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Anyone observing last night?


Andymarrison

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After a two or three week spell of clouds, last night was pretty much clear here. Managed to get out and see Saturn and it's moons Dione, Titan and Rhea; Mars; M5; M3 and M13 (always a great one to finish on!).

Anyone else have any luck? What did you see?

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I had my second go with my new 200 dob last night. Saw m13 and the ring m57. These are both my first dso with the new scope.

Must say that m13 was a disappointment. I could not resolve any stars, just saw a light grey fuzzy cloud. Could this have been as it was 11pm and not really dark?

Also used my cheap laser (1mw green eBay) fired through the finder to help align. Certainly did the trick and allows me to find the two objects mentioned.

I just wish it was dark earlier!

Ilorodu

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I was out for an hour an a half with good seeing. I saw Saturn, Tethys, Rhea, Dione, and Titan. Then I observed brilliant M13, then M51, M5 (first time), M64 (first time), M57 (first time), and M108.

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Must say that m13 was a disappointment. I could not resolve any stars, just saw a light grey fuzzy cloud. Could this have been as it was 11pm and not really dark?

Yep sounds like it just wasn't dark enough, you should be able to resolve stars on the outside but it will appear fuzzy in the centre of M13 in an 8" scope. :)

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M13 is a globular cluster. The stars within this cluster are too far away and too close together for individual stars to be seen

You need to look at it through a bigger scope buddy, or from a better site. Even your 4" ED should show you the outer stars resolved. Through a big reflector it is an absolutely incredible sight.

Astro images cannot do objects like this justice. I've never seen an image to compare to the view of M13 through a big scope from dark skes. This is a truly stunning sight, and one I believe every astronomer should see once.

It's actually responsible for a lot of aperture fever.

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I tried. If the weather forecast was correct and didn't keep changing it's mind every hour then I wouldn't have bothered. Instead, i did, and got everything set up as it was supposed to be clear by 10pm, then 1am, then 4am. I gave up by that point, and it's a good job I did as when I looked out the window at 4am when I nipped to the loo it was wall to wall cloud again. It's still cloudy now despite it saying it's suppposed to be sunny. Big thumbs down to the inaccuracy of the BBC weather :(

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llorodu, although i am no master of the messieurs by any stretch (I've also only just started seeing them) i can say that with my 250px dob m92 (same region as m13) looked just perfect - could resolve individual stars certainly at the outside - or at least thats how it felt, with averted vision it was even clearer... i can't believe the 200 can be much worse - id say due to not being totally dark - i was outside at 2:30 this morning with my bins and the sky was electric - just perfect seeing - often you have to wait until these early hours - sadly my scope is still at the doctors so i couldn't use it - i missed a good chance

try again later and get some sleep from 10 til 1 or something like that (just an idea) and see how the weather looks - please don't be disheartened - with the right eyepiece, seeing and weather you will have you breath taken away I'm sure !

most of these guys know more than me and I'm sure some would agree

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I decided to have a go last night, but was prepared for the usual frustration. Started off at 10:45 did a three star alinement in a record time for me and got a lovely sighting of Saturn, went to put in a higher power EP and the clouds just rolled on in :huh: Moved on to Mars and the same thing happened. Moved on to Polaris and was delighted with a very good sighting. At this stage Sygnus was coming one the roof of the house to the north east and got a lovely sighting of Albireo, but guess what, yeah them blinkin' clouds again. By midnight most of the sky over Dublin had closed in, the only thing visible was Capello to the north west. Later the clouds did break enough to sight the ISS at 2:55am.

Will give it another go tonight and see what happens :smiley:

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Had my best view of Saturn last night. But then wasted time trying to focus my xbox cam on it to no avail. By the time I went back to visual couldn't really focus on anything due to condensation. My knees where soaked through when i got in. Ps Saw an amazing shooting star in the west though!

Sent from my GT-I8150 using Tapatalk 2

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Yep a fairly good night in Hertfordshire managed to get a great view of Saturn, Mars and Moon with the new Celestron EP. Also bagged M31/M32, M81, M110 so we're happy.

The new Dew/Light Shield worked a treat and helped a lot with the DSOs.

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Yes, last night was a good one. I think the recent rain cleared a lot of gunk out of the sky. I looked out at 22:30 and the sky was still quite bright. An hour later and it had darkened a lot. I could see right down to the southern horizon - Antares / Scorpius was nice.

One oddity. When I first went out there was a satellite going over: almost west - east and overhead. At the time I thought it was the space station, However a little later, maybe 15 minutes after, another much brighter satellite went across almost the same path. Checking on Heavens Above showed that the second object was the ISS, but it hadn't got anything listed as an overhead flight that was only a little earlier.

Any ideas?

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Big thumbs down to the inaccuracy of the BBC weather :(

If I type in my postcode [NN11] I get the forecast for Church Lawford in Warwickshire, 18+ miles as the crow flies. This info used to be shown on the old BBC internet weather page but isn't any more. I now look at NN11 and OX15/6/7 and if they both look good go out. A 'clear sky' on the forecast is probably once the cloud cover drops below a certain number of 8ths, or discounts thin cloud and it's more aimed at the public than the likes of us.

One oddity. When I first went out there was a satellite going over: almost west - east and overhead. At the time I thought it was the space station, However a little later, maybe 15 minutes after, another much brighter satellite went across almost the same path. Checking on Heavens Above showed that the second object was the ISS, but it hadn't got anything listed as an overhead flight that was only a little earlier.

Any ideas?

I thought I saw a satellite last night, single point, West to East, right speed and it was only after it was dropping over the houses I could see a second white light, it was a 'plane. I couldn't see the navigation lights or strobes.

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Of course I didn't observe last night - I've got a brand new Baader Hyperion EP to try out, so the evening teased me with blue sky and fluffy clouds and then gave me 100% cloud cover by the time it got dark. :cry:

M13 is a globular cluster. The stars within this cluster are too far away and too close together for individual stars to be seen

As someone else above said, the outer stars can certainly be resolved even with the LP where I am. It always reminds me of a BBC sci-fi special effect. A spaceship exploding in Blake's Seven maybe?

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Checking on Heavens Above showed that the second object was the ISS, but it hadn't got anything listed as an overhead flight that was only a little earlier.

Any ideas?

There are so many satellites up there that I doubt if they are all listed. (I may be wrong, but I'd be surprised if you could ID every satellite that you see.)

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You need to look at it through a bigger scope buddy, or from a better site. Even your 4" ED should show you the outer stars resolved.

I took it the gent was talking about open cluster quality resolution with individual stars being nice tight pin points

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