Feel bit miffed with tonight

[plop80]

Evening all, drove home from work looking at a lovely Venus in the sky thinking yipee clear sky's. Early on was very disappointed couldn't find anything all looked a bit pants but was also trying to cook dinner and put kids to bed..... Later on M45 was amazing. Im trying to spend time moving round the the sky orientating myself with what I already know but learning to identify through a scope to navigate my way round the sky instead of a sextant when sailing. I located Jupiter, big disappointment compaired to last Friday (30Nov) Tonight I got a round glowing blob and 3 faint moons. Same ep's etc just no pretty picture.

So my question is, is it me doing something wrong, viewing conditions or what. Do I just need better ep'Aka-please advice needed. I

Cheers in asdvance for imparting you knoweledge everyone.

[baggywrinkle]

Could be viewing. Moisture in the air and temperatures can change rapidly as atmospheric pressure change. All are related to each other.

What scope do you have?

[Qualia]

So my question is, is it me doing something wrong, viewing conditions or what. Do I just need better ep'Aka-please advice needed.

Doesn't sound like you're doing anything wrong, Plop. There are two common terms you hear about in stargazing circles, viz. seeing and transparency. Briefly, if I've got it right, seeing is about the steadiness of the atmosphere. If there is turbulence, celestial objects become less sharp and fuzzier. Transparency refers to sky darkness and its clarity. The more darkness there is the more transparent is the sky and likewise, less the interference from phenomena like dust, water vapour, and smog. Whereas good seeing conditions are essential to good planetary and lunar observing, deep space objects are more dependent on clear and transparent skies. Generally speaking, then, as an indicative rule of thumb, if you want a run on Jupiter, seeing picks up after midnight when the atmosphere steadies, and darkness is augmented the further you move away from civilization and clarity is bettered the higher up you go.

It sounds, then, that assuming collimation was good, you probably had a case of bad seeing, something very common and often very frustrating. A couple of weeks back, for example, we had these most amazing transparent skies here in Spain but the seeing was awful making a mess of anything viewed. If you can, try to sit with Jupiter for a peaceful thirty minutes or so on your next observation session and I'm certain they'll be moments of greater clarity and seeing. If not, move on to other objects and return another night. If you don't have them already, a decent star atlas will help your nightly hunting and Stellarium is a useful software package you can download for free.

[emadmoussa]

Humidity is pretty high tonight. Having finished my session I decided to have a look at Jupiter...not impressed...

[Steve Ward]

The "seeing" was dreadful last night , got a nice binocular view of M31 , but never even bothered putting a scope out.

A very strong jetstream sitting over the UK was main cause ... http://www.netweather.tv/index.cgi?action=jetstream;sess=

[Paulb3098]

Same here, just poor seeing. Always worth trying for some double stars though, especially when the moon is up and bright later in the month.

[Tonys]

The rule I follow is that the more the stars are twinkling the worse it will be for viewing the planets or separating double stars. If they are twinkling much right above my head ( at the zenith) it is really bad. But on twinkly nights the stars are sometimes at their brightest, which can mean good transparency suitable for looking at dim objects like nebulae.

[Northern Soul man]

Hi Plop, welcome to the SGL mate, last night (Wed 4th Dec) as said above, was really poor here in the West Midlands anyway for me, got the 1100 set up early evening, due East from me I  have about a 20 foot high wall, so had to wait for Jupiter to rise above this - put the scope in hibernation mode and covered - good job i did, went back out about 9.30 uncovered and woke the scope up, put the binoviewer in for a session on Jupiter - with the 1.6 Barlow and the 20mm ep's (about X 230 mag) absolutely awful, the limb of Jupiter was not even steady enough to focus on, the belts and bands were "boiling" away,  one large white oval around the central meridian just visible but with great difficulty, not even stable, usually you can get short periods of "steadying" with better detail showing - not a chance, periods of the whole disc totally engulfed in "haze" and "shimmering" continued, so moved to other objects for a while, moving back to Jupiter later - even worse - time for bed!!!  Paul.

[plop80]

Thanks for all the replies, very informative.  I didn't realise quite how much atmospherics made a diff.  I though wow lovely bright sky, great viewing.

My scope is a Skywatcher Startravel 150 on EQ5, trying to get acquainted with it over the next few weeks.  If anyone has one, your views would be much appreciated and also what I can expect to see with it with regards to detail, clarity etc. Thankfully I have fairly dark sky's, fields in front and behind with no lights but I do get a bit of light pollution from the caravan park a mile or so from me.

So potentially due to the horrid weather predicted for East Coast this will make a huge difference to atmospheric stability so even if we have clear sky's viewing could be poor at the moment.

I viewed on and off between 6.30 and 9.30 then from about 10.30 - 12.45 ish, then got fed up with it, tiredness set in and thoughts of work today beat me off to bed. 

As soon as I get time I will download the Stellarium software to my laptop as it seems to be great for lots of different things.

Qualia - any recommendations for a good star atlas?

Beautiful conjunction of Venus & the Moon from my office window at the moment    honest boss I'm working very hard....

[faulksy]

i was out last night and i found jupiter was quite good a lot of dark bands were visible and i was using around 260x and i could see a lot  in calm moments but it was bouncing around, but then m31 was very poor and so was m81/82. its all about the right conditions

[bingevader]

Oddly enough, Jupiter was better at high magnification last night than low.

Had a fuzzy blob through the 11mm, but through the 6mm and the 5mm, the image was shimmering, but with periods of clarity, so patience was needed, but much better than through the 11mm.

Cheers

[cotterless45]

Beautiful night here. Jupiter was stunning , almost as if you'd just taken your seat in a planetarium and Jupiter was first up.

Watched a whole GRS transit at x200. Then onto some planetaries and double stars. Generally a refractor will produce decent results when seeing is getting dodgy. Even got Comet Davida in Taurus, hurrah !

Nick.

[plop80]

Well, the max I have the moment is x75 so maybe that's why it was a bit pants too, but very different from last Friday so think seeing was dodgy here as well by the sounds of some other posts.

Currently looking into a getting a good barlow and some more ep's, not sure what to go for but had some good suggestions.  I'm struggling with which make to go for - I'd be happy to spend up to £100 per ep dependant on quality and think I'd struggle to add anything higher priced to my Christmas list.........

Any recommendations welcome.

[dick_dangerous]

It's funny - the seeing was excellent here in London last night. Got some of my best urban views for a long time!

DD

[Astro Imp]

I couldn't get out early last night as I had a web site to update but popped out to check the sky about 10.00pm and the transparency was awful, I could only just make out the main stars in Orion's belt so went in and had an early night.

[Luke]

I've seen Jupiter like a photo at best and fuzzy blob at worst. It makes it a slightly frustrating target for me. But when it's good, it doesn't get much better

[daaveyboy]

What size eyepiece should I be using with a 11" Celestron OTA to view Jupiter,I was out for my 1st night observing on Tuesday and I think I saw it in the East with 3 bright specs next to it,I was using the 70x eyepiece that came with the scope.

[todd8137]

Hi plop some thing you have to put up with at times been out a few times and boom it's like looking water some times it may look clear with the naked eye but ,the scope tells you it's not there's not that many super nights we have to put up with in the UK

Pat

[Northern Soul man]

Hi Ya Daaveyboy, using the 11" on a good night with steady seeing, I use anything from a 17mm (x165)- 13mm (x215) ep''s, also use a combination of the 20mm (x140)ep's in the binoviewer with the x 1.6 barlow, giving an effective focal length as the same as around 12.5mm (x224).  Just a rough idea as the quality of the skies, transparency, Height of J in the sky and local observing (looking over walls, houses, rooftops) but i find the Binoviewing much better than single ep, even for a given magnification, I can usually "see" more in 2 eye mode than 1 eye mode, the 20mm ep's that came with the bino are really nice to use as the eyecups allow you to get close into the ep's.

I have really found the WO bino's a very nice addition to the Moon/Planets, the Yanks on Cloudy nights rave about the Sieberts and Binotrons which cost an absolute arm and a leg, but for the price of the WO and similar priced set ups, I have found them amazing.    Paul.