Richard N

Great start. Welcome to the world of meteorology observation.

Nice job. Did you use a mask to keep the shading inside the sun’s disk? The difficulties you describe are what I had been thinking about.

Limb darkening. What’s the best way to hint at this? Faculae sketching - use a white pencil maybe? Ideas?

Out and about in the van. Did some solar observations near Penrith then off to Kielder. Now at Bellingham. Lovely clear night but oh so cold. Solar this morning. Sun very active. Solar filter remains one of my best-buy astro accessories. Campsite is staffed by astronomers and has telescopes to borrow too!

For me it's down to the details of how exactly it operates. Impossible to tell at this stage. Definitely watching it!

Telescope Live replied. They said no to EAA style scheduling.

Angeleyes flip mirror has arrived. It’s quite plasticky but then again it’s only £17. I will report back if I ever get to use it.

Indeed. One can get a bit fed up with endless reports of clear skies in Arizona.

It’s a good place to discuss clouds with geographically similarly challenged folks.

Photo would help.

I have emailed one of the remote observatories to see if an hour of EAA is possible.

There are literally shedloads of remote telescopes these days. Can they be economically used for EAA? I realise this is at odds with the near real time concept but the idea of getting multiple 2 minute exposures of (for example) southern hemisphere objects, might be appealing.

I’m still cleaning mud off things from Cwmdu. Happy memories.

Indeed - but as with levelling I find those to be an unnecessary level of complexity. Each to their own as I said.

Curiously I have never found the need to level my dob. And indeed that’s what I perceive as one of its advantages. Each to his/her own I guess.

These are very much objects for the enthusiast. They don't look remotely interesting in themselves. It's knowing what they are that makes them so special to see.

Should be very simple; even relatively easy...😀 it's one of those exotic things that can actually be seen with very modest gear. Gravitationally lensed quasars being another. Quite exciting seeing these sorts of things from a suburban backyard. I have another interesting object in mind that should also be possible. Probably an Autumn target.

Very nice. More resolution in your image than in mine as expected. 200mm vs 80mm. 80mm is approaching the lower limit to see this under most conditions I expect.

80mm ED scope. GP290M camera.

Nothing different. Folks locally suggested it was just down to atmospheric conditions previously.

An amazing evening. The forecast was good enough for me to set up the scope down the garden to enable a rare view of the southern skies. in all I managed to view 30 new objects (21 of which were Messiers), many very appealing. A few are attached below. 80mm ED GP290M camera. M61, NGC4631, NGC4567.

I have ordered a cheap one to try. The comment about a reducer is interesting. I will have to see how that works out.

I wondered if it would be possible to see M87's relativistic jet with my 80mm scope. I can rarely observe M87 but tonight I gave it a go. And SUCCESS - I can see the relativistic jet. Here is my image and below is an ultraviolet image from the Sloan Deep Sky Survey. Very pleased with this!

Seeing the sky at all is a major challenge here. I’ll happily take whatever “seeing” I get.

Sadly, it has just been announced on the Macc Astro Soc group that Ian passed away earlier today. He had a long and distinguished career both as a professional astronomer and as a keen amateur astronomer too. He was hugely encouraging to newcomers to our hobby and was always happy to answer even the most basic questions. He authored many books and articles - particularly on astrophotography. A great loss to our community. Feel free to share your memories of Ian here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Morison https://www.ianmorison.com/