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It was time to make up for lost time last night and put some hours in on the spring sky. What a session it was and a great way to kick off the Bank Holiday weekend. The main targets were: Venus (daylight), Luna (twilight transition), the supernova SN-2023ixf, and then whatever else the sky would support till the early hours. In the end the session was fabulous - seeing became awesome in the late early hours and i ended up observing blue sky to blue sky - starting with Venus last night and finishing with Saturn this morning. Everything that follows is via a 5" refractor and various TV wide angles and Tak ortho EPs and observed from a nice quiet semi-rural location (a not very dark SQM 20.7 last night though). Venus was lovely at 54% phase. The terminator was soft and uneven but it was impossible to pin down exactly where and how uneven. Nothing clear to bring into a sketch. It didn't help that i'd forgotten my filters and its a great shame because seeing seamed to be very steady (supporting x303 even while x200 was sharper) and Venus presented as a perfectly sharp icy (hah - probably not actually icy) white ball. Damn. Next up the moon. I wanted to pick some small detail out on the terminator to sketch with more magnification than usual; result posted here: https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/410111-joes-luna-scribbles/#comment-4383227. Unfortunately the forgetfulness had continued as i hadn't taken an atlas out and now i can't identify what i sketched! The big refractor was awesome though - presenting a rock steady sharp view of tinier details than i could ever get down on paper. With it now dark it was time for the main event. - SN-2023ixf. This is my first supernova and i don't know the sky well at this micro level so i was a bit concerned about achieving a good ID that didn't need an asterix next to it in the logbook (I hate asterix). I planned to follow directions kindly posted on here in other threads and i had put the stars TYC-3852-0274-1 and HD 122601 in a sky safari pro list bookending NGC 5461. SN-2023ixf is on top of NGC 5461 but that doesn't help if you can't see it so the two stars work great as a track to move along. Well it took me an hour and four sketches to be confident i had it securely - my first two sketches being in slightly the wrong place so... ahem. I was also sketching while kneeling on the floor because had hadn't put my tripod up high enough for viewing at Zenith. Doh! Here's my record of the event. My 3rd and 4th sketches offer up quite well to the star chart published by AAVSO if i hold them back to front against a computer screen (for the effect of the star diagonal) so i'm super happy - secure ID, no asterix! I tried a few faint fuzzies after this as the moon was getting pretty low but stuff was either a no show or a poor version of itself (even showcases like M57, M56, M27, M82 and M81). M82 and M81 were both grey and very subdued even versus how i had seen this back in February with a little grab n go scope so there's no shortcutting the sky conditions. Bizarrely I could see the Eastern part of the Veil Nebula though and i saw it much larger than i did in the Cassegrain last year (my only other observation of it). A 31mm EP with UHC at ~4mm exit pupil and even better a 24mm EP with O-III at ~ 3mm exit pupil were both very effective. The 24mm EP is a Panoptic and i could see the eastern veil crescent as long or longer than half the width of the EP (so about 45...50' in extent) and following a curve roughly equal to the 24 Pan field stop. While faint - the outline was raggedy not smudgy and i was over the moon. Strangely i couldn't see anything of the western veil though nor any other nebula in this area. While occupied high up it was becoming apparent that seeing had really become terrific. Tiny tiny pin prick stars and, as the smudgy stuff other than NGC 6992 wasn't really happening even though by now the moon was fully set, i moved over to a list of "tight" double stars i have. A double star aficionado would laugh at the description tight but basically these are doubles on the Astro League programme that i suspect i can't split in my GnG scope or i have already tried and failed to do so in it (my GnG being my main tool for this programme). I haven't written my notes up but basically these are pairs or systems in the 2"...5" range and all presented absolutely beautifully. I was using a 12mm Delos at 83x for its wider field of view to get on target (and some targets split very aesthetically at this magnification) but i was swapping out to 200x or 300x anyway for the joy of perfect spots and sharp steady diffraction rings (with some nice blue and bronze colour too). Doubles include TW Dra, Mu1/Mu2 Bootis, Delta Bootis, Sigma Coronae Borealis, Alpha Herc, Zeta Aqr, and others. Brilliant. It was basically light now and my last double was Zeta1 Aquarii. This wasn't far above Saturn so i thought i would take a quick look while accompanied by the dawn chorus. I had a x200 Tak 5mm ortho in as i did swing onto it and i couldn't believe what i saw. Etched sharp (no hint of atmospheric wobble), a prominent Jupiter like ruddy belt on the planet in the northern hemisphere more distinct than anything i've seen on Saturn before and best of all - a distinct black shadow of Saturn on its own rings to the west - i didn't even look for it it - it was sharp and obvious. I love Saturn and didn't expect this treat so early in the year. So blue sky to blue sky - what a treat.

Well what a relief to be out again after what has felt like weeks of cloud. Totally rubbish sketches but hey oh. (In my defence i am waiting for some new glasses to be made up). This is an observation in NE Northamptonshire in twilight (20:55 to something like 21:40 BST). I was set up quite a bit earlier but could not for the life of me find Venus in the bright blue sky on this occasion and failed on a single star align on the sun because it beat me into the tree line. TBF the sky was very pale, graduating from hazy white near the horizon to pale china blue higher up. When i have found Venus before in the daylight it has been against a clearer and truer blue sky. Seeing wasn't great - there was the odd shimmy and 'jump' in the view. Really it it barely supported the x200 i was trying to use but x125 was too small to observe well and i don't have an in-between without faffing with a powermate which i wasn't in the mood for: 1st the 'real' sketch - nothing to see except a lovely phase and brighter poles (if they're not optical artefacts). I don't think the brighter poles are illusory as they stood out in several filters. The #82A light blue filter used here was superb. Extremely naturalistic in the blue sky. This next card is not really a sketch - just an aide memoir. The right hand side view is why i bought a refractor (again)! Trying (bright) planetary again with the Cassegrain brought a satisfied smile to my face (honestly the ADC was visible in the refractor unfiltered but the horrible diffraction 'beams' and glare were not!). 🙂 The filters were not stacked BTW - but red and dark yellow behaved similarly to brighten the poles (red particularly) and dark blue and violet behaved similarly to shrink the apparent size of Venus and to a considerable degree. Neither dark blue nor violet revealed further variation in brightness. #82A was king this night.

I recently took a picture of Venus and as a noob I do not know I think it is. I took it around 5:30 (the pic) and I am in central Florida. using a camera.

Hey there. I am curious, as to what media or software you guys are using, in terms of knowing when certain alignments, conjunctions or events happen? I actually had a clear sky, a couple of days ago, when the conjunction of Venus and the Pleiades happened, but I didn't know until the day after. I even thought: "what a nice clear sky, but naaah, the moon is way too bright tonight" (I mostly shoot galaxies these days). So I am actually a bit bummed at missing that. So, what good sources are you guys using? I am mostly using stellarium, reading a bit on the forum here, and looking into SkySafari Pro (will that give any clues?). Or is it simply by chance figuring it out 😅 Thanks in advance.

Hello I recently purchased a new celestron telescope and set it up last night to use for the first time. I live in UK, around 8/9pm-ish I took my telescope outside to view Venus in the western sky as it was v bright, perfect opportunity. After finding Venus and increasing the focus I realised that there was something like a large black circle in the centre of the bright blue/white ring of light. Before focussing, it appeared to be just v bright light. I am wondering if anyone can explain to me why this black circle appeared on / in front of Venus. I thought it looked like a moon, which is obviously incorrect but it looked that way. Is it possibly sulphuric clouds of Venus absorbing light? Any information/help is much appreciated happy observing, all!

Dear all, yesterday evening after doing the sketch of the three-day old moon, we had a wonderful twilight scene with Venus and the Moon over here. So I did a pastel sketch how I recalled it afterwards: Clear skies! Achim

With the extra time I have at the moment, and the weather being so good, I’ve been catching up on a few jobs I’ve been meaning to do. One of these is the re-spotting and recollimation of the mirror on my newt. I found I didn’t have any ring binder re-enforcers but made something similar by hole punching a self-adhesive label and carefully cutting out. With the collimation done and the sun setting I was keen to see whether my time had been well spent. I think it was November when I last had a proper evening of astro, my efforts earlier this week got hazed out, so I was looking forward to this! First up was Venus in the early twilight. Using my binoviewers and a couple of filters in combination (a ND0.9 and the baader neodinium) I got some encouragement with some good sharp views. I could almost swear I could see a little detail but I’m sure that was just wishful thinking. I also tried a UHC and O111 filters as I had some, but they didn’t show anything better. In fact, the O111 had the peculiar effect that after a few minutes observing a bright green target, when I came to look up at Venus by eye, it appeared a bright and angry orange colour, like Arcturus on steroids. After Venus I chose M45 and then the open clusters in Auriga and this was where my earlier work really showed its value. So many pin sharp little stars, far more than I recall when I last viewed these targets. I always feel surprised at how good these targets are though with M37 and 38 the best of them, being a bit more compact. I also had my new TS80mm frac out to see what I could catch and to compare views of the same targets. All were pleasing, albeit smaller in scale. I was also glad to be able to spot M65 and 66 in Leo. Obviously not as good as in the bigger newt which will show the triplet of galaxies in the same field. Still, I’m happy to know I can pick those up in my local skies with this little scope. It bodes well for darker sky trips in future. I followed up with some globs and ended with M13 in Hercules. Always a favourite, but by now a thin film of ice was settling on the scopes and my chair so it was time to call it a night. I’ve been really cheerful today as a result of getting some scope time in, which just shows the value of a good hobby in times like these. Thanks for reading.