SuburbanMak

Lovely long session tonight starting with GSO 10” Dob (which the family have christened the “FLT” or “Fairly Large Telescope”) & later, when my neck got tired from all that Dob aiming, I went back out for a leisurely GoTo session with the Mak 127. A mix of collimation exercises, lunar, clusters, doubles and finished with a nice, crisp M57. Tonight’s session made all the better by a glass of vino & the fact that I am off work for Easter from tomorrow (now today!). Observing report to follow.

Was tonight’s standout region to me - looked at this area at the beginning and end of a long session tonight and agree with @Kon the earlier view with oblique lighting revealed more.

Out to test my collimation escapades - getting there and made some tweaks “in the field” for the first time. Then the moon - incredible detail. Wasn’t naming tonight but got in very close on Copernicus with terracing and central hills, the Gruithuisen Domes & Sinus Iridium detail and so many craterlets on the floor of (I think) Clavius. Getting to grips with this Dob business and lovely warm evening.

Based on the evidence of the Met office rather than my own eyes I put the Dob out to cool. My lads have a punch bag in the garden, it used to have a rain cover… Below, naked punchbag, clothed Dob

Thanks @mikeDnight - it’s a splendid thing and I’d certainly consider having it “tuned” - the lens cell is not obviously collimatable however so not quite sure how I’d go about this. If any knows of someone who does this I’d love to investigate.

@Swithin StCleeve thanks for posting the photos. Like the look of the dark sky camp set up complete with real ale, very civilised! Still getting to grips with collimation (getting there I think) but was out again last night and some of the views were staggering - caught the straight wall on the Moon just before it slipped below the rooftops and the detail on the lunar disc was incredible. Globulars are just superb and had the best M57 view yet last night. Had bought some big lockable castors but on reflection (no pun intended) reckon these will make it to tall and the ride be too jiggly so plan to take them back and exchange for a parcel truck and a couple of bungees - then it’ll be off to my darker site to put it through its paces next new moon

I think I am getting there. Thanks for all the advice & links. Managed to get the laser working by taking it apart and putting it tightly back together again and have got on better with a collimation cap/laser combo than I was with the Cheshire - my spatial awareness isn’t brilliant and I find it quite hard to make sense of the crosshairs vs. the spider vains. The laser (which I checked collimation by firing through a 60mm refractor at a wall 5m away and confirmed the spot stays still when I rotate - childishly enjoyable stuff!) is a bit more intuitive. Got things lined up to best ability using the collimation cap then went back and forth between secondary & primary screws until I had the dot in the primary’s centre circle and disappearing down the centre hole. View now looks as below, not much chance of a star test tonight however…

1900 vintage Clarkson 3” f15 giving super views of the brighter Messiers available Friday 8th/Saturday 9th April.

Thank you and a good shout onM94, that’s one of those I swept up in my first flush of Messier hunting early last year and haven’t looked at since - I’ll definitely give it a go both with the Clarkson and the new Dob.

I hadn't expected to be out observing on Friday night as the forecast here was for cloud until well into the wee small hours. As I was about to lock up around midnight however I noticed it clearing, almost like a lid being lifted and the sky looked superb, very steady seeing, dark and transparent. Earlier in the day I'd been clearing space for my new Dob to live and as I was moving things around realised it had been a while since I'd taken out my lovely old brass Claskson 3" f15. This sudden clear sky inspired me to give in to the urge and I mounted the Clarkson up on the Report 312 & AZGTi used unpowered as a manual setup, taking care to find the balance point exactly as this scope is long! Decided to go after some of the Messier objects remembering that he made many of his discoveries (I believe) with a 3.5 inch so I should get some fairly authentic as-he-saw-them views. I used a 32mm Plossl for widedfield (well, 1.39 degree anyway) and finding (c. 37x), an 18mm Baader Classic Ortho for a closer look (67x) and occasional higher power views with a 10mm Baader Classic Ortho (120x) through a Tak Prism. Started with M3 which was high in the SE and got a great view - no stars resolved but a bright mist with a hint of granularity. In finding M3 I'd looked at Cor Caroli to get oriented (M3 lying just over half way along the line from Cor Caroli to Arcturus) and the view in this scope and the 18mm BCO was beautiful, an uneven white pair burning steadily in the rock-steady seeing. M13 was super and definitely sparkly with AV. Nicely framed between its 2 sentinel stars. M92 surprisingly bright ball with a tight core. M57 next and found the Ring Nebula with ease tonight, transparency was excellent at this point. Racked up the magnification to 120x and could just about discern the inner ring. M29 - Hunted a while for this and found it smaller than I remember - like a tiny Pleiades. Not the best view in this 'scope. M39 - Beautiful, bright open cluster trailing Deneb, like a half-Beehive. Tried for some galaxies and certainly picked up M81 & M82, couldn't do better than a "maybe" on M65/6 so had a look at Algieba instead. Splitting well with the 10mm BCO, a pair of golden headlights. Same story as in Leo with Virgo, I'd tried earlier in the session but seen nothing but after 1 am (!) some local car park lights go out and I thought I'd have another crack at the Markarians chain area. A "maybe" on something where M84 & M86 ought to be and a similar trace around where M87 should hang out. Decided to stick what had been working and go back to M13 and watch it drift across the field a few times, loving slewing this 120 year old scope around the sky and getting some really satisfying views. On very bright stars at high mag there is some optical error that I can't quite work out, diffraction patterns skewed to one side. But at lower mags faint to medium brightness stars appear like little balls on a black background and the colour rendered by uncoated optics is really beautiful and natural. Lyra had risen quite high by now and I thought there was a shot at M27 just coming up over the roofline. Dropping down from Lyra to hunt for it I was surprised to pick up M56, a globular but quite diffuse, more of a misty patch. I swept away and back a couple of times to confirm but yes it was positively there. On South and was thrilled to pick up M27 - couldn't really tease out much in the way of form, more of a grey misty patch but its an object I often forget to look for so was pleased to get the authentic Messier-like view of this one and chalk up another object viewed in the "gentleman's telescope". Rounded off on Alberio and, like the view of Cor Caroli earlier, breathtaking Sapphire & Gold in the steady seeing, framed in the pea-shooter field stop of the f15 Clarkson. I had stayed out way longer than intended and had I not had a longish drive the next day (Kingston Uni open day with son no 2!) could happily have stayed out all night, although I'd have needed to nip in for my big coat as there was frost and numb fingers by this stage. Have left the Clarkson set up ready to go, it looks fantastic and an easy carry out to the garden for future "quick" sessions like this one.

Out late/early with the new 10” Dob. Caught the straight wall as the moon set behind the houses, amazing. Collimaton still eludes me, think I’ve made it worse . Nevertheless, already the best views I’ve had of M3,M13 and M57. Also picked up M81/2, M104 and M27, M29 looked good. Finished on Alberio, summer’s on the way!!

Hadn’t expected to observe tonight but spotted it clearing after midnight. Had a hankering to look through the lovely old Clarkson 3” that I’ve neglected a bit recently. Missed the moon but decided to see how many Messier objects I could identify from the back yard, turned into a bit of a classic, will post an observing report tomorrow. Seeing is cracking here right now but sadly have things to do tomorrow…

This is incredibly helpful - thank you both!

The laser packed up pretty much straight away - switch seems poorly made. That’s going back… Meanwhile got to here with Cheshire & Cap.

Hi posting this one here as I am a complete newbie as far as these reflect-y things go… I followed the Astrobaby blog advice on collimation steps - photo 1 shows what I had at the end of tweaking the secondary. Photo 2 shows all 3 clips visible and the centre dot of the collimation cap sitting neatly in the centre circle on the mirror. (Both also aligned with the Cheshire crosshairs but didn’t manage a photo of that). The reflection of the whole collimation cap is off centre however. Does this matter and if so what should be my next move bar starting from scratch?

Nice problem to have, my dot is nowhere near the target

Mine seems to be straight - when I rotate it in the EP the spot stays in the same place on the mirror which I’m taking as a good sign!

Right then, let’s get this collimation malarkey sorted…

Sounds like fun! Always interested to learn of sites in and around the New Forest / Hampshire area as I’m up in Winchester. I was in the Forest last weekend dropping my daughter off at Ferny Crofts Scout camp which is just past Beaulieu Road Station. Looked like quite a good prospect to observe, elevated, nice clear horizons and quite a few car-parks dotted around where you can get off the road away from passing headlights. The Drift Inn is a nice pub over that way too! Also had a good couple of sessions at Lepe beach in the summer & my slightly older kids loved the adventure of a midnight excursion to the sea. Winchester way I observe at Farley Mount country park which is a good dark spot but a 5 minute gear carry. Almost as good and 50 yds from the car is Cheesefoot Head on the A272 just outside Winch. Elevated and solid Bortle 4 (SQM 21.04) this is where I do most of my dark sky observing.

Thank you & you may be on to something, although the fields were narrower, the BCOs looked much flatter. I’ll put another eyepiece on my wishlist…

I've been looking out for a while for cheap way to sample the delights of larger aperture and have missed out on a few as I was determined to stick to my guns on budget. In the end I secured an eBay purchase of a 10" Revelation-branded GSO-made f5 Dobsonian. The 'scope comes with a built in cooling fan that runs off my Celestron power tank, meanwhile the chunky base sports a sturdy carry handle and a handy eyepiece rack. It came with GSO 26mm "Superview" 2" Eyepiece and matching 1.25" Plossls of 6,9,12, 15 & 20mm. Not bad for 30 quid per inch! I picked it up on Saturday lunchtime and was excited to see a clear forecast for the evening. My wife was mildly shocked by the size of the thing I spent the afternoon taking some first steps in the dark art of collimation using a cobbled-together collimation cap made out of the lenscap to the supplied 26mm (involving tinfoil, glue, a paper circle and a compass point, all very Blue Peter). Initially I kept getting to point where I would run out of travel on one of the Primary screws just as I was getting things moving in the right direction. In the end I started from scratch and measured the full travel of the screws (10 half turns from end to end) then set them all in the middle and worked from there. Thought I had it there or there abouts so popped things out to cool. I say "popped", lugged would be more appropriate. I live in a tall, thin townhouse and have many stairs to access the garden, its not that its massively heavy but the tube in particular is awkward to manoeuvre & could use some handleage. But once gingerly lowered into its simple Alt bearings, the springs to maintain tension locate easily and I was impressed with both the balance and the smoothness of movement. The Az side is a little bit gritty, may try and clean the track as some point, but nevertheless it swings about quite nicely for its size and weight. I'd elected for a garden session as there was tinkering to be done and I am mulling over what kind of wheels might be needed to get me to the spot in one of my darker areas. (Besides which it was Saturday night and a nice glass of red accompanied my session...). I picked the nearest star to where I was pointing - Mizar as it turned out - and set about aligning the 9x50 RACI and Telrad. The 9x50 in particular required some fairly radical adjustment from the Mak so I think at some point they'll each need a dedicated finder, will hang fire though until I've worked out if I want a RACI or straight through. It is immediately challenging to have a different orientation in the finder than the eyepiece but I was gradually getting used to the brain-gymnastics by the end of the night (the alternative being the physical gymnastics required by a straight-through). So, finders aligned, the moment of truth.... Transparency and seeing both looking good, temperature dropping rapidly though! The first thing I noticed was how bright Mizar and its companion looked, clear separation and stunningly brilliant with, to me at least, attractive spikes from the spider. The second thing I noted was that I am clearly not a natural collimation expert - not a disaster but slight sea-gulling of brighter stars and couldn't quite achieve a pin-sharp focus. The field is also not in focus right across - acceptable though with best focus available across I'd say 70% of the field. I imagine this the Coma of which I have read so much. Collimation tools duly ordered from FLO and I'll spend a happy afternoon tinkering and see what I can improve, reserve judgement on the focus generally until I'm confident all is aligned correctly. While we're on the downsides, the Dob requires a different approach to observing - first of all my usual shielded-from-local LP corner of the garden with the Mak or a refractor on a nice tall tripod yields up an awful lot of car and garden wall with the lower positioned Dob. Big shifts in position mean moving the chair around and in some cases that meant also dragging the scope around the yard a bit. (There is a solution brewing which involves wheels, a drum stool and a drive out to my site with nice flat access and wide views with low sightlines). I swung to star test on Capella - very bright, slightly off round circles, more to do there... With those caveats out of the way the light grasp on this thing is awesome! The Auriga Messiers leapt out with many, many more individual stars and unresolved glow than I've yet seen. I always love M38, the Starfish but here the "limbs" floated on a sea of jewels. M37, in the Mak the least impressive of the three, was transformed and I spent ages gawping at it, so many stars. Time for a galaxy, M81 & 82 I've got quite practiced at dropping onto in manual mode and sure enough there was the smudge in the finder and the pair bright in the field of the Baader Hyperion 24mm. Noticeable that the visible extent of the galaxies is greater than in the Mak, unsurprisingly, spiral form in M81 stood direct vision and with AV a dust bar could be seen in M82. Its not that I have NOT seen these in the almost 5 inch Mak but it is much more apparent here. I racked up the magnification from the 52x delivered by the 24mm Hyperion, finding yet another use for the Baader Classic Orthos, lovely view of each galaxy individually in the 10mm at 125x. Another difference from my smaller scopes, you can deploy some useful magnification on the fainter targets. Encouraged, I went for the Leo Trio - partly because again I know exactly where to put the Telrad for that one - and pop, there were M65 & M66, pale ovals but not difficult to see. Trying to recall but I don't think I have ever seen them from the back garden before! Didn’t pick up NGC 3628 but then it’s like Blackpool illuminations round my way! The 'scope was covered in ice by now and looking down I noticed that so was I..... came in for a warm. Went back out around midnight and looked at M3 - again that seeing deeper very apparent, in the five inch this one is more of a misty ball, with the 10" I was getting the diamond dust" effect in AV. M13 was stunning and was able to fill the field with it, many individual stars resolved and wide sparkling extent. Looked at these two for a long time enjoying M13s tendrils and sparkle. Looked half heartedly for M57 but either the cold or the finder confusion got the better of me and I elected to end on that super view of M13. Verdict - its a very different observing experience and another set of skills to learn. Sessions will probably involve longer views of fewer targets per session and I can certainly see nights where I won't want to get this out, however I was thrilled with the views!

Lovely report, really enjoyed reading that!

Popped in for a warm and to say good night to folks, going back out. The new-to-me 10” Dob is working. Many more stars in M36,7,8 than before. Super views of M81/2 and a first from the garden on M65/6 - this thing really does grab some light! M3 is mesmerising. I have some stuff to learn about collimation, I have achieved acceptable but certainly not perfect star test so far. Waiting for M13 & M57 to rise from the murk… more later.

Not strictly the postman as I drove up to London to collect this Revelation/GSO 10”f5, but incredibly excited to get first light on this later - Telrad & 9x50 fitted, novice collimation attempted and even the fan works! Can’t wait.

Get well soon Scouse!