PeterStudz

I have been planning to get out of light polluted Southampton and go to darker sky’s, for example, in the New Forest. Someone mentioned going with an observing friend(s) but coming into this pass time during the pandemic I didn’t bother finding anyone local with similar interests or even a club - obviously meeting groups wasn’t something that could be done. And someone with more experience could advise on good, local, sensible, dark sites. This is going off at a slight tangent but I had a look on the forum for a section etc on clubs and/or contacting people in the local area but couldn’t see anything. Probably missed it but is there a place to find this sort of info?

Interesting. I was looking at Jupiter on the same morning with my daughter between 2 & 4am and it’s close to what we saw visually. The GRS was a bit more subtle but the banding surprisingly sharp. A few clouds earlier but totally clear between 3 & 4am. At the start Ganymede was right up against the edge of Jupiter. And the video is very helpful - thanks!

My able assistant (well, it’s daughter and maybe I was more the assistant) at around 4am at the end of a recent 2 hour Jupiter & Saturn watch. The old Skywatcher Skyliner 200p came without a base which is still under construction and being tested. Worked well!

You can using some simple processing on your phone to get rid of any strange colours. These two examples were taken on a smaller telescope than yours (114mm aperture) with an iPhone using the stock camera apps very basic editing/processing. Play around a bit and you’ll soon work it out. No filter, just point and shoot.

That’s brilliant. And for me and in my view it’s better than any photograph.

Well, for my 9 yr old daughter. I have seen Saturn and Jupiter as a teenage boy, last time somewhere around 1979 - 1981. But that was with a small refractor and for Jupiter the most I got was a yellowish disc + moons and for Saturn the rings - from memory they were almost edge on. Doing some simple calculations I had thought that both these planets would be behind the trees at the bottom of my garden and or too low for the whole year and to see them we’d need to go somewhere else with a clear view of the horizon. I had a first look early Sunday morning and to my surprise both were above the tree line. My calculations were wrong! So, got out the old Skywatcher Skyliner 200p, which I’m in the process of renovating and still isn’t quite sorted/finished, to take a look. Got a surprising amount of detail on both. Finally going to bed at 4:30am. Ever since I pointed out Jupiter and Saturn in the sky at the end of last year Alice wanted to see them in a telescope. But we’ve only had a telescope since Christmas and by then it was too late. She wasn’t impressed when I told her she’d need to wait about 6-7 months in order to see them again. And when she woke up on Sunday morning and I’d told her what I’d seen she had a minor “meltdown”. Although meltdowns like that are the positive ones. Apparently I should have got her out of bed. This morning was the first opportunity to try again. Although clear outside suggested that it would be pushing things with a forecast in Southampton of 57% cloud cover between 2 & 4am and a suggestion of fog. But Clear Outside was wrong and apart from some high clouds around 2am the sky was completely clear. And the fog/sea mist didn’t appear until 5am-ish. For Jupiter we managed to see the moons (one very close to the edge of the disc), banding and to our pleasant surprise the GRS which at 4am was just off central meridian. In fact the best seeing was around 4am and got crisp views up to 240x magnification. For Saturn (again up to 240x magnification) a few moons, some subtle banding and the cassini division. Over the moon if a bit tired. Looking forward to doing this again when Saturn and Jupiter are out at a more civilised hour. And one-zees are the latest astronomy fashion. Although there was far too much annoying dew at least for once it wasn’t freezing cold. And I’ve got to get that base finished!

OK, that’s basically what I do with when using a simple red dot finder plus RACI. I do usually print out a star chart when trying to find something for the first time and pattern match in the RACI.

Yes, I know about the circles and completely understand how they work. However, most of the time I can’t see the target star in my Bortle 8 sky with the naked eye. Now, in the example above I can see Sadr with the naked eye but if I can’t what then?

I’m new to most of this only having a 4.5 inch Newtonian since the end of December and more recently a 8 inch which I’m renovating. Mind, not strictly true because as a young boy back in the mid-1970’s to early 1980’s I had a small refractor. And finders are a very personal thing with no right or wrong way, but this is how I see things…. A magnified finderscope is a small telescope. A simple red dot finder is just a modern version of a traditional gunsight. A Telrad/Rigal is a more advanced red dot finder as they also have concentric circles at set degrees. As a kid with my little refractor red dot finders didn’t exist. And I jokingly viewed magnified finderscopes for amateurs. After all, if you need a small telescope on your big telescope then surely you don’t know what you are doing The finder I used then was homemade and like an old gunsight (sometimes called a peep sight) which consisted of two bits of wood with a hole, placed at each end of the telescope. Took some practice but worked surprisingly well. Magnified finderscopes can take practice as although it’s easier to find your target area you are still left with the need to get your small telescope in the approximate location. Unless you are good at “shooting from the hip” some sort of sight like a red dot finder can help. If, like me, you are in an urban area and suffer from light pollution a magnified finderscope will also bring out stars you cannot see. If I use a simple red dot finder on its own I’m using it like a traditional gunsight. And because I can’t see a whole lot of stars there’s usually nothing at all in the viewfinder. So much so that I don’t care if the viewfinder is covered in dew. To get on target I’ll use the stars that I can see outside and some distance away from the viewfinder. Then use a low power eyepiece much like a magnified finderscope in order to home in on target. Although I haven’t used a Telrad/Rigel I can’t see the point as most of the time I wouldn’t see anything in the viewfinder. At a darker site then I can see how they’d be very handy. One other issue I have with magnified finderscopes - I find them difficult and awkward when wearing glasses.

Very nice! Totally cloud cover here 🙁

Total cloud cover in Southampton. Forecast to clear a little around mid-day. My daughter was cheesed off that she had to go to school. At least she’s a bit happier this morning.

@Grumpy Martian It’s getting there, slowly. The “moon” is functional as it serves as a handle. The azimuth bearing works well. Had some stiction at high magnification on the altitude bearings although friction is fine. Some PTFE tape that I had at home has improved things significantly but will experiment some more. Still need to fix the rocker box to the base board. Seal the ends of the plywood, sand smooth and paint. But I’ve had it out to test. First the moon (I have a picture of that), then M13 and the Ring Nebula which was a first for me. Not bad given the primary mirror. There might be an issue at magnification above 200x, but hard to tell for obvious reasons.

No, Although one of next doors trees has a branch that’s getting a little close to Polaris. Maybe in a couple of years it’ll be an issue. If so it might (just that one branch) might get a little mid-night pruning

I’m no expert here but if you don’t wish to spent a fortune (and as a beginner I think that’s wise) why not buy a dob with the possibility of upgrading to an EQ mount at a later date? If you decide to go that route I’d suggest that the Bresser Messier 8" Dobsonian Bresser Messier 6" Planetary Dobsonian represent better value. Unlike the Skywatcher they come with a solar filter, and they come with tube rings which you’d need for an EQ. https://www.firstlightoptics.com/beginner-telescopes/bresser-messier-6-inch-planetary-dobsonian.html https://www.firstlightoptics.com/bresser-telescopes/bresser-messier-8-dobsonian-telescope.html

Been waiting to have some free time to try this for a while now. Using the shadow method (someone mentioned it on here) finding the sun was easy, easier than I thought, and I got it at every attempt. No need for a solar finder scope. Just one small area of sunspots but better than nothing. It looked far more obvious in the eyepiece than in the photos I took. I tried to goto 200x which is about as far as this little telescope will go but seeing wasn’t great anyway. There were also some high thin clouds. Could be much improved but the exercise was the important thing. I took my time and made sure it was safe. And the sun was strong today as I soon got far too warm. iPhone 12, standard camera app, images cropped and rotated, some basic on phone editing in Photoshop Fix . Skywatcher Skyhawk 1145p, EQ1, Economy Drive, BAADER AstroSolar Filter, StarGuider 5mm, 2x Barlow, no-brand-name cheap phone mount.

I viewed this last month, on April 15th, been meaning to post but things got in the way. I also thought I’d give it another go relatively soon (hopefully with better results) but weather and the moon had other ideas. First time seeing this and for once it was easy to find, although I had to wait until 2am so that it was at a reasonable height above the horizon and to ensure it was dark as possible. My sky is Bortle 8. If you look closely to the right you can even just make out the small galaxy NGC 6207. Single 30 sec exposure with an iPhone 12. Haven’t done much to the picture, just edited on the phone in Photoshop Fix in an attempt to minimise some light pollution effects and cropped to cut out some lens edge distortion. I’m also interested in sketching. I’ve never tried before and although I can appreciate and understand how this is best done at the eyepiece it was almost 3am and I had work in the morning. So a day later I tried to do a sketch on an iPad using a photograph I’d taken of M13 as a canvas. With the views in my small telescope I could not resolve any stars but it had a slight grainy, almost ghost like appearance. I’ve tried to capture that in the sketch. Might be slightly bigger than what I viewed although I was using a zoom, going back and forth, trying to get the best out of what I could see. Basically it’s a photograph that’s been turned into a sketch. Skywatcher Skyhawk 1145p, EQ1, economy motor drive, SvBony 7-21mm zoom, basic no-brand-name smartphone mount, central Southampton.

Great pictures. I’ve had a solar filter for a few weeks now but annoyingly haven’t yet had the time (or it’s been cloudy) to try and use it.

@Stu I totally agree. The weather is similar. Eg when I was a kid winter weather was just, well, winter weather. Now it’s a polar vortex, beast from the east, cold wave, snowmageddon… I’m sure there’s more. And that’s before you get to summery weather. And yes, according to the forecast we are in for a dry, clear-ish period for at least a week from tomorrow.

Thanks guys. @Soligor Rob I’ve had dew related issues too. One initially had me stumped - I checked all eyepieces and mirrors and couldn’t see anything, but still the fuzzy pictures remained. Then, as I was packing up and had a light on, I discover that my phone camera lens was covered in dew. It spent a lot of time face down, camera up, on a side table! @reezeh I prefer to use a mount when I can, but here I hadn’t intended to take any pictures and this was a quick test/experiment. However, I find some eyepieces easier than others, there’s certainly a bit of luck often requiring several attempts. And I’ve found that using “burst mode” (hold the shutter down & multiple pictures are taken in quick succession) can help. I’ll go through the burst mode finding the one that’s worked or is best.

The one I had with my Skywatcher 1145P was the primary clips (two out of three) being loose. Before I worked it out I’d collimate it but as soon as it was moved it would go out again.

Although I can certainly see the attraction, and the pictures you can get and have shown are stunning, I’m not too interested in “proper” astrophotography. Well, at the moment! Of course even pointing a camera down the lens of a telescope is astrophotography it doesn’t involve stacking and processing on a computer afterwords. Because I don’t need one I don’t own a PC/Mac/laptop and that makes full blown astrophotography possible. I do enjoying the sitting outside in the middle of the night bit! I’ve even started sketching. Although not so much sitting at a computer. But people like different things and that’s part of what makes it fun.

I live in Southampton and have had a telescope since the end of December. A small 4 inch reflector on an equal small EQ1. Where I am is Bortle 8 and I’m not far from the docks which is lit up like a Christmas tree all night and every night. Still, I’ve been able to see or capture quite a bit inc: Orion Nebula Pleiades Beehive Cluster M81 & M82 Galaxies Leo Treo - Galaxies M51 Galaxies M3 Globular Cluster M13 Globular Cluster Apart from M81, which I could just make out by eye, the other galaxies have been, for want of a better term, smartphone assisted. I’ve used the phone camera in night mode on a 30 sec exposure. To help with this I have a small economy motor drive - £28 - not meant for photography but it lets me obtain 30 sec exposures with minimum star trailing. And it’s actually exciting and magical pointing the thing at what appears a blank sky and to see a galaxy appear in real-time 30 sec later. Even if rather fuzzy I’ve even managed to capture the spiral arms of m51. Still much to learn and discover. I’d say go for it. If it turns out not for you then it’s not that difficult to sell up. You want lose much.

Moon from last night. This was taken with a Skywatcher Skyliner 200p that I’m restoring. It came without a base (there’s something in the DIY section). Wanted to test the base as it’s just usable before I finish it off and the moon was an easy target. There’s an issue with the primary mirror and it was only roughly collimated. StarGuider 12mm eyepiece using a handheld iPhone 12 with standard camera app. Single shot with some basic editing and cropping. I’ve been busy and have a few other pictures to post. Maybe tomorrow.

Good advise about the mirror. I had kind of come to that conclusion too. And of course I need some sort of mount in order to properly test it out. I’ll let you know how I get on. It’s annoying that work is getting in the way of my construction fun but will get there!

I’ll post an update when it’s finished. Making this has been fun and by doing so you really appreciate what a fantastic design this is. Mr Dobson was a cleaver guy! It’s downhill from here, although “finishing off” can take as long as building. I also took the mirror cell out as I wanted to remove the altitude bearings as part of the build. It’s not too bad. Rather dirty and it’ll need a careful clean. I thought it might be a little stiff to remove but it was far harder to get back in! After that I’ll get everything working and if necessary consider getting it recoated.