Ags

I mean the diffraction effects of a small aperture. Stopping down a camera lens to f22 causes a loss of sharpness (at least on bench tests) so a tiny lens that is really not much more than a pinhole must suffer similarly?

Was this done with AI?

You can fit a lot on a 120MM sensor clearly!

More like Wrath of the Copyright Lawyers 😀

Yes that suggests I could get away with the 485MC, but it looks like a tight fit. I may have an opportunity to pick up a mono KAF8300 CCD which I think will work better.

I wonder, glass is harder and can take a higher polish I expect. My plastic 'glasses' are fine for everyday use at 1x magnification, but a telescope magnifies substantially. I wonder how phone lenses really work at all, as they are so small their resolution is surely severely impacted? I have a pair of glasses for long distance that I use only for astronomy. They seem to correct my astigmatism nicely but as far as I know they only correct the major components of astigmatism, so the satisfactory view of stars may be more of an illusion created by zero magnification.

Last night I finished writing the potted descriptions of all asteroids featured in the book. I can move on to writing the intro sections now. We are about 30% through editing the charts.

Did you have to collimate it?

I am getting a new setup in the coming weeks, including an equatorial mount, a guide camera and an ASIAIR. I have wondered about getting a Star Analyser for years but with a guided setup I think it may be time. I would be using it with a C6 reduced to 945 mm, or alternately with a refractor with focal length of 500 mm. The trouble is my ASI 485 MC is a color camera, and my incoming ASI 120 MM has a tiny sensor and larger pixels. Are either of these cameras viable for a Star Analyser?

Hmmm, somehow it seems wrong that the Isaac Newton Telescope is not a Newtonian... 😀 I look forward to the results of your efforts.

I never feel the cold when observing. Tending the machines while imaging is cold though!

I like to go out visual observing without electronics. But many of these targets are exceedingly faint, so for those I am more likely to key in the RA and Dec coordinates into a computer thing. That's why the book also includes an ephemeris table for each object. I've toyed with writing an app (I have written a few) but there are many excellent astronomy apps already.

Glimpsed Betelgeuse between the clouds - intensely red.

For the sake of balance, I will add that my minimum viewing pleasure was with a 150PDS. No fault of the scope, it was just undermounted.

More like millions

Ah, I only meant that Triton was probably a captured TNO, and maybe one day Pluto will join it in orbit around Neptune.

Edited my earlier post with the correct ratio: 1/10,000. No body in the Solar System has removed everything from its orbit. Even Jupiter has thousands of sizeable asteroids sharing its orbit. Earth has a few bits bouncing around in its Lagrange points.

Pluto is 1/10,000 the mass of Neptune. From Pluto's point of view it hasn't started clearing it's orbit. From Neptune's point of view Pluto is just the moon that got away

It's not hard to achieve, e.g. 3x Barlow + 2.4 mm eyepiece.

When I first look through a scope I am doubtful and sceptical, so it takes a while to enjoy a scope. I'd say the one that most consistently exceeds my expectations is my Zenithstar 66, so I enjoy that the most.

Was looking at Jupiter, the Moon and Sirius with my ZS66 and Svbony 3-8. Intrigued by something @Mr Spock said about variable polarising filters, I did try a single polarising filter to see if it might reduce scatter. Jupiter looked good unfiltered at 130x, but seemed subtly more defined and stable with the filter, which was a surprising result. I'll try it with a bit more aperture on another night. Next up was Sirius and my quixotic pursuit of the Pup - a forlorn quest with the ZS66 which can't quite manage Polaris' companion. Nevertheless there seemed less scatter again with the polarising filter. I thought I glimpsed something near Sirius but a check indoors with handy book on double stars indicated the position angle for my glimpse was wrong. The Moon was nearly full so even the slight filtering of the polarising filter was welcome. Detail seemed incredibly sharp on the terminator even at 130x. I wonder if I upgraded to a "better" grab and go refractor, would the views actually improve in any noticeable way?

The big pink blob is M42 and the smaller pink blob is M43. Your camera is sensitive to red hydrogen emissions so it looks pink but your eyes are much more sensitive to the green oxygen emissions so you saw it as green in your initial report.

Well, the air density is 1% of Earth's, so not a complete vacuum, but still low enough to make your blood boil.

The thought of a flying machine operating in the dusty vacuum that is Mars’ atmosphere is quite thrilling. And it made over 70 flights.

Orion Nebula, with the little Trapezium cluster of stars at its heart?