SuburbanMak

After a day of mixed weather skies looked very clear Thursday 11/3 so headed out around 9pm to take advantage of a moonless night. Walking in straight from bright lights seeing & transparency were looking good - double cluster & beehive were naked eye visible with direct vision and some Messier dustiness in Auriga with an averted view. I had a vague plan to have a proper go at the Leo Triplet & had spent a bit of time on stellarium to plan how to star-hop in via Chertan & L73. First though I North aligned SynScan on Sirius and Mars (the top 2 suggestions thrown up by the app) & slewed to the the Pleiades to check alignment, which was good. Couldn't resist having a look at the double cluster from there which was so crisp and deep, then via M34 also looking good, to M42 (of course). The Orion nebula was the best I've seen it yet, looking directly at the Trapezium I could see 5 stars & real cloudy swirls above and below, panning upward there was a hint of dust in the running man area, couldn't discern the running man shape, but haven't seen this much before. Moving on up, Sigma Orionis was such a perfect little system & I toyed with the idea of binning galaxy hunting altogether and going after some close Doubles - Sirius even looked quite steady. I resisted as dark adaption was by now starting to work, before leaving the area though I had a quick go at finding M79, a low-down globular in Lepus most of which constellation was just about visible merging into the LP above the centre of town to the South. I keyed it into the GoTo & was surprised by a short slew to the E. Looking in the eyepiece I saw...something, very faint, grey glow around two dim fuzzy stars with a hint of dark lane between, not the expected Globular - checking again it turned out that I had entered M78 by mistake but there it was, a bonus nebula - not visually spectacular but nice to find & fascinating to look-up later. I made a quick sketch to confirm and tried for M79, but no, far too low by now. I figured night vision was by now good enough to have a crack at the Leo Triplet and took a GoTo to Regulus & centred. I had manually added Chertan and 73 Leonis to the app and duly centred them to get the best possible local alignment. Putting L73 in the top L of the field I should be able to pick up M66 bottom right. I couldn't be sure so moved in a pattern around & picked up a fuzz patch. Small adjustments gave me a field with two luminous patches to L & R with a star at the top, I couldn't work this out and they were faint enough to be on the borders of imagination. Everything passed behind a bank of thin cloud for a few moments and I used the time to sketch (incredibly roughly) what I had seen so far. As the cloud cleared away it weirdly helped confirm that the two luminous patches were absolutely real & I gave them a bit more concentrated attention with averted vision. As I did so a third area top R of field made itself vaguely apparent. My expectation management on galaxies is now starting to get a bit more realistic so I let this one sit for a while and added its general position to my sketch. Still baffled by the field related to what I was sure was L73 I made as good a sketch as I could of both the EP & finder fields for later confirmation ( struggling with glasses on/off, red headtorch & not wanting to fire up the bright phone app as magnitude was so marginal). I took a last long look and resolved to figure it out with the atlas & app back home. I later realised that what I had done is, after panning around, manage to confuse the star L73 with a fainter close by star (HD98388-apparently) and had absolutely been looking at all three galaxies in the Leo Triplet - the sketch, although crude, gave me no doubt that I had landed in the right spot this time, just the satisfaction was deferred until I was back inside - something I am fast learning goes with the territory of galaxy hunting with a small scope! 36 Million light years though, a new personal space-travel record I moved on to other Leo Messier galaxies & took a quick look at M95 & M96 which I found relatively easily, a dim pair of headlights but no detail, then wandered across to Makarian's chain and marvelled at the sheer number of little fuzzy signatures that wouldn't resolve to points. Concentration was waning a bit by this stage so I decided to save trying to identify precisely what I was seeing to another night when I could be out later and see them higher out of the murk. I finished with the Mak back on M81 & 2 which looked bright by comparison and gave hints of some spiral & shading detail on this night of exceptional transparency - amazing crisp view with them both in the widest field the Mak can deliver (just over 1 degree with a 24mm Baader Hyperion fixed, 63x). As I packed up the scope the naked eye panorama was just fab and seemed after so much dim fuzzy concentration, incredibly bright. I finished with a 15 minute tour of open clusters with a pair of 10x50s that was really stunning. So many stars in the double cluster, the Alpha Perseii , Pleiades, Hyades & Orion's belt just gorgeous whilst the Beehive lived up to its name like a swarm of fireflies. Starting to enjoy galaxy hunting for its own sake but for sheer beauty the binoculars had it tonight. A great couple of hours that left my mind in time & space for a long while after I got back. M78: Leo Triplet:

Super report thank you & I second that transparency was at times outstanding last night - I was out 9-11 in central Hampshire & chased down some faint targets (at least for me in a Mak 127) - rewarding in their own way but it was my 10x50 sweep of open clusters at the end of my session that was breathtaking & like you I have rarely seen so many stars in the double cluster against a deep background of not-quite-resolved stars. Inspiring writing, thank you. Maybe some similar conditions for a time tomorrow night, I will certainly be seeking out M1.

@Laurieast These are fantastic pictures - almost makes me want to buy the EQ conversion kit for the AZGTi - did you take at prime focus with a DSLR & if so what kind of exposures were involved?

Have just got round to reading about Tycho Brae's Moose - what an extraordinary story! And in fact he's quite an extraordinary character all round, with an extraordinary moustache....!

Inspired by the various videos and upgrade stories on here I took the plunge and took the ST80 to bits last weekend & lavished some TLC. I painted the inner baffles with blackboard paint with an artist's brush. (Reminded me of painting airfix models as a kid) & flocked the inside of the tube on either side of the baffle with sticky backed flock from FLO. Its very easy to use as the glue is not too sticky and I was able to peel it off and adjust quite easily until I had it looking neat. I also flocked the inside of the dew shield as I had plenty on the roll. I used a kebab stick to puncture screw holes in the flock. By this time I was feeling brave so I blacked the edges of the lenses with a few coats from a Sharpie, I marked an arrow across the two lens edges so that I could put it back again in the right orientation (& made sure I didn't colour over that little bit). I gave them a clean with a Baader lens cleaning kit (which was suspiciously expensive, its essentially a lens cleaner cloth and an isopropyl alcohol squirter quite sure I could've got similar from Specsavers much cheaper but I am told it has special telescope things in it...) Getting them back in position was very easy following the instructions in the video - balancing the lens objective facing down on my hand on the lens cloth and then bringing the tube down vertically on them, the lenses are then seated by arching your palm upward a bit and you can feel when they are properly in place. Then you gently screw the front lens retaining ring back on and then back it off slightly to avoid pinching the optics (which I read as getting the lenses pushed unevenly anywhere). Last lap was to black the interior of the focuser, there were a few shiny tube ends and the end of the stainless steel focuser rack quite near the optical path which got sorted out. Then take the rack & pinion apart and clean off the old thick grease with WD40 and an old toothbrush and replace it with lithium grease. I don't own a laser collimator so I was super careful about marking the tube-focuser alignment with tape so I could be as close as possible to the original alignment, not sure that is an approved technique but when I got it back together all seems to be OK with nice tight stars! So, did it make any difference? I got out for one short session with it on Sunday night & I do think that contrast is definitely improved and the focuser is nicer to use. Also the flock has a side effect of tightening up all the joins & dew-shield fit, so the whole thing feels a bit more "together". CA wasn't really an issue, but then I wouldn't expect that on the night's targets. Before the cloud rolled in I was rewarded with some lovely crisp views of the Beehive, Pleiades and Double Cluster - gorgeous at all magnifications offered by the Baader Zoom (17x - 50x). To test it more at the margins I was able to get a nice wide field view of a tiny M81 & M82, really brought home the vastness. I was also was able to track down M53 (recognisable globular no individual stars resolved) and M64 (just, no detail at the very limit of visibility and had to confirm that what I'd seen was in fact in the right place back in the warm with the atlas.) Very easy, well worth the effort and small expenditure and learned a lot. Next phase will be learning collimation and I suspect the ST80 will be a good test bed to experiment with there too!

Thank you - this is really lovely feedback & everyone commenting here obviously derive huge value from sketching what they see. I will definitely be doing more as soon as the clouds clear - probably picking fewer targets for my next sessions to allow time, really feels like a development of the hobby.

This is useful and more reliable looking than the Ursa Minor example I found earlier - thank you!

That is an impressive Messier tally! I do think its worth "ticking them off" as its making me hunt down different types of object and make a pretty good introductory course in observation. Your sky conditions sound very good indeed - I am Bortle 5 in the Park and more like 8 in the garden! We are now though perilously close to the end of lockdown which will open up some better sites on the S Downs near me, hoping to tick off some more of those spring galaxies... Clear (& dark) skies!

Thank you - this makes sense, I think, what you are saying is that transparency isn't an absolute. As a working guide though this kind of fits with your point leveraging NELM but absolutely hear that you need to factor in seeing, especially if it is really poor... Transparency: How clear is the sky? Transparency is a measure of what you can see in the nighttime sky in spite of dust, smoke, haze, humidity, or light pollution. An easy way to measure this is to use the magnitude of the faintest star you can see. Ideally, this would be looking straight up at zenith. But, to make life simpler, you can use the Little Dipper (Ursa Minor) if you can see it. Here is the scale. 1 - If you can't see Polaris. 2 - If you can only see Polaris. 3 - If you can see the two stars on the end of the bowl of the Little Dipper (Kochab and Pherkad). 4 - If you can see any of the stars in the handle of the Little Dipper. 5 - If you can see 6 of the 7 stars in the Little Dipper. 6 - If you can see all 7 stars in the Little Dipper. 7 - If you can see stars near the Little Dipper that are not part of the stick figure. (I envy your young eyes...) Although atmospheric extinction will vary from season to season, and from latitude to latitude, using the Little Dipper is a simple and reasonable solution.

Thank you - those Gifs are great, makes me realise that some of what I have occasionally interpereted as an inabilty to focus and attributed to scope-cooling, general equipment problem or user error is in fact a Seeing issue! On Transparency I do think there is a link with LP particularly in an area like mine where the river causes frequent mist at low levels once the dew-point is reached, the worse the transparency at ground-level the greater the impact of localised LP (not necessarily as you say much impact on LP at the zenith). On Sunday for example I noticed slight mist-cones beneath the street lights as I walked out to my observing spot & sure enough struggled as the evening wore on. Also for both measures I am finding the picture can vary greatly between say 30 degrees and the zenith, almost worth noting readings for each.

Perfect ! Thank you - this is exactly the thing...

I am reasonably comfortable now with the difference between seeing and transparency but am finding that I am capturing them in a pretty vague way in my observing notes. I use phrases like 'steady" or "a bit milky" without them being part of a graduated comparative scale. Are there easily observable (i.e. without using instrument readings) scales for these things akin to the Bortle scale for LP or Beaufort scale for wind? And if so what are the observable phenomena or checks that you use to make a judgement? I have remembered my Ladybird Book of Weather phrases like "0 - Calm, smoke rises vertically from chimneys" or "2 - Light Breeze, small twigs and branches moving" & found them useful my whole life, it would be great to have a similar set of "rules of thumb" for seeing and transparency. My goal I guess is to get to a simple graded scale I can use in notes for visual observing probably no more complex than 0 - No observation possible, 1-Poor, 2-moderate, 3-good, 4 very good, 5-exceptional. When either condition is either very, very good or very, very bad they are easy to describe but I'd be interested in what heuristics people use in the field to gauge seeing and transparency in between the extremes and map those to the scale above (like the smoke/chimneys thing.) Do you start, for example, with a quick look at a Double, if so which and what is the impact under different conditions? Do you look out for particular diffraction patterns creeping in? Anything you use to shape your sessions, choose or discount particular targets or equipment selections based on field judgements about seeing and transparency would be really valuable experiences to read for me and much appreciated.

Just got one through my letter-box, looks very good indeed and actually pocket sized.

Thank you @Tiny Clanger - I can certainly see me doing more observing this way and as you say, it makes for deeper looking. I have been so keen to get out and find all these exciting things since getting the bug again that I have been guilty of a bit of list ticking. Starting to tackle fainter objects means closer observation & more effort to find them which translates to wanting to spend more time on the target - having finally found M63 the other night for example, I wasn't in a hurry to leave. Even though it was the faintest of smudges with the ST80 I wanted to record the stars around it partly to come back and confirm with the big atlas (& a nice warm brew!) that I had in fact seen what I thought I had, sketching seems a perfect partner to this kind of observation. I too have done lots of regular photography with SLRs & DSLRs over the years & I whilst can see the appeal of imaging, some astonishing things are possible with amateur equipment, its almost a different hobby. For me right now though there is appeal in the sheer wonder of being able to see photons that have crossed unimaginable distances with my own biological image-processing & rendering power (limited though that certainly is!). Bodes galaxy is 12 million light years away - the light I was lucky enough to collect on Friday night started out roughly when the "missing-link" species started to look a bit different to the other great apes, blimey. I like the thought of being able to record all that organically, here's my latest thinking on an expensive guidance and imaging set-up...

Thank you @Kon - its a start, M82 looks like it felt to view, pleased with that - Bode's itself isn't quite right, but then I have a reason to go back...

Fascinated by the idea of using the eye & brain as the “camera” to sketch a negative then processing in PS. Very much a first attempt to capture the view of my first galaxies beyond our own & M31.

Welcome! Give that field a try! I am theoretically in a Bortle 5 area but the neighbour’s homage to Blackpool illuminations coupled with ever proliferating security lights drove me to try the local park. From the centre of the rugby pitch I can see more sky and negate a lot of local LP + get properly dark adapted. Also seeing conditions make a huge difference wherever you are, enjoy!

Super report thank you and sounds like a fantastic session - you’ve definitely given me some new targets there! Here’s to clear & dark skies!

I think some of it is experience -it’s been a surprise just how faint some of these things are in the finder but I am just starting to get a feel for when something tiny & slightly fuzzy might be something more under magnification.

Thank you - I like that element of the hobby too & it’s something that really is enabled by the online forum. Reading observing reports on here certainly gives inspiration to get out there under the stars. I am still a little bit in target-bagging mode, like a kid in a sweetshop - want to go back and spend a bit more time observing some of these objects. I had a few tries a finding M1 from the back garden when I first had the scope in December and Taurus was well placed in my narrow Easterly slice of sky. Couldn’t see it even though I low I was theoretically pointing at the right but of sky - you’ve reminded me though and I’ll have another shot now I’ve got a bit more used to how small & faint some I’d these things are. Whereabouts in France are you? I am lucky enough to get to spend some summers in the Perigord & the dark skies there are pristine!

Thanks - I got a good 2 hrs & it came to a natural end with cold feet, cloud & dead phone batteries!

@tonylumley - got out with the new prism last night. Had intended to do a side by side comparison but it’s so much better it wasn’t really necessary. Messier open clusters really pop and focus to pinpoints in a way they weren’t with the SW supplied diagonal. Lots of contrast, inky black backgrounds and nice colour transmission. Eta Cassiopeia looked stunning. More than anything it feels as if I am looking through the telescope rather than at an image, if that makes any kind of sense at all. Posted some more detail here:

The promised hole in the sky duly materialised tonight over Hampshire and, barring the odd drifting bank of high cloud, delivered some fantastic views before moon-rise. I'd been mulling over upgrading from the supplied SW prism for a while and having enjoyed splitting doubles over the full moon plumped for a Tak prism which arrived in the week. Tonight I was keen to test this on some familiar winter clusters and add a few of the Messier objects I'd missed before they slip over the spring horizon. I've done enough trips to the park unmolested to now feel quite comfortable & so took my time aligning (AX GTi N. align Arcuturs, Sirius). I slewed confidently to my first target M48 and... nothing. A bank of cloud had drifted in and covered the E/SE sky. I headed West without a plan, lingering on M42 until the cloud caught up and then across to M36-8 in Auriga, Mars, M45, a quick couple of doubles Eta Cassiopeia looking really stunning with the new prism - subtly contrasting yellow/white colours, nice separation and apparent "size" difference. The Double Cluster confirmed that either tonight was exceptional or that I've invested well. Really loving the combination of the Baader Hyperion 24mm, Mak 127 with a nice new prism (did I mention that?) Very crisp pin points in faint cluster stars, easier to define focus and inky black backgrounds - gorgeous views. I'd initially worried that the Mak's narrow field of view meant I'd made a "wrong" choice for a main scope but I am getting so much out of clusters and doubles that it does seem much more usable than just a lunar/planetary specialist - thank goodness. I'd swung well round toward the North West by now and with cloud still obscuring my intended targets to the SE I decided to take another swipe at M81/2 Bodes & Cigar galaxies having been assured these are realistic urban targets with my setup (thank you @Nik271). The goto kind of worked and I picked up a faint smudge in the finder almost by accident then confirmed with more deliberate averted vision. I centred M81 and was very chuffed - a galactic first for me outside of M31. I tried all the magnification possibilities I had in my pockets but it didn't really yield much beyond a central core and an outer halo. The best view was at 63x when I adjusted slightly and pulled M82 into the same frame - I looked at this for a long time, it was almost overhead and neck-ache became the limiting factor or I'd still be out there. Heartened, I took another look for the Leo triplet as the constellation was perfectly placed to the E but nope - that one is still out there... The cloud by now had moved off so, by way of a stop off at M3 as I passed Arcturus (lovely, dim, diamond-granular ball at 150x) I moved on to my intended target list in the hinterland between Procyon & Sirius and bagged a few more Messier clusters. I ended the evening with a cruise back up through M67 & the Beehive, sneaky extra peek at the Double & Owl clusters in Perseus then back to M81 - just to prove it was real. As I walked back at frosted midnight all was silent, the line of Orion's belt was setting, a couple of degrees above the rooftops and the cloud was closing in from the East.

Reached a similar conclusion today after squinting at Sky Safari these past months & have ordered the Cambridge Atlas - Herschel objects edition. Getting more analogue by the day, carry on like this and I’ll be sketching before long...

Sure - this is bought as an upgrade to the supplied SW star diagonal. I’ve gone for a prism as the Mak is long focal so I read that CA will not be an issue. Also, as I’ve been enjoying observing double stars recently I want to get the best out of the OTA, I understand that prisms display less scatter. This one because i) it’s lightweight & my setup is all about portability, ii) it’s the only item from Tak I am ever likely to be able to afford & iii) it was in stock - which is a rarity. When I get chance to test I’ll post some notes and tag you@tonylumley