Ags

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

I will be using an ASIAIR with an electronic finder (ASI120MM/ASI485MC and Askar FMA135) and visual scope - currently a C6 but maybe later in the year I will have a 8" scope to play with. The finder can plate solve to the target and can also record an EEA snapshot as I go. Maybe an EEA scrapbook will encourage me to keep better records!

I have tried to keep lists but I am pretty chaotic and haphazard, so it always peters out and gets forgotten. I also have really bad light pollution to contend with... I am getting a new setup and may have another go at lists. Using a hybrid EEA/visual approach with plate solving I might be able to make some headway.

i did an earlier run of 1 hour each for ash and control, with less ash and I got an 11 vs 7 result, which seemed quite inconclusive. I wanted to try again with three hours of data each for ash and control with a lot more ash, but Sharpcap kept crashing, so I ended up with two hours on each.

I did a bit of moongazing toninght aided by a newly purchased book, Moongazing. Coincidentally, I was looking around the time the Moon drifted in front of a relatively bright star - 136 Tauri (mag. 4.56). Not quite the Pleiades, and my puppy distracted me at the crucial moment but still a nice occultation. Using my ZS66 at about 130x magnification, I could make out masses of sharp detail. I could see hints of rilles in Gassendi, and I watched sunrise over Aristarchus - over the course of the session Aristarchus rapidly increased in brightness.

Yes, I thought the MN190 would be a bit much. If I could add a handle, the C9.25 would be a contender. On reflection, I may keep the C6 for photographic duties. When the HEM15 arrives I will try it out through galaxy season. Instead I may sell my 90 mm refractor to fund the CC8. I find I am more happy taking the much lighter ZS66 out for grab and go sessions, so maybe the 90 mm was a case of aperture fever… I should have saved a bit longer and got an FC76DCU…

There is a natural level of background radiation so the traces are not necessarily cosmic rays, although that would be very cool! I was just trying to see if I could detect a signal from something terrestrial. I hear a lump of granite is also a good thing to try.

I heard elsewhere on the forum that trees absorb fallout from nuclear accidents like Chernobyl, and this pollution is further concentrated in wood ash. On the same thread I learned that radiation leaves detectable trails on astro cameras, like the following. Sometimes the radiation particle makes an easily distinguished streak like the above. Other times the strike is visible as a cluster of bright pixels instead. I have collected 2.4 kgs of wood ash and made minute long dark frame exposures with the camera on top of the ashpile (131 subs) and a similar number of control subs (120) . The goal was 200 of each but SharpCap crashed twice. Of course confirmation bias may rear its head here, but I count 16 strikes for the ash-exposed run versus 8.7 for the control (a fractional amount because I adjusted for the different number of subs in each run). The green-dot one is exposed to ash, while the red-dot one is the control. The subs were stacked using the brightest pixel from each sub. The same subs in each run were separately stacked as darks.

HEM15 and ASIAIR MINI are showing as in stock at FLO. Only the ASI120MM is still pending.

Or keep the 130 and mount it on an AZGTI.

GRS: Gradually Reducing Spot. Sorry to derail the thread - I wanted to mention it is a very nice smooth and natural-looking image.

AmI getting old, or does the Great Red Spot look smaller each year?

Just how much does an 11" Mak weigh?

Yes Rupes Recta, the Straight Wall, although it really just the Straight Very Gentle Slope. It was very prominent tonight, as was Clavius.

Thanks, they are the same price so when I have the cash I will really make the decision. However I think the CC8 can be obtained this year and may convince me with its own optical qualities, at least for a few years.

Yes it would only make sense for visual. Does it have to be a variable polarising filter or can I get away with a single polarizing filter?

Went out with my I'm Not Bothered setup - the same one as in my avatar, but set up on a very light and tall tripod. Eyepiece was the Svbony 3-8 Zoom, why use anything else? Jupiter was very sharp down to the 3mm setting on the zoom and the moon was a mass of detail - I felt the scope could have pushed to even higher magnification tonight, if I had a suitable eyepiece. I had a long look at the Trapezium, I am convinced I glimpsed the E star. Encouraged by that I tried some unequal doubles - Rigel and Polaris - unsuccessfully, and took easy Castor as a consolation prize.

Yes I would also be using this scope as my 'light bucket" on DSOs so an aberration-free field of up to one degree is important to me and a consideration vs the Mewlon. Like you I do my DSO observing in the 1-2mm exit pupil range, but I'd go up to 3mm for things like th Double Cluster. The Mewlon spot diagram is perfect in the center of the field but quite appalling further out. I have seen planet spikes with a 150PDS, and I feel those planetary views were my best ever (very much let down by the scope being horribly undermounted), so I don't know if they will bother me that much. Mr Spock's polarizer tip is interesting but I don't know if the CC8 gather enough light for filtration. It might be an interesting option to try when doing double stars. I wonder if it could help with picking out Sirius's companion?

@Mr Spock that's blown my mind!

Hyperions are lovely solar system eyepieces in a slow scope.

Did that with my ZS66 tonight!

While walking Wurzel the Jack Russel tonight we saw some clear skies and saw Jupiter within a couple of degrees of the Moon. When I got back I set up with the ZS66 and a 30 mm plossl, with the goal of observing our Moon and the 4 Galilean moons in the same FOV. The view was poor with the plossl as Jupiter was in the outer field and astigmatism severely distorted the little moons, I couldn't even count them. I changed to a sharper eyepiece (Explore Scientific 20/68) and the view was still poor. Also Jupiter's moons were not only distorted but also green... I had forgotten there was a cheapo green moon filter screwed in the EP! Filter removed and I finally had a clear view of all five moons. And I learned something - my moon filter is horrible and can go in the bin.

I'm calculating second-hand prices of CC8s vs resale value of a C6, AZ-GTi and bits, I could go straight to the CC8 in the coming months... My only regret is that the C6 is good for photography at f6.3 or f4. The CC8 is much more massive, slow and with an enormous focal length. I imagine in practice it would only be viable for visual and solar-system imaging. I see people use a .67 RC corrector with the CC8, which would still mean 1600mm focal length, which is probably too much although worth a try with sub-10-second exposures. I'm interested in you both loving the scope and hating its rendition of planetary targets. Is the capability on DSOs really that good? I think I can easily explain why Saturn spikes don't bother you - it is much fainter than Mars, Jupiter or Venus. I was playing with calculating diffraction patterns a few years ago and one thing I discovered from my calculations was that diffraction spikes don't affect planet views as such as although there is a lot of scattered light almost all of it is far away from the planetary disc. It should have more impact on the Moon as every point in the FOV will be casting diffraction spikes. The Mewlon 180 seems to have much more gentle spiking.

And now I'm thinking of immediately trading in my C6 for a CC6. Diffraction spikes aside, it seems much more the kind of scope I would like, and I could try out the design without spending any cash. The only drawback would be long exposure photography, the SCT seems to support more aggressive reducers.

I don't have large premium refractors to compare to, but I got more sparkle from a Mak 102. The stars are much tighter and that compensates for the lesser aperture on marginal stars like M13 members etc.