lunator

Keira, what eyepieces do you use? A small field of very can make finding things very hard. From experience a 1° field of view will give you a reasonable chance of finding things. Cheers Ian

Hi Rob, if you got the 15*70s would they be tripod mounted? I have a fair selection of Binos acculumated over the years. I do like my 15*70s but your arms can get tired quite quickly. The 10*50s or 8*42s are ideal daytime binos. I would try and get the best I could afford 10*50s for everyday use and maybe consider a secondhand 15*70s for those longer Aston sessions. Cheers Ian

Very good sketch 😀. You were right to trust the process. They are a lovely pair of galaxies to observe. Cheers Ian

I've never had an issue with focus in my OO F6 newt. It has some coma with the 2" eyepiece but as I use that as a 'finder' more than for anything else I don't worry about it. Hopefully you can get the best solution Nick. Cheers Ian

Very interesting read. Congrats on getting a decent result. The BAA variable star section might prove a useful resource as well. Look forward to reading more reports. Cheers Ian

Very good animation. It was amazing to watch the shadow catch up with the GRS 🙂 Cheers Ian

These 8" scopes are excellent. I had superb views of Jupiter last night. The level of details on the bands were probably the best I had seen. I agree on the RACI. I am going to fit one to my scope as I am sure it will be an ideal upgrade.

Welcome to SGL. Lovely images.🙂 I have just moved to Bortle 4 skies and I after looking at your pics I still have dark sky envy 😁. Cheers Ian

Very good video Fascinating to watch the waves of colour. cheers Ian

Tonight was my first night at my new location with the Bortle 4 skies and the Moon slightly out of the way. I had set up Mr Dobbie and had a few doubles on the list (Old habits die hard 😁) I thought I would start with Jupiter and when I first l9ked at it at x50 I could see a clear dark dot. I took the mag Upto x200 and could clearly see a Jupiter Shadow transit and the GRS. I hadn't realised this was happening but was very pleased to be able view it. After the transit had ended I took the mag up to 300 and the detail on the belts was amazing. I decided to move onto some other targets. .STF25AB Avery tight pair elongated at x150 split at x200 in moments of good seeing. Primary is white, secondary pale blue. C component (~mag 13) seen with averted vision. My next target was STF41 which is quite close to M31. As I looked up I realised M31 visible naked eye!!! This is not something I'm have seen since being a teenager in SW London. Maybe my eyes aren't as rubbish as I thought 🙂. M31/32/110 were easily seen in the 24mm at x50. STF41. A wide pair of uneven magnitude the primary is orange the secondary pale blue. Split at x50. The final pair were STF64, a close pair of white stars. Split first at x150 and just at x75. Part of a chain of faint stars between, v And and HD4902 All in all a very good session before the high cloud/mist rolled in. Cheers Ian

Seeing was pretty good tonight. I was looking at Jupiter at x300 Cheers Ian

Very good sketch 🙂. You have captured M36 really well Cheers Ian

This is the WDS info. Only one observation in 2002. 15170-0923RBR 7 2002 2002 1 194 194 2.1 2.1 7.5 16.3 B8V+M2V -096-021 -08 3935 X 151700.41-092258.5 I will have a rummage through GAIA to see if anything fits. Cheers Ian

Hi Mircea RBR7 is listed as a 'dubious double' (note X) in the WDS. This probably means it doesn't exist. I'll have a look through the WDS to see if I can make sense of everything. Cheers Ian

Hi Agnes I think the IAU have a loophole on this one. All planets probably have material in their Lagrange points, and if we compare the relative mass of the planet to the mass of the object Jupiter will be less 'dwarfish' than the others 😁 Cheers Ian

Hi Mircea, Here is a screenshot of 52 Ori. It looks like there are 2 possible visual doubles. They are quite wide. You should be able to look them up on the WDS or Stella Doppie websites cheers Ian

Hi Mircea, one way you can check what you have seen is using the Aladin/Simbad. You can zoom in and out on your target. It might show you the pair you saw. cheers Ian

Welcome back Nick. Looking forward to your observing reports. Cheers Ian

Hi Mircea I have the equation in my book but it is something I have calculated from all my observations over the last 20 years 😁 Cheers Ian

Hi Mircea Interesting result on Rigel 😁. It does fit with the limit of resolution for a telescope. Paul Couteau said to resolve tight doubles you need to working at 2x the aperture so for your 45mm scope x92 fits well. If you combine this with Bruce MacEvoy concept of the resolution ratio where you divide the separation by (116/aperture) to calculate what difference in magnitude will still be visible. I like to substitute magnification for the aperture in the equation as a "how low can you go game" From experience the equation that shows the limits of resolution is 2.5+5(log)((Separation)/(116/magnification) Using this equation 2.5+5(log)(9.42)/(116/92) = 6.87 The Delta M for the pair is 6.5 which is below the limit so it should be resolvable. Cheers Ian

Hi John One of my favourite doubles. It's on the front of my book :). It is closing now. I calculated a minimum orbital period of 600 years but the current estimate is around 1200 years. One curious point is as far as I am aware Herschel never noted this pair. He may have missed it in his observing programme but a 5th star in a well placed constellation would be a target to observe I think. My preference is the pair were too close for Him to resolve around the 1780s. Cheers Ian

I thought I would look at Albireo and Almach in the ST80 tonight. I just used the 25 and 5mm orthoscopic eyepieces. I had started the session with the Moon and Jupiter. The ST gave a very warm hue to Jupiter. I looked at Albireo next at x25 mag. The secondary appeared pale blue (similar to my other scopes but the primary appeared yellow orange rather than yellow that I see in my othe scopes. I moved onto Almach and at x80 magnification the secondary was blue ( I thought I might see a greenish tint.)the primary was again a yellow but had an orange tint as well. Not this proves or disproves anything but certainly the apparent colours in the ST80 are different to the OMC250 and the Newt. Cheers Ian

Hi Olly I have been out tonight with the ST80. Some patchy cloud was moving South at a fairly high speed. I found when I looked directly at the Moon the cloud was clearly moving. When I looked directly between the Moon and Jupiter I could see both of them 'moving' in parallel due North 😁. Cheers Ian

I have experienced the 'migratory Star syndrome' (I've just made that up 😁) . It always occurs then there is a fair amount of cloud around and it is moving at a fairly quick pace but also some decent sized gaps. It does seem to be the brain decides the clouds are either not moving or moving more slowly than they actually are so the star HAS to moving to compensate. The illusion disappears quick if you just stare at the star for a few seconds.

Hi Agnes In my 8" and 10" scopes colour is clearly visible down to mag 9.5 ang then the Purkinje effect becomes noticeable between Mag 10-11 where the fainter star in particular shows a blue tint. Below mag 11 I couldn't see any colour. These observations were predominantly from bortle 5-8 skies. I have moved to a decent bortle 4 sky now so once everything is set up I might revisit some of these pairs to see if that makes a difference. I think it will but probably only 0.5-1 magnitudes. cheers Ian