SuburbanMak

This is a really good thread packed with great advice. I got my 5in Mak six months ago - not the ideal galaxy hunter’s scope - and have been on the same journey with regard to galactic frustration, in my case from a Bortle 5 suburban sky, but am finally making some progress... Everything said above about the moon, light pollution, dark adaptation and sky conditions is spot on. I’d definitely go for M81/82 first - they are a bit brighter, and up high so avoid a bit of atmospheric murk + a genuinely awesome (and the word is overused but wholly applicable here) view with a great orientation to one another & bit of contrasting shape between them. I’ve found the GoTo (AZ GTi) less useful for finding galaxies than for other targets, better to use the GoTo to land on a nearby notable star or asterism and navigate from there - I have a Telrad, 9x50 finder and use my widest, most crisp eyepiece to hop by overlapping fields of view from a known object to where the galaxy should be. I’d say my success rate on first time of looking for an object is now up to about one in three - I expect to not find more than I find on any given evening. It’s a game of persistence! I had, for example, tried four or five times for the Leo Trio as they have been well positioned in the sky and navigation is theoretically easy from bright Chertan & down, but no joy. It was in the end some drifting high cloud that confirmed that one of the misty patches I’d been half-seeing stayed in place & didn’t move away with the mist was not my imagination but in fact M66, M65 was then right where I expected it to be. The “hamburger” galaxy then sort of materialised in the top of the view and disappeared if I looked straight at it. With M81/2 and (finally!) M51 I didn’t get anywhere at all until sorting out a comfy position and tripod height to view overhead - for a good long tim. I’ve found that it takes some time to locate and then see the galaxies in the field of view where at first glance there appears to be nothing so get comfy & take (dark) breaks. The real breakthrough for me was realising just how dim these things look in the eyepiece - you are looking for some very subtle objects and averted vision and slight field movement help a lot. The few galaxies I’ve found so far have taken careful planning, patience, time at the eyepiece and great dark conditions to find first time round but once you know where they are and the star field they sit in (I take rough sketches to help with memory and confirm later in Stellarium/ Cambridge Atlas - a couple attached below) they are easier next time (although the Hamburger only pops into view for me on the very clearest of nights). As much as anything it’s training your eye and brain to pick up weak signals. Once you’ve looked at a few you’ll get quicker at spotting them in the eyepiece or getting a sense of that smudge in the finder being worth a proper look. Your scope is a bit bigger aperture than mine so with the right conditions should reveal a good number of galaxies & maybe a bit more structure. The thrill of finding them is worth the effort, it’s not what you’re seeing, but what you are seeing that makes the hunt worthwhile. Picking up light that has spent millions of years travelling vast distances through space to end up getting perceived by me, and seeing sometimes multiple “island universes” in a single view is a mind-blowing thing, stick at it (I am hooked!). Clear (dark) skies!

OK - I give in.

Thank you, so it is just a case of not much to see today. I like that view of what’s on the other side of the Sun - builds a bit of anticipation!

I almost hesitate to ask this but ahem, here goes... My EBay white light filter turned up today & I scurried out into the garden like an excited child on Christmas morning. After a bit of faffing I have it clamped to the ST80 and using the equally cheap but pleasingly effective SV-Bony pinhole projector finder (can’t believe it just slotted in and is aligned as there’s no way to adjust) there is a lovely big, crisp, solar disc. Can’t see any sunspots though - and here’s the dumb question - is there just nothing doing today or am I missing a trick? Any beginner tips on white light observation gratefully received...

I wouldn’t be without my Baader Mk iv, great for double stars & finding the nights optimal magnification vs. seeing and have usefully deployed the dedicated Barlow with it up to very high magnification on the moon. I use one successfully on an ST80 and a Mak 127 if that helps with weight/balance thinking. would have thought you’ll be absolutely fine from that perspective. I find it such a useful tool and saves so much time switching EPs in and out in the field. As stated above there’s a bit of narrowing at the 24mm end so many nights the only other thing I use is the Baader Hyperion 24mm 68 degree fixed for a wider field - mainly in the Mak. Occasionally find the 8mm end suffers from mushiness if the seeing is less than great. On quick grab-and-go issikns with the ST80 it’s often all I take. Lovely quality click stops, twist up eye-cup and build quality. As said above there is a slight trade off in terms of contrast for fuzzy-hunting but so usable on many other use cases. Clear skies!

I’d echo all that’s been said above - after a (very) long break from astronomy I spent a year of many happy evenings outside on a sun lounger or the kids trampoline with a reasonable pair of 10x50s. Amazing what you can see - I am down the road from you in Winchester so probably quite similar suburban light wise. 2 things on that - do your best to shield from security/street lights etc (for me this is by cunning lounger placement and hoodie wearing) and even in the garden give your eyes plenty of time to dark adapt, makes a huge difference from half an hour and keeps on getting better. On Bino size it all depends on weight - if you’ve forearms like Popeye then maybe a 15x70 could be handheld for a reasonable period but lighter weight and lower magnification give longer, shake-free observing sessions where you’ll tease out far more than in a 15 minute wobble-fest with something more powerful. Summer is great - warmer and with the Milky Way high in the sky. If the moon’s too bright for dim things, look at the moon! As long as its clear there is plenty out there to mind-boggle! Above all, drag yourself off the sofa on a few nights where you might not immediately feel like it - it’s amazing out there

I havent used a Hyperflex so can’t give a comparative opinion but I have the Baader Mk iv & compatible VIP 2.25 Barlow and am a huge fan. I’ll quite often stick with the zoom all night, especially good for finding the right mag to split double stars and find optimal magnification for seeing conditions. Stunning clarity on the moon. Optical quality seems very crisp & the only places I’d note any slight difference in performance is at each extreme end of its range for different reasons. At the 8mm end it’s a bit prone to mushiness unless seeing is exceptional and at 24mm the field is a little narrower than higher up the magnification range, not necessarily an issue depending on what you’re observing. Build quality, zoom action, soft click stops and twist up eye cup are all superb & the dedicated Barlow gives a really usable higher mag range to the equivalent of 3.5mm. I use a Skymax 127 Mak and an ST80. Most nights the only other EP I use is a Hyperion 24mm 68 degree to derive maximum TFOV & contrast in the Mak for galaxy hunting. If I go out for a quick grab & go with the ST 80 on a photo tripod then the Zoom in one pocket & Barlow in the other is perfect fro 17x widefield up to 112x - which I reckon is about as far as you can squeeze from an ST80. In conclusion if you are going at all for portability I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend the Baader Zoom. Either zoom will give so much more observing vs. faffing with cold fingers out under the stars. Clear skies!

For "quick snaps" these are great images! Yes you are right, this is definitely what I was looking at.

A budget magnification upgrade for summer globulars & an experiment in LP reduction...

In the end I’ve plumped for sticking with what I have in the Baader 24mm & adding a budget higher magnification with a Baader Classic Ortho 6mm. Also having a go with a Baader Neodymium LP filter - see if that makes any difference generally. Thanks all for the sagely advice!

Thanks and yes I think you’re right, they were really bright and from the spacing do look like the mountains further to the South - the domes might be a bit subtle, although I do want to find them now as it’s such a great name.

They'll definitely be high on my Summer regulars list! Interesting you say that about the Orion nebula - it was of the few things I was able to locate in my 40mm Tasco back in about 1982 and I remember it distinctly as green - now at 50 its pretty much in monochrome! Took my eldest (19) out on a galaxy hunt a couple of weeks back and he was seeing way more detail than me. Just have to buy a bigger scope I guess...

Had the pleasure of the company of my youngest son Bertie (15) for the early part of last night who wanted to have a look at the moon. Took the opportunity to play with all the 'scopes (Mak 127, ST80 & Prinz 60mm old-school refractor) in the garden & give him a little tour before our lunar excursion and he was blown away by Castor as a double, imagining Tatooine like twin sunsets - he was amazed that they were different colours and could see a clear blue-white & yellow contrast invisible to me (both white in my eyes)- I am sure its nothing to do with age... On to Mizar which is one of my favourite fields and from there picked up rising M13 in Hercules which fired the imagination with its slightly extra-galactic status and wondering what the night sky would look like from a planet in the middle of that lot, packed with stars and with our galaxy beyond. This was apparently, "cool" - & I agree. Seeing and transparency by the time we got on to the moon were quite good although I have had nights where I can pile on the magnification and keep teasing out detail, last night it wasn't really adding anything much above 200x. We spent most of the time around Sinus Iridium enjoying the light on the Jura mountain tops and great views of Plato and the various mountain massifs on the Mare Imbrium plain. Bertie remarked on Vallis Alpes and was surprised to see something so straight-line. We noted two small bright spots on the otherwise dark side of the terminator to the South of Sinus Iridium & after a look at the map I think these might have been the Gruithuisen domes catching the sunlight on their 900m uplands (although any other theories welcome...). Some hours later I came back out alone to retrieve the scopes and thought I'd just take a quick last peek at M13.... & that was it for the next 3 hours! After midnight seeing & transparency had become excellent round these parts with Hercules now very high and Cygnus flying parallel to the north eastern horizon. M13 was the best I've seen it so far, comparatively bright and yielding up plenty of points of light with averted vision at around 150x in the Mak + Baader Zoom. I fancied I could see some darker lanes in it but I had had a glass of wine by then, really don't know if that's possible with only 5 inches of aperture. I then enjoyed a colour contrast I could see with Alberio and followed up with some nice crisply split views of the Double Double in Lyra. Remembering my slowly growing Messier count I hunted for M57 the Ring Nebula, something I have so far failed to see many times, as Lyra has been down in the murk earlier in the year even though navigationally it should be a doddle. Well there it was - another one of those "wow" moments, I spotted it at about 75x (20mm) in the Baader Zoom a tiny, wispy circle in a rich star field. More magnification yielded up the central hole and at about 120x I was looking at a tiny but perfect-smoke ring in space two and half thousand light years away, absolutely amazing. I fetched the ST80 over and found it in that too - really, really tiny this time but definitely identifiable. I watched the moon slipping rapidly below the roofline at 188x, the image boiling and shimmering with the air currents coming off the slates, then turned back to the Ring Nebula phone battery by now dead so slewing the Mak manually and letting M57 drift across the field. Might have to pop out and have another go tonight if this high cloud clears...

Pencil marks have hinted at slightly more structure than I could actually see but this is what it “felt” like to view - I’ve never seen M51 before & this view will stay with me.

A “neat” version of my M51 sketch from 17.4.

Thanks @Cloudsweeper - am always on the lookout for my Double's of the Month as the moon waxes and Hydra is a constellation I am yet to explore (come to think of it its one I'm yet to even locate!). I'll definitely give some of these a try. Clear skies!

Thank you - darker sites and more time at the eyepiece it is then

Thanks Don - especially the Plossl suggestion, a filter + Plossl might be an interesting and cost effective experiment to see if I am teasing out the most from the aperture I can

It’s a good point - the more I read the more I think money is better spent on diesel to get to a properly dark site. I’d love a big Dob-bucket but it just doesn’t fit with where I live & the kinds of short notice opportunities I get to go out observing right now, one day though...

It does indeed, I am just wondering if there's a high-end option that would give an appreciable upgrade - the answer is probably "not as much as getting somewhere dark and/or having more aperture".

I meant to note, I put the Mak & AZ GTi on the Manfrotto 55 instead of the supplied SW Star Advenuturer and this gave me a lot more height - I sacrificed a bit in vibration damping but it did mean that viewing pretty much at the zenith was a whole lot more comforatble and I am sure that's what led to success with M51 this time.

Thanks Nik - locating M51 was a genuine thrill as I've pointed at that patch of sky a few times with no joy, although on describing it to my son as a "dim fuzzy blob connected to a smaller dim fuzzy blob by a line of fuzziness" I realised a lot of the thrill is in WHAT you are seeing not, what you are SEEING (or is it vice versa?). On the Triplet, I have caught the Hamburger only on one occasion so far on a night of excellent transparency around last new moon (March 11th) even then it was a peripheral vision target but constant, Saturday night I got the odd glimpse of something there for a second or two but transparency was coming and going so wouldn't class it as "seen". On Eyepieces, thank you - this is very useful as am actively considering if I am working with the best tool for the job - I think the Baader Hyperion 24mm is delivering around2mm in terms of exit pupil (24mm/f12-ish) but have been mulling over whether there's a better solution. Certainly its a much better field and level of contrast than the 244mm end of the Baader Zoom. Reading around it though, it seems that the only surefire improvement would be darker skies and more aperture

Thank you for replying, really interesting. As it stands I've been quite happy with the Baader's performance in the mid range (I'd say 18mm down to 10mm is its sweet-spot) so wasn't really thinking of doubling up in that range. Are are you saying you'd rather barlow a 13mm to get to a higher mag than buy a dedicated short focal length? Also would really value your opinion on an upgrade for that max field 24mm 68 degree - the one that keeps coming up is the Televue 24mm Panoptic.

I found this incredibly useful tonight on a short ST80 recee trying to get some bearings in Virgo. Like you I’ve seen lots of “stuff” but found identification really tough (barring one very nice GoTo with the Mak a couple of weeks ago that landed me clean in M86/4 & NGC 4438 - an amazing field I won’t forget in a hurry!) SE From Vindemiatrix there’s a pronounced curved mini-Corona Borealis formation, then a little higher & round to south, the very clear 4-star “jet plane” asterism around Rho V. Having come back in and re-read your post I am certain that next time I’ll be able to walk along this chain of asterisms to your “T” and move the Telrad-field-or-so up along the way to pick off some targets with more accuracy, rather than just thinking “hmm well that looks a bit fuzzy...” Important to have a plan up that way I feel as pretty quickly I get bewildered & slightly blown away by the idea that what I am seeing is multiple galaxies in one view containing billions and billions of stars. Thanks again & clear dark skies!

I am consulting the hive-mind here... I am a 127Mak user and for the most part I am using a Baader Mk 4 8-24 zoom for general observing, occasionally the dedicated 2.25 Barlow - really only for lunar/planetary. The widest field I can get on the Mak is 1.04 degrees with a 24mm 68 degree AFOV EP - I currently have the Baader Hyperion 24 doing this job. It’s notably better for locating faint fuzzies than the (narrower field) 24mm end of the zoom but I note the Hyperion 24mm gets patchy reviews. Is there a “galaxy hunter” EP in this 24mm 68 degree category that’s going to give me notably better contrast/sharpness worthy of investing? (Or indeed a filter that’s going to make a more than marginal difference?) Likewise with summer globulars rising I’m considering a purchase at the higher mag end beyond the Baader Zoom’s range (at the 8mm end the image does seem to get a bit mushy & with the Barlow I’ve not had much joy on stellar or deep sky targets - great for the moon though!). Been thinking about Vixen NPL or BST Starguider in this context so any experience welcome, or will it blow my socks off on globulars if I save up for a Pentax SMC etc? Lastly - is the Nagler 3-6mm zoom as good as fixed EPs? If so this might be the ultimate glob-busting pocket money saving target... Any experiences, particularly from Mak 127 users, would be really great. Clear skies!