Ags

I sorted out the misalignment of the RA/DEC grid, and cleaned up the code that handles label positioning. I will be able to start on the writing aspects of the book soon - 150 asteroids to research.

On the other hand, there are so many doubles you can keep yourself busy for life without worrying about the sub-arcsecond splits. I find more of an issue is the limiting magnitude of the scope, particularly for those of us with Bortle 8/9 skies. For example, a relatively simply double like Polaris is difficult with my ZS66 at home, but not a problem from a dark site.

It was clear until 9pm here, but I had commitments until then and all I could do was put out the scope to cool. When I finally got outside the sky was clouding, and I had 5 minutes on Jupiter before the view was completely lost. It looked really clear and stable but I didn't really have a chance to figure out what I was seeing.

Question answered. Thanks!

I am thinking of getting an EQ5, non-goto version. I haven't used goto for years and just thinking about goto triggers me. The objective is to do planetary imaging with the biggest scope that won't fall off, and deep sky imaging. For deep sky imaging I use exposures around 6-10 seconds and focal lengths up to 500mm. I have no interest in guiding as I expect it will be even more annoying than goto, and who needs guiding for 6 second subs? I would consider other mounts but they all have some flavor of goto adding hundreds to the price. From a planetary imaging perspective, what is the biggest aperture I can load onto an EQ5? These things are sold with 8" Newts so I expect I might get away with a C9.25? Didn't Celestron even sell their C11s mounted on CG5s (which if I am not mistaken were EQ5s with a better tripod)? How about a lightweight OOUK 10" Newt? The big scope would be used for visual too, but not on the EQ mount - I would use a Skytee instead.

My theory exactly with my 90mm semi apo.

I do find that star colors show better in my 90mm refractor than my 150mm SCT, particularly reds, giving gorgeous renditions of carbon stars. But blues and yellows/creams are also good as for example Delta Cephei. The frac also shows better color on Jupiter, but probably for different reasons.

I am trying to bag a few asteroids next year, so I decided some finder charts would be helpful, so I am working on a book to guide me through the coming year. The format is simple - just some widefield overview charts to show what's up, and the detailed charts showing stars down to magnitude 11 to pick out the little things in the star field. The data is coming from the NASA Horizons service. I am hoping to make a few animations of the fainter ones, and of course some naked-eye spotting of the brighter ones. Here are a few sample pages (note there is currently a bug in the RA/DEC grid causing it to be horribly out of alignment): I am rebuilding my code for generating charts to make them more modular and layered, so there are a few issues at the moment with label scaling, clip boxes and so on, but I hope once it is done my codebase will be a lot more maintainable!

The cloud thinned but did not depart. I did have a nice session watching a Europa Ganymede shadow transit.

I have set up the 90mm refractor tonight for a peek at Jupiter and to try to photograph a few asteroids. It's been clear all night, but of course it's cloudy now. I have hope it is an isolated puff though!

In general no - shorter exposures help planetary imaging because there is less time for the atmosphere to blur the image. Adding an ND filter will only force you to take longer exposures, causing more blurring. As said above, the SS50 is not suited to planetary imaging, which requires aperture for resolution and focal length to increase the image scale on the chip.

Here is the Melpomene wide angle finder chart: And here is the zoomed-in finder chart, showing stars down to Mag 11. It is a draft - note the RA and DEC grid labels in the chart are out of alignment. I also see a slight mismatch between my positions and those in Stellarium for the few asteroids Stellarium seems to have. However my positions match for the major planets and I'm getting my data from Nasa Horizons so I am not sure I am wrong. I'll see what my telescope says.

I will try track this one down if I get a clear night. It'll be a bit fainter now but should still be easy with my 90mm refractor. If I get a run of clear nights I will try to make an animation. I have generated some finder charts for asteroids 1-100, I'll dig out the one for Melpomene and attach it here. I am curious where the chart above comes from? I am planning on getting more into asteroids next year, looks like a nice challenge hunting them down 😀

Also, the dust is not part of the Pleiades, it just happens that the star cluster has drifted into a vast molecular cloud.

Captures the majesty of space.

Last night I saw the first draft of my minor planet finder charts for my 2024 asteroid campaign. Never seen one, that's gonna change!

Glimpsed outside my office in broad daylight around 8am this morning: Venus right next to the Moon!

Superb!

Had a quick peek at Jupiter tonight using the Svbony 3-8 zoom and C6 (operating at f6.3). Best view was at 8mm, lovely detail showing on SEB and NEB, with an Io shadow transit showing clearly, but Io itself was not visible. I have an observing mystery I hope someone can clear up: the first seconds I look at Jupiter (or any planet) the detail is often incredible. But after looking for a few minutes the detail seems to go away. Any ideas about how I can preserve my acuity?

No, it only means that if an archaeological site is not buried by later deposits, and instead stays on the surface and is exposed to the elements, most likely it gets completely eroded away and disappears.

The clouds were blowing through rapidly with iffy seeing, and the AZ-GTi wasn't tracking well for some reason, and the wind was catching the dew shield, but I managed a few 20-second sequences.

Good luck with the new binoculars! I find the new mini smart scopes tempting - assuming it can be driven from indoors, the ZWO SeeStar would be a way to keep doing some imaging and EEVA.

Need you ask? 😆

Shopping, surely?

What did I see tonight? 1. The high speed USB cable that went missing during the home renovations. 2. the back half of my Askar FMA 135, ditto. Went out for a peek at Jupiter... I didn't expect much as Jupiter was twinkling, suggesting poor seeing. I wasn't wrong.