PeterStudz

Thanks for the heads-up. And the jet stream is forecast to be largely out of the way too, so it’s possibly that the seeing could be decent too!

You can clean mine if you want!

I had a go this morning. Both naked eye and with binoculars. But I think that there are too many obstacle from my garden. I had hoped to catch it in a gap! Mind, lovely sunrise, view of the moon and Venus.

Despite the forecast it’s clear here in Southampton. Although tonight we’ve arranged to go out with friends for dinner. Typical! But shouldn’t complain. Hopefully it’ll still be clever when I eventually get back.

It does look neat and well made. But for me I store my Dob with the mirror (still on its base) pointing slightly down, primary mirror up. I do this in an attempt to minimise the accumulations of dust and other detritus. Eg I’ve had dead fruit flies - tiny, probably doesn’t do any harm to the views, but very annoying. And the most annoying of all, spider poop - little white to dark brown dots. This was on a secondhand telescope that had obviously been stored in a shed or similar. It sticks like glue and was a pain to get off the mirror. Potentially could also damage the coatings. And as mentioned above I sometimes find that if my eyepieces etc aren’t kept slightly above outside temperature they can fog over even if caps are on. I have a fleeced lined hoodie with a big straight-through pocket/pouch. Keeping eyepieces in there prevents any fogging. Maybe not ideal but it works. Although I use a red light head-torch I like to keep it off as much as possible. And placing black objects on a black surface makes them harder to see.

What is this blue stuff in the sky?! I haven’t seen a clear blue sky since the autumn. Of course it’s daytime and it’ll probably be cloudy tonight but it’s a start. Just setting up for a bit of white light solar. It’s a while since I’ve done any of that.

An interesting topic. Something I’ve thought about and surprised that it doesn’t come up more often. I’ve also thought about how people decided on colours when imaging the plants. Even on my simple smartphone images I can come up with all sorts of colours during editing & processing. Visually I generally see Uranus as bluish-green to grey-green. And Neptune as a deep blue. Although when I’ve stuck my phone on the eyepiece for Uranus there’s more of a blue-green colour. Cameras see colours differently. But I’m sure that there’s more going on. Eg with different eyepieces and magnification I see slightly different colours. And in poor seeing I’ve noticed Neptune as more greyish. In good seeing more blue-ish. Colours on all the planets better in good seeing. Transparency makes a difference too. Then there’s eyes and how adapted I am to the dark. Uranus and Neptune appear more grey if my eyes are dark adapted. My 12 yrs daughter’s eyes are definitely better than mine. Eg she says that see can see colours in some of the brighter DSO. For M42 she often says that she can see pink. And on odd occasions during good seeing she says that she can see what she describes as a “dot in the middle” of Jupiters GRS. Now, as hard as I try I’ve never been able to see that!

I’ve only had a few half-hearted attempts but this has given me a bit of enthusiasm to try again. By the way… beautiful sketches which look so natural. I wish that I could do something like that. Maybe time to practice and try again.

I have 12mm & 5mm BST StarGuiders. I’ve used them extensively over the last 3 years, often for the planets and lunar with a Skywatcher 200p Dob. As far as colour contrast goes (obviously important for planetary) the 12mm + x2 BST barlow is slightly better than the 5mm. Quite obvious on Jupiter and when I was observing Mars.

Now I have both refractor and reflector envy! Looks good @Dark Vader.

Imaging does. Although this is just a smartphone stuck to the eyepiece. Looking at the phone screen live on the night it’s basically what I saw. And visually, at the eyepiece, I could see more. It’s also at a magnification - x375 - that’s really far too much for the telescope and seeing. I often have the phone stuck to an eyepiece at the beginning of a session on Jupiter and the like. It’s useful when observing with my daughter as we can then pop the eyepiece + phone into the focuser, run a live video, and point out the features that we can see. Makes it obvious what you are looking at and trying to describe without having to go back and forth. Then, remove eyepiece + phone and go back to visual. There’s nothing like seeing these things direct with your own eyes. Incidentally, it’s obvious that my 12 yr old daughter’s eyes are better than mine. Eg I’ve had quite a number of moments where she’s said that see can see something and I’ve gone ‘really?l… let me have a look at that…’.

Sorry, not sure what happened here. Please ignore. Maybe too many mince pies!

Thanks! I’ve spent hours on Jupiter and generally the seeing has been poor for some time now. There’s been plenty of people mentioning this in the imaging section. On occasion it’s been frustrating with moments of good seeing, sometimes a few seconds to a few minutes of good seeing and then back to being fuzzy. But I have to say that on this night - 12th December - it was the best I’ve had since early Autumn. I’m surprised no one else mentioned it but I was probably lucky in my location, Southampton, with a clear cloudless sky. My advice, as you also say, is keep trying. You’ll eventually get a good night!

I do know that. Sorry if I didn’t make that clear! Just trying to say that you should be able to see the bands and enjoy Jupiter etc without buying a lot of stuff. And like you I haven’t found filters helpful. I don’t own a laptop, so ‘proper’ planetary imaging is out for me, although I prefer straightforward more traditional observation anyway.

This is basically what I prefer and do too. I have an 8” Dob and have tried coloured filters on Jupiter and cannot see any benefit. Eg a blue filter doesn’t seem to bring out any more detail and just makes the planet, well, blue. And I don’t find a variable polarising filter any use. Although I do find it helpful on Mars and Venus. I’d also add that for Jupiter and the bright planets do NOT get eyes adapted to the dark. Your eyes are poor at seeing colours and colour contrast when use to the dark. When observing Jupiter I often look at a bright light (like my phone screen) or go inside for a break/coffee. I’m in an urban environment I find that a simple dew shield (you can make one from black foam from a camping mat) useful in keeping out stay light. Spend a good time observing. I’ll can go around 3 hours on Jupiter, especially if something interesting is happening, eg a shadow transit. I do enjoy those! For a Newtonian make sure that it’s well collimated. Form some reason some eyepieces have better colour contract and show colours better than others. I’ve noticed that the 12mm BST StarGuider is decent in this respect. Using a 2x Barlow to give 6mm still retains this aspect. After practice you will get use to nudging in order to keep things in view. After a while it becomes second nature and you hardly notice it. As suggested a wide angle eyepiece will help. However, for the future (and if you have a Dob) maybe consider an EQ platform. I made an EQ platform for much less than the price of good hyper wide angle eyepiece. I followed the great guide ‘10” Equatorial Platform for Dummies’ in the ‘DIY Astronomer’ section in this site and it cost me about £85, although I already had some of the bits. It’s fine for smaller 6”-8” Dobs too. Now planets etc stay in the FOV without constant nudging. When trying to use a camera it is possible to record both the bands and moons by playing with exposure/brightness. Sure, if you process the image further the moons can be lost. To illustrate this I’ve attached a short animated GIF from a video taken on 12th December. The little dot bottom right is Europa. This was recorded using a basic iPhone camera via the stock iPhone camera app. Adjustments & crop made in the stock camera app. No fancy processing, editing or stacking. Out of interested, I used a BST StarGuider 3.2 mm for x375 plus the camera x2 zoom. Far too much for the then average seeing conditions, but you can still see the bands and details. The GIF process looses some resolution too but it still does a good job of giving an idea of what I could see through my 8” Dob. Mind, visually I could make out more. Just about everyone has a smartphone these days so it’s something most can do.

Chucking it down here with heavy rain forecast throughout the night. Howling wind too. For me I think the chance of seeing this tonight is zero ☹️

I agree with what @PeterC65 has said above. And although I haven’t got these telescopes I did start off with something roughly the same size. And from my journey I soon (about 7 months) wanted to upgrade the tripod. The aluminium tripods for the Skymax 127 (EQ3-2 or AZ-GTi) are adequate but they will wobble. So I splashed out on a nice robust steel tripod - no more wobbles. And that was just the start!…

I was visually observing Jupiter last night. But for me seeing was very poor, so I suspect that was it. Looking at the forecast there was a screaming jetstream over the southern half of the UK which would explain the poor seeing.

I have yet to see Mercury. Although I’ve only really been into astronomy for 3 yrs now, the view from my garden suffers from trees so anything low can be problematic. However, looking at this I do have a chance between the 2nd & 14th January. Let’s hope for clear skies!

I’ve had lots of experience using a smartphone to take images but any live view of the planets is going to be disappointing. Even with a dedicated planetary camera a good planetary capture also requires stacking and post-processing on a computer (PC, laptop, Mac) for a decent final image. A smartphone will get decent live images of large bright objects with good contrast - basically the moon and the sun (if there are sunspots) - but that’s about it. Anything else will also require editing and processing. Worth mentioning that Saturn is now low and will soon disappear from the nights sky. Not practically back until the beginning of August 2024. By then the rings will be very edge on, so not the best view. Jupiter around until late February but after that you’ll have to wait until August too. All of astronomy, whatever you do, requires patience, practice and time.

I’m in Bortle 7 and after 3 yrs of doing this we aren’t bored. And don’t forget holidays to a dark/darker site. My daughter was 9 yrs when we started and there’s a big difference between 6 & 9! Of course it depends on the person/child but Alice is a very outdoors person which has helped - eg camping, camping in the garden which she loves anyway is taken to another level with stargazing. She does use binoculars too. But what I we found helpful was a second pair. I got something cheap for £25 secondhand (actually they aren’t bad!) so that I could direct the star hop. Works well, is more fun and saves the faff/irritation of loosing target when you pass them back and forth.

In my daughter’s school they are not allowed to bring phones into school. They use Yondr pouches which are secure and block cell phone signals. It’s a brilliant idea & works well… https://www.overyondr.com

I might make a proper reply but it’s Christmas Eve and I’m busy. However, I do know what @LaurenceT means. I have a keen 12 yrs old daughter who started out with me when she was 9. We have used a mobile as a tool in order to see more and/or see things that would otherwise not be possible from our Bortle 7 garden. That doesn’t mean that she can’t do anything without looking at a phone screen. She far prefers looking through the eyepiece. In fact I was very amused to her response to astrophotography (after she found out how it was done) as “those fake pictures” 😀