badhex

This is a great idea - perhaps if it takes up too many pages to have them in the physical book itself, you could provide in the final book a QR code and link to the supplementary PDF with the Bortle charts?

Got my fingers crossed for you Paul!

Thanks @wookie1965, I've been really enjoying doubles of late and it's nice to have targets which are easily obtainable under skies with heavy LP.

Hello all, Bit of a delayed write up from a week or so ago where I was lucky enough to have three nights in five where the daytime clouds cleared up in the very late evening. I had a short session earlier in the week, essentially testing out the Gitzo/Scopetech Zero/102ED F7 combo in earnest once I had the opportunity, and repeated some targets from my previous session (M13, M57, doubles in Lyra). I've pretty much got the balance etc all sorted out, but sadly going from Bortle 5 to Bortle 7/8 meant the targets were less impressive! The bright moon was also not helping. My selection of EPs mainly used for these sessions were an Aero ED 35mm giving 20x for searching, Morpheus 17.5mm giving 41x, Pentax XW 10mm giving 71x and a Morpheus 4.5mm giving 159x. After a bit of discussion here about combating LP, I started the next night testing out both my OIII and UHC filters on M57 to see if there was much improvement and found that my Pentax XW 10mm at 71x plus the OIII gave the best combination of background darkness, contrast and detail - with the drawback of making everything green. My next target was M29 in Cygnus at 41x, a new target for me. Unfortunately it was quite faint with only the main handful of stars visible. I spent a short time trying to get a bit more detail and then moved on NGC 6910 which suffered a similar fate. About to go to my next target, I suddenly realised that ISS was passing, and managed to swing my scope round and bag it, then follow it for maybe 20 seconds just moving the scope with my hand. First time I've ever done that, very happy! At 41x I was able to make out the rough shape as an irregular blob with 'ears'. On my way over to Cassiopeia I tried for Caroline's Rose Cluster but could not make it out. Unsurprising as I've only ever seen it under much darker skies. The rest of my targets were all doubles (or triples). I started with Eta cas which I split at 71x. The primary was an off white, with a further dull white secondary. Searching around for Sigma cas, I pushed magnification up to 159x but seeing was a bit wobbly, and felt I couldn't make anything out. I then realised I was actually looking at the wrong star! Trying again and finding it this time, I felt I could see an elongated oval at 41x, and then definitely split at 159x; at this point it was very clearly two stars. On to Struve 163 which my surprise was easily split at a mere 20x! I cycled through FLs up to 71x with to see a clear colour difference - orange primary, and blueish secondary. Iota cas was the most challenging - definitely one other component at 41x, and more separation at 71x but still no third component. This then popped clearly into view at 159x. I remember exclaiming out loud in the dark at this moment. A pure white primary, the B component closest to the side was an orange-yellow, with a clearly blue C component to the bottom of the triplet. The A component was not visible but I understand this may not be possible even with giant telescopes and perfect seeing. It's hard not to be in awe looking at the three suspended together and remembering what you're actually looking at - I even said "Tiny suns!" to myself. Both remarkable and humbling, for such miniscule objects. On that high note, I packed up for the night, happy with my endeavours!

Last time I saw a decent 0.965 EP in good condition at a reasonable price (a couple of Swift Circle-Ts I was after) I hesitated and lost out, so when I saw this on that auction site I snapped it up. Not a bad price at 45eur and looks in flawless condition!

I do totally agree that the Bortle scale is a finger in the air estimate, and take it with a pinch of salt accordingly - but especially for newcomers it is perhaps easier to use than SQM as a rough gauge, provided you're aware that it is indeed rough.

Cheers, yes I do the same whenever possible and it definitely helps for local LP and faster dark adaptation, although sadly it's thebglow from the city causing most of the issues!

Just like getting any new piece of kit, the clouds seem to also now know about PDFs and promptly turned up after I downloaded it! 😂😩

The semi rural village where I grew up near Chesterfield has definitely become quite a lot worse in the last few years. It always had the M1 running through it, but after they built Junction 29a they turned much of the old pit yards (two pits nearby, one in the village itself and one about 5 mins drive away) and related brownfield sites into commercial parks and distribution centres. Great for the economy of the area, many jobs created etc., but huge areas are now lit up all night 😕

Nice. I like that it has a power off brake amongst other nifty features.

Watching with interest. I have a pre-made Baader film filter for a 70 or 80mm scope, but have been thinking about solar with my 102ED, and if I'm going to buy something I'm also considering a wedge. Please let us know how you get on!

I may have mentioned it. It's supposed to be possible and I had a quick 15 min play around at the end of a session a while ago, but couldn't quite get it to work. There was definitely some communication because stellarium knew where the scope was pointing and it was accurate (it shows you on the Star map) but it was reporting some error in the settings. I will have another play around at some point as I like the idea of using stellarium.

In the end this morning, I managed: Saturn - which was reasonably high up and looked pretty good. Jupiter which was still in the murk, bands were visible but just barely, and tight focus was note really possible. Venus - extremely low on the horizon and diffraction through the atmosphere was so bad looked like three brightly coloured blobs badly stacked on top of each other. Mars was nowhere to be seen, perhaps due to something blocking it on the horizon or too much light at that time. Still - great to see all three marching across the sky in one vista.

Oof. That sounds intense!

Thanks @Ags! PDF obtained and donation made. If the weather is clear this week hopefully I'll be able to give it a test run!

It was actually sunrise 🙂 I was out trying to catch lunar eclipse, but sadly it sunk below the buildings fifteen minutes before the eclipse proper (umbra) began. Did manage to see Saturn, Jupiter and Venus though, and take a few beauty shots in the sunrise.

Debatable if this counts as night time but it's a nice shot.

Managed to get out of bed ✅ Perfect sky ✅ Moon disappearing behind buildings 19 mins before actual eclipse ✅ Let's look at Jupiter for the first time this year instead ✅

And like that, she was gone.

I made it AND it's clear, but I suspect I will lose the moon behind buildings before we get into the umbra 😭

Thanks @JeremyS - actually as it's stress related I can genuinely claim that astronomy - which is when I'm at my most Zen - is part of my recovery!

Currently off work for health reasons but it does have its advantages: three late night sessions in 5 days (and hopefully a fourth tonight)! View was limited as I've only been observing from my north-east facing balcony, so have spent time mainly in and around Cassiopeia hunting doubles, clusters and the like. I even managed to catch ISS and track for around 15 seconds by hand! Full wordy report to come later.

Interesting. Sometimes mine slots in perfectly, but a couple of times in the dark I guess I wasn't quite square when replacing it and it got a bit caught. To be fair, it was already attached to an EP so maybe I'll remove the EP first when inserting it.

Yes that rightmost one is the standard one supplied with some Skywatcher scopes like the Evostar, as well as being functionally identical to the Skywatcher Deluxe (not sure what makes it deluxe, it's the same to all intents and purposes!) Opticron, William Optics ones. I have both an Opticron and the standard Skywatcher, per discussion earlier in this thread the guess is the manufacturer might be Synta.

Do you find the 1.25" adapter gets stuck in your GSO 2"? Has it got better with use?