SuburbanMak

Thanks John - it seems for me the Pup is still out there... This one could run & run

Looked for Sirius B last night, seeing was steady-ish although not as good as the previous night. I was certain I'd seen a ghostly spot at roughly the right distance at around 7/8 o'clock in RACI view. As far as I can tell though this doesn't make sense. For a variety of reasons (detailed elsewhere on here) I didn't make a detailed sketch at the time, I could definitely see a couple of "outlier" stars & recollection of their position tallies with the below. I've gone back on Stellarium and made a quick sketch showing the field at 63x and the view which included my "sighting" at 150x + the FOV for which I've included as an inset circle, in which I have recorded where I saw my "ghost" . My spatial awareness is horrible with respect to the RACI view and rotational changes (Orion was setting diagonally W at this point) so, although I was convinced I was seeing something that looked very much like a faint double, I remain confused as to whether this is a true sighting...

I had an eventful session this evening & not one I’ll forget in a hurry... A bit of haze had gathered over Hampshire as evening fell but seeing looked reasonably steady if not as good as last night. I popped over to my now normal spot in the park a bit earlier than usual & as I did so noted a group of teenagers running along the boundary of the adjacent field. To be expected given my earlier start time & the end of lockdown - to date my park sessions have been amazingly solitary. I opted not to have any music on and maintain a bit more situational awareness than normal. Another small group were enjoying the open air about 400 yards away and the occasional aromatic waft suggested they were perhaps sampling some kind of herbal tobacco... I had just set up and begun aligning on Arcturus & Capella when a very bright white light swept across the rugby pitch (don’t worry this isn’t an alien encounter story). A chap came over and asked if I’d seen four teenagers who were overdue home, I quizzed him a bit and convinced he was more Dad than vigilante told what I’d seen & took his number in case they showed again. To the business of the night then I turned to Sirius, flaring a bit but not too bad with periods of stability & a disc mostly separated from the mess. I tried a range of magnifications with the cleanest view at around 150x (Mak 127, Baader Zoom again). I could clearly see the faint outlying stars either side & was just convincing myself that I was spotting an occasional ghost of something at around 7/8 o’clock (RACI view) on the edges of the flare when another pair of bright lights swept across the field wielded by two large approaching gentlemen. I closed one eye and asked politely (maybe a bit tetchily in retrospect) if they wouldn’t mind turning their lights away. “We just need to know who you are sir” came the unmistakably constabulary reply (do they go on a course to learn that?). I opened my other eye, and then had a nice chat with two chaps in hats, looking for the errant teenagers. Having promised to call 101 if I spotted the abscondees again they went on their way, followed a decent interval later by the other group of herbal cigarette enthusiasts who had fallen understandably quiet during my exchange with Hampshire’s finest. Night vision shot I turned back to the eyepiece and with Sirius’s flare temporarily eclipsed by the effect of the coppers’ lamp saw a trailing ghost of a secondary star at around 7/8 o’clock exactly where I’d had a hint before. I can’t quite work out the positions but am pretty certain based on recent observation of other doubles & past views of Rigel. Bizarre. I looked a while longer and it was in & out then tried Barlowing up to too much magnification - I caught continued glimpses of a pale white spot in the same position but overall the view with the Barlow was not great with lots of coloured flaring. In the end it got hazier & I turned to other targets, back to Tegmine which tonight I could resolve but not clearly split the B&C pair. Polaris was lovely - another faint ghost but with nice dark separation between. View of the night though was Mizar a nice bright white pair, slightly smaller secondary and Alcor & another faint star below making a fab field. Hopefully all those that were on the loose are now safely home - for me a slightly odd but I think (fairly sure) successful session!

Maybe just a quick go at Sirius tonight, and so it goes...

Cheers - yes, a combination of the red filter, minimum brightness & dark mode absolutely make it dim enough to be usable. Last night I took out a couple of photos of pages of the Cambridge Star Atlas & was able to hop between those, Synscan and my notes. Still juggling my notebook, pencil, specs & headtorch for sketches however - maybe there's an app for that too....

Thanks John - not looking too bad up there right now either, although I'm shattered, stayed out waaay longer than I intended to last night

Headed out for the Cancer & Bootes "Full Moon Doubles Match" I'd originally planned for last Friday & that time ended up abandoning due to scrappy seeing , wind & the onset of rain. All observations with SW Mak 127 on AZ GTi, Baader Zoom 8-24mm via Tak prism. Transparency good but a little high mistiness & locally occasional ground mist from the river. Temp around 5 degrees, air quite still. Aligned Arcturus & Capella. Seeing excellent - steady Airy discs and diffraction cones above 30 degrees altitude. Spent some time looking around for & sketching the Cass Nova area, not sure I saw it as M52 not really apparent in the moonlight. Identified a possible candidate in the starfield but needs another look & maybe when better dark adapted/less moon. Castor (Sep: 3.9")- Clean-split white-blue pair with 18mm (83x). Southerly star the larger of the two. Lovely stable view- steady Airy discs with diffraction rings. Confirmed excellent seeing. Iota Cancri (Sep: 30.6") - very pretty, wide-spaced, side by side pair. Split with 24mm from 63x. Orange primary, white/blue secondary. Super view at 16mm *94x). Stable Airy discs. Tegmine, Zeta Cancri (Sep: 6" & 1.1") - Split to 2 stars with 24mm (63x). Peanut shape on B/C revealed at 120x and definitely resolving as 2 faint secondaries with 8mm @ 188x. Overlapping cones/rings but quite distinct central discs. B at 7 o'clock to A. C at 5 o'clock to B, (RACI). Seeing must be really good as splitting the secondary is right on the optical limits of the rig at 1.1". (Chuffed with both the prism purchase - this was essentially why I upgraded - and the fact that I've clearly got lots of astronomy mileage in the Baader Zoom before that department needs upgrading! ) Spent a long time on Tegmine savouring the 83 year old view. Dragged myself away & turning north east the moon was casting long gothic shadows through a low mist, spilling across the field toward me at knee height from the river. Felt like the set of the Thriller video... Aligned back on Arcturus for Bootes orientation - so bright. Golden yellow sun. Lovely. Espilon Bootes, Izar (Sep: 2.9" ) - Split at 8mm, 188x. Once identified could see dialled back to 120x. Brighter yellow primary, smaller bluer second - looked "behind" the other. In each other's cones but distinct. Found it initially quite challenging. Xi Bootes (Sep 7") - Split from 24mm, 63x. Off white primary, small orange secondary at 11 o'clock. Quite lovely. Tawny Owl hooting now to go with the moonlit mist. River mist actually has cleared somewhat. Auriga to West hanging spectacularly. Can hear the town clocks striking midnight across the fields, so still. Gorgeous night. Kappa Bootis (Sep:13.5") - white pair, larger primary, second at 10 o'clock. Also, a pretty trapezium due South, top R corner pair may be double itself. (Confirmed yes, is Iota Bootes (Sep 38.7), with a slightly wider field this would be a double-double). Mu Bootis - Alkalurops (Sep: 108.9 & 2.2") - Wide spaced initial pair, both white. Dim second is at 7 o'clock, maybe double? Shielded moonlight from EP & yes quite sure of it - C faint and at 2 o'clock to B, resolves at 8mm (188x). Clean separation & once achieved almost easier to see with these fainter stars. Another fab one this! 39 Bootis (Sep: 2.7") quite close white pair at 5 o'clock. Struve 1825 (Sep: 4.4) - faint white second at 7o'clock. Clean space between. Lies about 1 fov N of Arcturus (just over a degree). Tired by now I blew out any slight night vision I had by looking at the crinkliest bit of moon I could find, up to max power (428x, 8MM Barlowed x2.25) - turned out to be Mare Crisium region. Views were astonishingly crisp up to c 340x. Apparently there was a TLP square thing I could have seen, certainly enjoyed the shadows from the mountains there and, childishly, the fact that there is one crater named after an Enterprise Captain & another called "Lick" (I know, Jean Picard was a seventeenth century French astronomer...) A few final equipment notes: Telrads dew up really fast. Astrozap shields really do work. Redlight filter for iPhone applied in Accessibility settings & toggled from main control key makes a big difference, no more app alerts popping up with blinding effect! Hometime for a celebratory cup of tea (well it was a school night after all).

Welcome from Winchester! (EDIT: Just noticed you are Fair Oaks Ca, not Fair Oaks a village just outside Winchester in Hampshire, UK! Anyhoo, welcome to the best community online )

The Met Office did have a one-raindrop sign out for that hour to be fair

Thanks Nik I’ll take a look at the book - know a few features & the main mare but it all gets quite complicated toward the pole! Weather looks great in the week fingers crossed the seeing matches!

I'd missed out on the clear skies earlier in the week having been slightly flattened for 48 hours or so by my first Covid jab - glad to feel it was working though and oddly relieved considering I hadn't thought myself unduly worried about getting the virus. When SGL-ers were putting out the big guns on the moon this week though I hadn't felt much like standing in a field at midnight, consequently I was particularly keen to get out Friday for some observing. Last full moon I'd canvassed the hive-mind on here and picked up a fantastic moonwashed target list and enjoyed a couple of fabulous nights centred on Double Stars. I set out armed with a hit list of Doubles, mainly in Bootes and a plan to have a look at Porrima in Virgo and Alpha Herculi. The wind was stronger and a lot colder than I'd bargained for and at midnight-thirty or so there was much more cloud around than the forecast window on both CO and Met Office cloud cover. Moonlight was casting shadows & playing on high cloud leaving only mag 3+ or so stars visible naked eye. My mid rugby-pitch spot took on an unexpected arctic tundra feel... Aligned on Vega and Arcturus, noting that both looked a bit blobby in the Mak 127 & Baader Zoom. Epsilon Bootes - had thought to start the evening with what looked on paper like a gem and doable split of 2.9 arc seconds - but no, the wind vibration was too much - I couldn't tell what was what. Porrima - definitely split this at around 150x but mushy view - the magnification required wasn't really supported by the seeing & flitting cloud. I'll count it as split but need to revisit to get that nice crisp view & "Oooh" moment! At this point I gave up on the list, chilled out, stuck some music on and trained both the Mak 127 and ST80 (on a new-to-me EBay Manfrotto 55 & ball head) on the moon, well if you can't beat them... Cloud was by now thickening and I watched it scudding past the almost full lunar disc in wide-field in the ST80 at 17x, quite beautiful. I noted a really bright, white spot both in the ST80 & naked eye in the NW quadrant and in a brief gap in the cloud trained the Mak to that area and cranked up the magnification. Finally got my "ooh" moment for the night looking at what I later checked as Aristarchus and Herodotus craters - the first so bright and the second contrastingly shadowed. I "flew" across to the terminator and down to the pole vowing to spend more time familiarising myself with lunar geography. I felt the first raindrop and, based on the lessons of a lifetime of hill-walking, figured that as raindrops rarely travel alone it was time to rapidly get some lens caps on and beat a retreat. It was raining steadily & properly cold as I trudged back but I'd renewed my wonder at the moon & really enjoyed a new mount for the ST80. Spent a nice hour thawing out with a whisky and map of the moon.

Sounds like an awesome piece of kit and a superb "greatest hits" tour as first light - Clear Skies!

Thank you @Pixies - some nice targets to focus on while the moon is dominant.

Spent some quality time with M13 on Friday night/Saturday morning with both a 127 Mak & an ST80. Seeing was preventing any benefit from magnification above 120x but at that I was seeing a nice ball with some granularity and stars popping in and out of resolution across the view, especially with averted vision. Really lovely view that commanded a long look. Was definitely better as it got higher in the sky and the moon correspondingly lower! In the ST80 it was an indistinct fuzzy ball but the two views side by side really gave scale. My notes to self are to go after globulars when i) seeing will tolerate higher magnification, ii) they are as high in the sky as possible & iii) there is no moon to interfere.

Thanks @Nik271 - your detective work is very much appreciated here, following peer-review I will log this as M94 You make a good point on including orientation in a sketch - amended... + Here's both tubes facing M13

Skies started to clear as I was finishing work on Friday and checking the Met Office Cloud Cover forecast things looked happier than on Clear Outside for my part of the world, so I took my go -bag out into the garden to cool & crossed my fingers for later. When the rest of the house went to bed I sneaked out through silent streets close to midnight, the crescent moon with its full disc illuminated by Earthlight was dipping in the West near Aldebaran & the Pleiades and there were fine, high skeins of mist with tantalising clear patches between. Seeing was quite steady and transparency good outside of those streaks of high mist which meant about 60% of the sky looked in good shape. I'd made a list of spring galaxies to go for starting with M94 after reading @Pixies report on here, I figured I'd start with that and see how it went, working my way to fainter targets as conditions allowed. I've relaxed into my observing spot in the park and decided I would invest a bit more time setting up & bring both the Mak 127 on an AZGTi and the ST 80 on a photo tripod. I will be doing that again... I was using a Baader Hyperion 24mm 68 degree in the Mak which gives its maximum TFOV of just over a degree and put a Baader 8-24mm Zoom in the ST80. I aligned the Mak on the top 2 stars suggested by Synscan and noted the gradual turning of the season- it was midnight and it had me point at Vega & Arcturus, spring really is well on the way! Focussed in an out on Vega and enjoyed some lovely round patterns either side of focus. On to Cor Caroli which made a lovely clean white pair at 63x, stayed there for a while. Hit GoTo for M94 and after some searching settled on a nice fuzzy patch with a brighter centre and some definite surrounding nebulosity, soaked it in for a bit and made a sketch (ahem, VERY rough). Everything was a bit uncomfortably close to the Zenith - haven't really solved the whole observing position thing yet, not sure I can carry one of those big wooden chairs about but mean to experiment with the cheapo camping chairs in the cupboard and see if it helps, until then a degree of neck-ache remains inevitable (or better target selection!) . Meantime I'd sought out the Double Cluster with the ST80 and was really pleased to get a lovely view with neat round points and some colour apparent in one or two of the orangey members. May just be a novelty but having a break from peering at faint fuzzy things to take in a wide field view of a favourite object really added to the enjoyment for me. With the Mak I went on to search for M51 & M63 but couldn't find anything having hunted around for a bit but was having no joy. Later with Stellarium and the atlas I've become almost certain I'd landed on M63 by mistake - be interested in any opinions based on my sketch (gives the RACI view from the Mak 127 i.e. reversed LR) In the end I gave up and put both 'scopes on M13 and enjoyed my best views of the Great Hercules Cluster yet. I switched the Zoom into the Mak and played with all magnifications from 63x - 188x, much above 120x wasn't adding much but at that power stars were resolving in and out across the cluster - literally breathtaking. The contrasting wide-field view in the ST80 gave scale and context - really enjoyable way to appreciate a real gem. Seeing, heavy dew and numbing toes conspired around the same time to send me home to warm and mull over whether I'd identified M94 or not.

Totally nailed the “which ‘scope to take out” question tonight...

Great choice for getting out under the stars & a great review thank you, really enjoyed reading it. I bought my ST80 as a complement to a 127 Mak to give those wider fields and am currently enjoying the best of both worlds (or other worlds!). Both are portable, the ST80 even more so & I find lends itself to quick sessions when I am not sure of the weather and also the second session of the night when I've already done some quite detailed concentrated observing/object hunting & just fancy getting out and looking at some sparkly things. Mount wise, I am using the SW AZGTi on a Star Adventurer tripod which works very well across both and is bomb-proof for the ST80. Currently in two minds on mount upgrade path - 1 option is the Manfrotto type photo-tripod + AZ5 as dedicated grab n go, the other is something heavier in the tripod department & a SkyTee for both scopes, leaving the AZGTi/Star Adventurer for grab & go. (BTW my experience so far has been that its an easy misconception that Maks are only any good for the planets and moon - the 127 resolves some very tight doubles and I am finding superb on the tight Messier clusters, both of which are good target types from an urban location. I am even having some joy with spring galaxies, although more locating & "ticking off" than seeing detail. Telrad + finderscope solved for the narrow field & there are only a few objects that don't fit the field - but you'd have the ST80 for those...). Clear skies and have fun!

If it's really dark where you're hiking 10x50's, roll-mat & a really good sleeping bag. (Add hip-flask as optional...)

Thanks - I reckon there's a few weeks of observing to be had across Leo & Virgo just working out what I am actually seeing, find a rough sketch of the field really helpful later. I mean to go back with a plan, have a couple of regions to explore based on a central brighter (relatively) galaxy. Probably just end up sitting back and drinking it all in again though...

Thank you! I was hoping to get out last night - Clear Outside & Met Office looked good, scope went in the garden to cool & only clouds...

“Shoogling” - nice.

Thank you great report & gave me a proper Scooby-Doo moment when I realised you were on the other side of the planet. I had my first view of the Leo Triplet this week too - it’s a mind blowing hobby this, staring 35 million years into the past across unimaginable distance almost at the same time as someone on the other side of the globe observes the same thing, & you’ve other stars (& Magellanic Clouds!) to see that are completely unknown to me, but we can all share it on here - tiny humans united in wonder at the vastness.

Great report thank you! After I stripped my ST80 down last week I noticed some up/down play in the focuser - I was able to eradicate this by tightening the two tiny hex screws on the outside of the barrel. they push down in on a little plastic bush about 2 1/2 inches long housed in the casing above the silvery barrel. Seems this gives some control of the level of friction & play, I guess if you tightened them differentially they would fine adjust the tilt of the focus tube. Worth a go maybe.

What a great picture! The scale is humbling & to think you’re also at that point looking 11 Million years back in time too...