chiltonstar

6 hours ago, neil phillips said:

Didn't know that Chris. Odd though in this article here Astrobaby says her mak was 170mm 

Skymax 180 PRO Review (astro-baby.com)

I believe they changed the design at some point (after the astrobaby version), but not for the 127 Mak which is still about 119mm. There is quite a bit on CN about this

Chris

31 minutes ago, neil phillips said:

Yeah they are all at it. Maks do similar. 

Only some Maks - the 150 and 180 are full aperture with o/s mirrors I believe. My 180 returns a clear aperture of 179mm on a test bench.

Chris

Nice detail! CCs seem to be a bit like marmite at the moment I think.

Chris

Some nice detail there Neil! Which scope were you using?

Chris

Superb!

1 minute ago, Stu said:

Well no, obviously not. I’m talking about consuming less of the non essential stuff… 🤪🤣

Not my nightly glass of Shiraz!!

Wow! What a list. I'm not sure I could manage as many in a session.

 Chris

I managed a look tonight - I had to use my "grab 'n goto" (127 Mak, AZ GTi) to find Xi Sco as the sky was so bright.

Primary just elongated and occasionally split at x220; the fainter orange companion was clearly visible some distance from the primary pair. The other pair were easily split, but less interesting - I couldn't see any colour difference.

An interesting double-double - many thanks to IB20 (and AN June edition).

Chris

4 hours ago, Zermelo said:

Well done on getting ζ Her.  I've tried half a dozen times this year without success.

I don't find it any easier with my 180 Mak than the smaller Mak - maybe the dimmer view withe the smaller one hides the diff ring more, as the secondary sits on or close to  the first ring. Certainly needs a night with excellent seeing though.

I recently added an AZ GTi to my grab 'n go scope to make it a very lightweight goto setup, that I can move round my garden to different vantage points and to a nearby field with darker views. My first real session with it before the night sky got too light was 10 galaxies, the next 10 globulars, and last night 10 doubles with strong colour differences.  Scope was a 127 Mak, lightweight Vixen tripod, AZ GTi mount coupled to SkySafari, and a Hyperflex 7.2 to 21.5 mm eyepiece. Doubles taken from the S&T list. I wanted to see really how much colour was visible when the sky was so bright with the Moon nearly full and the light summer sky bleaching everything.

Gamma Del - strong yellow primary, blue secondary

Delta Cep - yellow primary, blueish secondary

Beta Cep - white primary, faint blue secondary

Beta Cyg (Albireo) - brilliant yellow, blue green

Zeta Her - just separated, yellow primary with a slightly bluer secondary

95 Her - lovely pair, slight colour difference, primary yellowish and secondary blueish

Alpha Her (Rasalgethi) - lovely, close, orange and steel blue. Rasalgethi means "head of the kneeler", ie me trying to polar align a scope!

Xi Boo - white primary, secondary slightly blueish-brown

Eta Per - orange primary, faint blue secondary

Eta Cas - whitish yellow, secondary slightly blue-brown

A fun evening!

Chris

Nice images.  Good to see some craterlet detail emerging in Plato.

Chris

As I hadn't looked at M14 for many years, I included it and nearby globulars in my evening ramblings during a clear spell three nights ago. Very easy to find and quite bright, although no individual stars seen (5" mak).

Nearby M10 and M12 were visibly brighter, with some detail. Again, no trouble finding them.

NGC 6366 was much more difficult. It took 10 mins dark adaption and my black hood to spot it. Visibly vaguely circular, but no detail.

Chris

When I first started observing  I bought the book The Messier Album, by Mallas and Kremer. This has  most M objects as seen through a 4" refractor. In my experience with both a 4" frac and a 127 Mak, the sketches are accurate for the frac, and reasonably accurate for the 127 Mak as well. Worth a look, it's probably free on the Web somewhere. 

Chrisk

What eyepieces are you normally using? Certainly with my 127 Mak, many decent galaxy views are possible on a night with excellent transparency. I am Bortle 4 here.

Chris

Nice report. I recently bought an az gti for my grab 'n go setup (5" mak) and the first thing I did was to look at 10 globulars - even with a small aperture  they are wonderful objects.

Chris

My LP levels have gone down after our village started the switch to LED, but the blue band in the lamps emission spectrum has made the sky a bit worse than it was with Na lamps. Why they couldn't yellow-filter the lamps I do not know. As well as reducing scatter for motorists (and us), they will have to scrape all the bugs off the lamps at regular intervals.

I see a couple of light "domes" that are new and have appeared since to switch to LED.

Chris

11 minutes ago, bomberbaz said:

Yeah just checked that you can add the cambridge catalogue to ss6 plus.

Are you sure you can't use ss6 for the azgti?

Yes, works OK with the tab but the phone won't run it. I am trying to avoid carting the tab around too to reduce weight.

14 minutes ago, happy-kat said:

Doesn't the synscan pro app have a greater list of stars, throught I'd read that somewhere

It is what I am using, but it's very limited as detailed above. I am really looking for a way of importing one of the standard double star lists into Synscan, ie copying a file into the user defined object list  rather than having to enter each one manually.

Chris

3 hours ago, LaurenceT said:

I'm a novice in these matters but would integrating an app like SkySafari into the process give you more choices?

Yes, and that works OK using a large tablet I have. Unfortunately though, SkySafari (SS) won't run on my phone, so I was looking for an alternative as explained above that I could use with my phone when I'm "grab 'n going".

Chris

A bit of a change from the topics above....

Is there any way of expanding the rather limited list of doubles available via the Synscan app other than by entering data manually or by using 3rd party software like SS? I bought an az gti a few weeks back and I'm having great fun with it  but I need a much bigger doubles list.

TVM for any replies....

Chris

Some nice detail!

Chris

Good to hear the 8" f8 is being used!

Chris

53 minutes ago, Louis D said:

Lucky you.  My neighbor has 5 outdoor cats that think our yard is theirs as well, and yet I still have to trap our ubiquitous Texas field/attic rats.  How did you train yours to do their job?

Years of experience!

Chris

4 hours ago, Nigella Bryant said:

Awwwww, bless, mine think they're in charge, lol. 

....they are!

Chris

My cat has to work for a living. She sits on my feet on a cold night when I'm observing (Chief Foot Warming Executive) then sprints off to zap anything small and furry to protect me from attack (Chief Rodent Control Officer).

Chris