PeterStudz

Not great seeing for me in Southampton but it wasn’t difficult to see the transit before it clouded over. Mind, I managed to catch the last transit which for me had good seeing. 

Hi,

And welcome. I’m in a similar position having returned after many years. In the mid-1970’s my parents bought me a Prinz Astral but it was so long ago I’d long forgotten how much I enjoyed looking through a telescope. Eventually my mother sadly gave it away to a charity shop

But I well remember seeing Jupiter and it’s moons, plus the rings of Saturn. Although I could not see any more details on the planets. Probably just needed a filter but helpful forums like this didn’t exist in those days. Sky at Night and Patrick Moore was the limit. 

The cloud over the last month has been terrible. I’ve spent a couple of nights in and out of bed hoping that the cloud would clear only to be disappointed and rather tired.

I could just make out the Encke gap, although it would “flick” in and out of view - a second or two now and then. But I could see a difference in colour - eg the A & B. Often, even if I can see the Cassini (and this is new to me) the ring appears as one colour.

This was between 1 & 2 in the morning. 

Yep, I agree. I popped out for a bit and basically saw the same. Saturn wasn’t bad too with surface banding clearly visible and I could see several ring divisions. Not just the Cassini. 
 

And here the last month has been so damn cloudy. Looking up now.

Thanks for that @russ   I’ll certainly look into it. @Z3JohnLB   I was thinking more of DSO as that’s what I struggle with in Southampton.  Certainly try something when the nights get darker.

My daughter told her friends at school about seeing Jupiter and Saturn. And last weekend she had her best friend over for a sleepover, in part so that she could look through our telescope. On Sunday morning, at some silly hour, we did have success at viewing Jupiter and Saturn. Although the seeing wasn’t as good as before (got to around 170X before things got fuzzy) we could see the ganymede transit on Jupiter. I had to explain the transit using a football & golf ball. It impressed me more than the girls who were slightly disappointed that on this night there was no GRS. Apparently Jupiter isn’t Jupiter without the GRS. My daughter was clearly more interested than her friend but I did get a “wow… look at the rings” from her friend for Saturn which was nice. You could make out the  Cassini division so for a first view it was impressive. I helped the night/morning flow along by making hot chocolate and toasted marshmallows. Kids do need some other entertainment as well as looking at the sky. The other advantage with planets is that you don’t need your eyes dark adapted so they can dip in and out of the house. All in all a successful night.

Had another look at the gas giants on Saturday morning 17/07/21 as I realised that there was a chance to see the GRS and that would make up (at least for my daughter) for not seeing it the week before. Again, seeing started off being poor so initially I didn’t wake up my daughter. But as the morning went on things improved. I found it fascinating watching the GRS appear at the edge of the disk and slowly move across the planet. At about 3:40am the GRS was towards meridian and looking relatively crisp so I went and got my daughter out of bed. At times you could easily see structure to the Spot. And for a brief period of 5-10 mins we managed to get the magnification up to 240x. Extra entertainment was provided by a fox who came within 10 feet of us before bolting away and an extra loud dawn chorus.

For me observational astronomy is about the whole experience, not just what you see through the eyepiece. 

Hi,

I have an EQ1 and a very similar economy motor. I ditched the little 9v battery and replaced it with a bigger 12v rechargeable  plus a power converter to knock it down to 9v. The idea is that the voltage would be more consistent and I will obviously wouldn’t need to buy batteries.

I also added a small volt meter. Now this hasn’t been calibrated, so max/min probably isn’t accurate. However, after trial and error I know that when the volt meter reads 2.32v it’s sidereal. Or as close as this economy drive plus mount can get to sidereal. 

Hi @Z3JohnLB, it certainly hasn’t been all good. Most of June has been terrible cloud wise. It’s got to have been the month with the most cloudy nights this year so far. I had one night last week where the forecast suggested a break in the clouds between mid-night and dawn. Including setting up I was in and out of bed four times before giving up as the sun came up. The forecast was wrong as there was total cloud cover the entire time.

I’m interested in going to a darker site(s) in the New Forest at some point, especially when the nights get darker. If you know of any good spots or would be interested in someone coming along please let me know. If not then no worries.

I also know the chef and some of the people who own one of the big hotels in the New Forest. It has a big lawn although views of the horizon might be limited because of trees. But the advantage here is that you could park, walk a very short distance, setup and be/feel perfectly safe. But would need to look into it. Eg would the lights of the hotel be an issue.

Some good advice here. I did get 240x on Jupiter & Saturn for a brief period on 16th June using a Skywatcher Skyliner 200p before things got mushy but I think I was lucky there. The few other times I’ve tried this year I couldn’t get more than 130x. 

Personally I’d go for the Sky-Watcher Heritage-130P Flextube or the Sky-Watcher Heritage-150P Flextube Dobsonian Telescope form FLO rather than buying something from Amazon. Both are highly regarded. If you have any problems I’ve found that the service from FLO is second to none. The Heritage-150P is slightly cheaper at £199 and is more portable. Sure it’s out of stock but the website says it’s due in 10-15 days. You can always check with FLO. And with the summer  night sky’s so bright at the moment you really won’t miss much by waiting. The Heritage-150P costs a little more but is in stock now. Of course it’s your decision!

@MarkRadice yes, it certainly is wonderful. When observing Jupiter and you get a good view it doesn’t quite look real. As if it’s been painted there but dynamic, almost alive. At least that’s the only why I can describe it!

1 hour ago, John said:

Personally, over the years, I've found it helpful in maintaining collimation to understand that very small / tiny adjustments to the collimation screws make quite a large difference to the tilt of the optical mirrors and also not to tighten things down. The locking screws on my 12 inch dob are not used at all unless I'm taking the scope in the car.

 

 

I certainly agree with the first part.

I’m new to all of this and I’ve been restoring an old Skywatcher Skyliner 200p. The secondary was way off under the focuser. At first it was most frustrating as I’d get it aligned under the focuser (which required large adjustments), but when I then aligned the secondary to the primary, also requiring large adjustements, the secondary was then back to being out of alignment with the focuser.

In the end I found it necessary to do small adjustment steps - getting the secondary slightly aligned to the focuser, then getting the secondary slightly aligned to the primary, going back and working on focuser alignment - repeat - until it was all in the right place. 

And I must try the washer thing. That sound like a great idea!

11 hours ago, Sunshine said:

I love the base for that skywatcher! creative touch on it is so fitting.

Thanks! On the other side is Orion. I don’t have much time during the day and have had to construct this outdoors. It’s been a slow-ish progress. Should be decent when finished and painted. Probably better than the supplied original. 

However, I’ve found that once I had a basic working setup made I could test and tweak the base bit by bit. Eg I wanted the eyepiece rack to be on the eyepiece side. But I found that while sitting on a chair and observing the rack needed to be at a height that wouldn’t (at certain angles) clash with my knees. And getting the bearings moving with minimum stiction took some fiddling - easier to do when only part constructed. 

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!

5 minutes ago, Spile said:

In which I would only use the non magnifying finder when locating the closest naked eye object, then moving onto the RACI from that point. Personally I cannot use the RACI for the first point of location. The traight through finder was easier in that respect but my back didn't cope well with that.

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.