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Thursday January 13th was one of the those rare days in Winchester where an azure blue sky persists to the horizon. As dusk fell the moon was tantalisingly crisp naked eye but I hadn't got my hopes up as thick fog was forecast from 7pm with a Met Office weather warning. After supper Kathy (spouse) suggested I go out as she 'd noticed the sky was still crystal clear (very thoughtful & she has a good book on the go obviously...) so I put the Mak out to cool. By the time I started at around 9pm, seeing looked very steady in all but the last 10 degrees or so above the rooftops to the S & SE. It was around freezing and dropping fast and it got better all the time. Transparency was initially good and only started to worsen after midnight as the threatened fog began to build, thankfully five hours late. After some detailed Messier hunting in the last couple of sessions I was happy to align the GoTo (Procyon & Sirius, the latter in that low zone and flashing away like a Christmas tree, back there later...) & linked the SynScan app to SkySafari on my phone to work through the Orion area stars in the app's "Best Doubles" list for a lazier un-prepped tour. Reading on SGL made me keen to visit some of the Orion doubles I'd either missed or only picked out the obvious in last winter. Rigel, Beta Or (Mag 0.1 & 6.7, Sep 9", PA 203°) - always start here to benchmark seeing and tonight despite being still quite low down the pale white dot of the secondary popped out immediately, going to be a good night! Alnitak, Zeta Or (Mag 2 & 3.7, Sep 2.2", PA 167°) - the Eastern most belt star, have never actually tried to split this one as a double star before and was a main target having read about it on SGL. Was showing elongation at 100x & a clean split close white pair at 224x. Lovely view! Mintaka, Delta Or (Mag 2.3 & 6.8, Sep 52.5", PA 0° - the Western most belt star, easy split at 100x, secondary is faint but the wide separation makes it easy - White & Blue white. Saiph al Jabbar, Eta Or, (Mag 3.3, 4.7, Sep 1.7", PA 77° - love the arabic star names, this one means "sword of the giant" apparently although its not now considered part of Orion's sword being further West, a quarter of the way between belt-star Mintaka & Rigel. This yielded a clean split at 224x with a nice black separation between, slightly yellow white compared to the hot blues so far & lovely overlapping diffraction rings on both. Spent a good while on this view and will be back. Na'ir al Saif - Iota Or (Mag 2.9 & 7, Sep 10.8", PA 138) - "The Jewel in the Sword". Having enjoyed some spectacular view of M42 under dark skies earlier in the month I was able to pass over the moon-washed nebula where I often get sidetracked and downward to focus on the job in hand. White primary and pale blueish secondary looked great at both 100x & 224x. Popped the 32mm in to enjoy a lovely field with Struve 747 & 745 to the SW, three doubles for the price of one and a stunning view. There's another Struve star, 754 off to the SE but I didn't register this. Read later that Iota has a C star too which I wasn't looking for - Mag 9.7 at 49" separation, as if I needed a reason to go back. Sigma Or - (Mag 4.2, 6.6, 6.6 & 9 Sep AB-C 11", AB -D 12", AB-E 42"). Below and West of Alnitak, I've looked at this almost every time I observe Orion and only noted it as a triple, reading on SGL there's a faint C I was keen to tease it out, and sure enough a pale dot emerged at 224x just outside the first diffraction ring of the AB star (B being wayyy beyond my 121mm of effective aperture at 0.25" distant from A). An amazing system this - (always like to imagine what the sky would be like from a planet orbiting one of those stars) creating a dog-leg line starting with C then the bright AB and on to D and E. The Trapezium - Theta Or. Didn't spend too long in the heart of the Orion Nebula as I look at this so often & was enjoying my voyage of discovery. Checked in to verify seeing and was getting five stars reliably at 100x and the sixth winking slowly in and out of direct vision at 224x. Meissa - Lambda Or (Mag 3.4 & 5.5, Sep 4.2", PA 44°) "The Head of Orion" forming the tip of a broad triangle between Betelgeuse and Belatrix. Nice bright pair to my eye yellowish, close but not difficult, lovely rings at 224x - again have looked at this rich cluster, Collinder 69, many times at low power & with binoculars but never put the power on it to split. I subsequently read that its a quintuple system with other elements down around 9th / 10th magnitude, so yet another where there's more to come back and see. Beta Mononceros - (Mag 4.6, 5 & 5.4, Sep AB - 7.25" AC 2.8", PA 132° & 109°). Hopped South West from Orion to neighbouring Monoceros for the stunning triple. Went up to 250x to maximise the separation and enjoyed the view of 3 fairly even in brightness white discs with steady rings. 32 Eridani - (Mag4.8 & 5.9, Sep 7", PA 347°) Off to the West of Orion in an area I don't often look at is 32 Eridani. After all those shades of blue & white in Orion this is a stunning colour contrast of golden yellow and sea green, a real gem and one I'll often visit. Tried for 55 Eridani but behind a tree! Keid, Omicron/40 Eri - (Mag 4.51 & 9.7, Sep 82.4, PA 102°). Swept quite quickly over this one, a dim wide spaced secondary. Apparently in Star Trek, Vulcan orbits 40 Eri & there are further dim components that should be in reach of the Mak so maybe I have a reason to go back and spend more time here sometime in search of Spock. By this time I was getting cold. After a spell inside to de-ice my fingers and toes I came back out, now a heavy frost and still rock-steady seeing, spent some time on the moon (Gruithissen Domes & Rilles in Gassendi courtesy of tips from @Nik271) then the seeing lured me back to the doubles for a tour of some favourites & nemeses... 55 Eridani - (Mag 6.7 & 6.8, Sep 9"). Out from the trees now & a relatively easy split of an even pair, doesn't stand out so much in the memory. Castor - Alpha Gem (Mag 1.93, 3 & 9.3, Sep AB 5.4", AC 71", PA 62° & 164°). The first double I split with the Mak, Castor was blazing away, I'd read on here about the dim C star and was delighted to pick it up glimmering away to the South at 100x. Sirius - Alpha Ca Ma. (Mag -ve 1.46, 8.4 , Sep 11" PA 70°) by now high in the sky & steady I glanced at Sirius. Have spent many hours on this one and after a quick look in case the Pup was immediately & dramatically more obvious (it wasn't) The A star was so bright with a large apparent disc and bright rings, but steadier than I've seen. I have noticed that when I get a hint of the pup star its often in the first few seconds when I put my eye to the eyepiece - wonder if this is something to do with receptors in the eye - tonight though the longer I looked, the less I saw so I moved on. Theta Aurigae - (Mag 2.6, 7.2, 10.6 & 10.1, Sep AB: AB: 4.0” AC: 55.2” AD: 135.3”. PA AB: 304°, AC: 300°, AD: 351°. Having seen the B star once in my f15 80mm Towa 339, then quite easliy, I've found this one a bit of a nemesis since. The faint C & D stars can be found easily but for me with small apertures, B has needed the best nights. Tonight it sat with very obvious separation in the Mak at 224x , a white dot on the first diffraction ring. Satisfying & a good test of seeing. Achird - Eta Cass (Mag 3.5, 7.4, Sep 13.3", PA 322°). Returning to a favourite, a lovely White/Orange pair. There are apparently more faint companions to tease out so will be back for a closer search. Iota Cass - (Mag 4.6, 6.9 9.0, Sep AB: 2.6″, AC: 7.1″ PA AB: 229°, AC: 116°). Often check out this lovely triple after recommendation from @John a few months back, super view tonight rock steady off-set L shape. I read there's a faint D star a little way off so will be back soon to track that down. Tegmine - Zeta Cancri (Mag 5.6, 6 & 6.3, Sep 1.1" & 6.3", PA 80° & 70°). It was gone midnight now and signs of the forecast fog were building, halo round the moon but seeing still close to perfect. Cancer had risen to the ESE and I was able to pick Tegmine out of the mist in the finder. At 224x I got the best view of this I've had - it sits right on the optical limits for the Mak 127 at 1.1." separation for the close pair and they appeared as a steady figure of eight with a clean black line between, the C star still close in at 6.3" making a spectacular trio with nice rings. I've only fully split this once before and normally see it as a "notched" pair, one night with my son (19) he could see the separation where I only had it as notched, tonight though was definitive. Elated with both telescope performing at diffraction limits, a good night for the observer and with freezing fog finally building, I looked at one final star before a brew & bed... Algieba - Gamma Leonis (Mag 2.2, 3.5. Sep 4.4", PA 127°). Along with Castor a favourite from my first tries at double stars, Algieba's golden orbs shining through a circular halo of mist looked like an owl's eyes peering back at me. Lovely way to end a great session. A note on equipment: I'd taken out my set of Baader Classic Orthoscopics -18mm, 10mm & 6mm, a Televue 15mm Plossl plus the Badder 2.25 Barlow that is built for the Hyperion Zoom. I found myself gravitating to the TV 15mm to start giving 100x & barlowing it down to 6.67mm to give 224x for the closer pairs, occasionally dropping in the BCO 6mm to give 250x to confirm the closest splits. The TV+ Barlow combination was working superbly - nice and bright and better ergononmics than the BCOs in the Mak. I wear contacts so am ok with close eye relief but the TV + Barlow combo was more comfortable from both this perspective and the longer tube made viewing easier on the Mak with less headbanging against the finderscope & Telrad and consequent time spent waiting for vibration to settle. A session to remember.

Had three sessions last night, the first the CPRE Orion star count with my 11 year old daughter, magic. The second was from the light-blighted garden mid evening - successfully picked up M41, M35 and M67 all for the first time - then a neighbour put on more lights so had a go at Polaris, nearly, almost sort of resolved as a double this time. After a tea and warm break I managed to convince myself that the Mak 127 carry over to the park at 11:30 pm constituted allowable lockdown exercise (body AND mind officer...) so headed out to a wider and, it turned out, reasonably darker viewing spot in the park. I haven't yet much comparative experience of conditions but I would say seeing was quite steady while transparency a bit milky. Winchester sits in a river valley and I suspect this may be a local feature until I can get up & out of town. Anyhoo, what started as proof-of-concept of some grab & go bag & padding ideas, turned into a really super session of clusters and doubles, most of which I had never seen before, & fruitless searches for fainter things. Technique-wise I brightest star aligned on Sirius and Arcturus & did have a few accuracy niggles with the GoTo , however a combination of the Telrad + 10x50 Bino sweeps got most of the bright targets quickly in the Finderscope and centred. Highlight has to be the Beehive, M44 which I found breathtaking & can't believe I have never looked for before, Beta Mono triple-star which was amazingly 3D and set me off on a Tatooine sunset imagination-trip and M67, dim & red the kind of place where Klingons might hang out! After much reading on here over all these starless nights I had made a list and although I deviated a bit from it and failed to find ANY galaxies or planetary nebula, the list was a great idea and reminded me that I wanted to go and hunt down the targets in Cancer which I would otherwise have forgotten and missed two of the highlights of the evening. Eventually my phone battery gave out and as I was wi-fi tethered to the AZ GTi this ended my session shortly before frost-bite ensued. That dew shield was a good buy For what its worth, here are my notes, all observations made on SW Mak 127 on AZ GTi, Baader Hyeprion 24mm 68 degree fixed for most & occasional higher mag on Baader Hyperion 8-24mm Zoom. Telrad & SW 9x50 finder, supplemented by Celestron Nature DX ED 10x50 Bins.

(Originally posted this in the wrong section Notes from 10.2. ) Had three sessions last night, the first the CPRE Orion star count with my 11 year old daughter, magic. The second was from the light-blighted garden mid evening - successfully picked up M41, M35 and M67 all for the first time - then a neighbour put on more lights so had a go at Polaris, nearly, almost sort of resolved as a double this time. After a tea and warm break I managed to convince myself that the Mak 127 carry over to the park at 11:30 pm constituted allowable lockdown exercise (body AND mind officer...) so headed out to a wider and, it turned out, reasonably darker viewing spot in the park. I haven't yet much comparative experience of conditions but I would say seeing was quite steady while transparency a bit milky. Winchester sits in a river valley and I suspect this may be a local feature until I can get up & out of town. Anyhoo, what started as proof-of-concept of some grab & go bag & padding ideas, turned into a really super session of clusters and doubles, most of which I had never seen before, & fruitless searches for fainter things. Technique-wise I brightest star aligned on Sirius and Arcturus & did have a few accuracy niggles with the GoTo , however a combination of the Telrad + 10x50 Bino sweeps got most of the bright targets quickly in the Finderscope and centred. Highlight has to be the Beehive, M44 which I found breathtaking & can't believe I have never looked for before, Beta Mono triple-star which was amazingly 3D and set me off on a Tatooine sunset imagination-trip and M67, dim & red the kind of place where Klingons might hang out! After much reading on here over all these starless nights I had made a list and although I deviated a bit from it and failed to find ANY galaxies or planetary nebula, the list was a great idea and reminded me that I wanted to go and hunt down the targets in Cancer which I would otherwise have forgotten and missed two of the highlights of the evening. Eventually my phone battery gave out and as I was wi-fi tethered to the AZ GTi this ended my session shortly before frost-bite ensued. That dew shield was a good buy For what its worth, here are my notes, all observations made on SW Mak 127 on AZ GTi, Baader Hyeprion 24mm 68 degree fixed for most & occasional higher mag on Baader Hyperion 8-24mm Zoom. Telrad & SW 9x50 finder, supplemented by Celestron Nature DX ED 10x50 Bins.

Skysafari lists Delta2 Lyrae as a double, with magnitudes 4.28 & 11.20, But search stelledoppie.it and this is a summary of the result; a multiple with 11 components potentially visible in an amateur scope. This is my plot of the above data. With a 200p F/5 in Bortle 8 skies/ average seeing, I have seen the 6 brightest components to mag 10.30. The mag 11.20 should be doable but has eluded me so far. I think that for my setup, the dimmest 4 stars will need darker skies or better eyes 😀 If you are observing Delta2 Lyrae, how many components can you identify?

I had a few hours free last night, which remarkably coincided with clear skies, so I had a nice little session from around 8 until 10.30 ish. The moon was an obvious target, and I spent a decent amount of time panning along the terminator enjoying the views. I was rather obsessed with trying to spot craterlets on Plato, although I'm not sure whether last night was the best phase or not. I managed a grand total of two with a suspected third, not amazing! The seeing varied from fairly decent to fairly wobbly depending upon whether it was over the neighbours garden or house! Next up M42 obviously. Even without a filter the nebulosity showed well, clear tints of green to my eye. Switching from 24mm Pan to Nag Zoom showed the Trap at between x123 and x246. Whilst the E star was fairly clear at times, F was nothing more than a 'might be' every now and then. I know the scope is capable of it, the seeing just isn't a lot of the time. I tried the binoviewers out too, to see whether they made any improvement on the Trap and Moon. The Trap was a no, I think E was slightly harder with the binos, and the Moon was an unfair comparison because it had gone over the neighbours house. Will repeat the exercise under better conditions. I then made a start at a few Carbon stars, having added a number of lists to SkySafari. I find these lists very handy as the basis for an observing session and highly recommend having a look at them if you haven't already. Sorted by transit time I picked off a few without too much slewing. Hind's Crimson star kind of stole the show, such a lovely deep red colour. In comparison the others I viewed on the list seemed far more orange but I'll persevere and see how I get on. WZ Cassiopeiae appeared on both the Carbon stars and the coloured doubles list, a quite wide pair at 57.7", one orange and the other white. Similar brightness at mag 7.1 and 8.3 BL Orionis and V613 Monocerotis were the other two I got, fairly unremarkable I found but still rewarding identifying them in the star fields. Sigma Cass and Iota Cass were the last two doubles that I picked. Sigma was, I think, a new one for me. Nice tight (3.1") uneven double, mags 4.88 and 7.24. To my eye they looked similar in colour, white. Iota is a lovely one as we all know. Not something I view very often, must try harder, but at x123 with the Nag Zoom the three components were beautifully resolved. I'm sure I could have used lower mag but didn't bother changing eye pieces. Higher mag increased the split obviously, but somehow I preferred the tight star shapes and split at the 6mm setting. So, nice little session with the Tak/AZGTi setup which is my usual these days. Lightweight so easy to setup and alignment quick and easy. Grubby little iPhone shot attached, plus some detail of the SS lists I have loaded.

I spent a fair amount of Wednesday afternoon centering my polar scope... Little did I realise that the polar scope requires centering before you even attempt perfect polar alignment. It appears that my AVX has been very forgiving in the fact that in the past I have more or less just got polaris somewhere near the centre of the circle before aligning. However, after watching many YouTube clips on how to centre the polar scope I finally achieved my aim in having the polar scope centered. Last night was my first serious attempt at 'Bang on' polar alignment with a well centered polar scope!! For some time I've been moaning about having to scramble around on the floor bending my knees and neck looking up for polaris through the polar scope! last night I raised my tripod to almost full extension and managed to look through the polar scope sat comfortably on a picnic chair. I started setting up early so used my compass during the early evening to point north ready for the appearance of polaris... Wow! when Polaris appeared I wasn't far out :-) I rotated the the reticule so the view through the polar scope matched what I could see in the sky with the plough above the centre circle, a quick tweak and 'Bingo' Polaris was spot on where it should be... let the fun begin!! Oops before I did that I freelanced over to the crescent moon situated between two rooftops from my observing location... stunning! I tend to always overlook how wonderful the surface of the moon looks at high mag... Whilst observing using my Starwave 102 and a Vixen NPL 20mm I could see what looked like two bright spots at the top of the crescent like tiny stars. On closer observation I figure these must of been a couple of mountain tops caught in the sunlight... That was amazing, would lover to know the name of those peaks! Here is my list of targets bagged using a combination of a Celestron 32mm, Vixen NPL 20mm, Meade 12 & 18mm, a trusty BST 8mm and for Jupiter a blue filter. Jupiter, M5, Epsilon Lyrae 1,2, Zeta Lyrae, Xi Bo, Theta 2 Can, Tegman, Kappa Bo (Loved this) Iota Cancer, Graffias, Delta Serpens, Theta Serpens, Algieba (Leo) Coma Star Cluster Melotte 111 Toward the end of the session I practised entering the RA & Dec into the handset, hitting targets pretty much bang on (very pleasing)... Although when referencing the 'Double Stars for small telescopes' book by Sissy Haas the coordinates given are not as long in numbers as the ones on the handset... I still hit the targets bang on though so was delighted. Nicks Tips No 5 - Throwing a blanket over the washing line to create a dark space removing a cluster of 3 streetlights 100m away over the neighbours fence... Genius!

All set up to go with the sole aim of getting some Saturn images! To start off it was Jupes again to get some imaging done... The GRS superbly placed and looking Redder than a lidl tomato (subliminal advertising) After capturing some film it was time to properly align using Polaris and that wonderful on ya knees polar scope method!!! Boom!! three calibration stars and 'GoTo' whatever you wish for! Cygnus time - Check sheets and then give up and go and fetch Sissy Haas bible... 20 lovely doubles, not rushed just enjoyed and studied hard... working with my Starwave f/11 102 and for those difficult ones a 6.5 Meade HD and even with the 2.5 Revelation Barlow gave interesting views... 200x the recommended max mag on that Starwave, I squeezed more than that out of her. The stars looked round and colourful the companions sometimes hard to spot... But there's a great deal of satisfaction when you see them close by. I made some star symbol notes in the book when a true double of beauty made me smile, my top few were: Σ 2668 Superb 26 Gyg lovely 17 Cyg 19 Cyg Bright Red Ψ Cyg Σ 2687 Sharp 49 Cyg Faint 48 Cyg Wide H IV 113 Spot on (why did I write that?) 61 Cyg Nice Also - Σ 2760, 59 Cyg, 52 Cyg, O Σ 410, Σ 2705, Σ 2588, S 726, Σ 2578, 16 Cyg, δ Cyg So that's my haul for the night... By the time I had finished those it was 01:30 and cloud had covered what was left of Saturn. The great thing about that session was that I didn't have those long whiney scope movements around the sky, it was all within the constellation. I expect my neighbours with open windows were also grateful. Love that 102 f/11 Starwave scope.... A lot of the comments in Sissy Haas recommend a 150mm for some of the hits I made with my 102 so I'm happy... to get the colour is special as well... Not sure my alignment was that great because after entering RA & Dec the doubles were not always centered which resulted in me having to move towards the nearest double looking star a lot of the times. Didn't get -19 Cyg or T Cyg although I tried... Oh and on editing my images I notice I bagged both Europa and Io.... shame Jupiter disappeared behind next doors roof before the shadow made a transit! I've had to lighten one image to show the moons so beware you professionals ?

Done on InkPad app

Aside from Mizar and Alcor are there and good and bright doubles near the Plough? I'm using an ST80 and I have city skies...