ve posted your first attempts. One other thing that you might appreciate already. The moon is still relatively low in the sky. You should be able to get better results later in the year/early next year when it’s higher up. Less atmosphere to go through.

What ever you buy you’ll probably believe that maybe something else would have been better. I think that’s a common theme with people starting out. But just make the best of what you’ve got and have fun. I actually enjoy finding stuff that I can’t see with the naked eye. Can be frustrating but It’s quite a skill and thrill when you do find what you were looking for. And my daughter can now find the brighter objects with a dob, getting it to the centre of the eyepiece. Harder than you first imagine.

We’ve been through the box phase

This is true. Although it’s nice to have a shared interest however small. And as @Kon pointed out it’s often “quality time”. Sometimes little things like my daughter coming into our bedroom at 12:30am and saying “daddy, I can’t sleep, can we see the planets”. The planets being Jupiter and Saturn.

We just use a cheap inflatable air bed. It’s provided enough insulation during late spring, summer and early autumn. Although this September has been warm and dry so far. Alice is also an outside person which helps. Some children aren’t. Although a negative is that much observing is done during the winter. Even in early May the telescope was coming back inside with ice on it. Getting/expecting children to hang about outside when it’s -2C is a tad too much. Even with lots of warm clothing & hot drinks.

Well, my wife thinks I’m just a big kid Another thing that’s helped is using a smartphone camera as an aid to observing. These days children are media driven. I’ve used the example of the Orion Nebula before. At first it was just a fuzzy grey “cloud” through the eyepiece. Alice was not impressed. But hovering my phone camera over the eyepiece showed colours. This image (without taking a picture) had my daughter literally jumping up and down. We’ve even got pictures of globular clusters, galaxies that you couldn’t see with the eye at the eyepiece and of course the moon. She’s shown these picture to friends, teachers at school (during the pandemic that was via zoom). Some of her friends have come over to look in the telescope on the back of these pictures. The teachers have been impressed. Now, I don’t even consider these pictures astrophotography but it’s something fun to do and it keeps an interest going.