Jupiter, Trapezium and a little Sirius on the side.

[alan potts]

January 8^th 2014.

Weather conditions were very still with a little light haze in places, mainly anywhere I pointed a scope. The Bresser weather station I have was telling me that humidity was down 20% over the night before which was good news, however this piece of electronics has told me it was going to rain about 50 times since I bought it and not been right once.

Scope 115mm APO,

Jupiter.

I was doing a little extra work on a follow up to the review of the Radian 3mm and Delos 3.5mm which I posted a few weeks back, at the time I could not wait up until Jupiter was in a suitable place to use such power so like a mouse put it off until later and it is now later.

Now Jupiter is in a good place clearing the house and trees by early evening and you can get some great views of it with a scope like this. I started out with a 4.5mm Delos which gives a magnification of X 178 which is normally about as high as is ever needed with this body, as I said yesterday going higher rarely reveals more and to steal the words of a site member less is often more with this planet.

I noticed that there was a moon doing a transit across the Jovan surface and the shadow stood out like the full-stop of a black pen on white paper, it was rather nice watching it. From time to time I also thought I could see the illuminated part of the moon against the surface but I was not absolutely sure, I think a lager scope is needed.

I have to say I found the view almost as good as the night before with the 180mm Maksutov; there were two very strong equatorial belts, a belt either side of these and polar shading. The night before I was able to split the smaller and less obvious belts into two, at least this was what I thought I was seeing. Dropping down to the 5mm Radian did not seem to make any difference apart from a slightly smaller disc; I saw none of this so call colour cast that seems to get reported as a defect for this range. I think if anything the thinner belts were just a little easier to pick out, this could be nothing more than the reduction in magnification which always increases image contrast.

The transit was coming along nicely and was now not far from over, when saints be praised the Great Red spot had come back from its holidays, this must be the first time I have seen this in over a year. Unlucky is not the word as I look at this body more than most due to our clear weather and lack of rain, something we could do with but that’s another story. I found with the GRS pushing the magnification did help a little as it seemed to show the lighter area surrounding it better, by now I had plugged the 3.5mm Delos in which had upped the power to a heady X230 and things were holding up much better than the night before. The transit was now off the main body and as it left the disc the surface of Jupiter seemed to show a dent in it elliptical form which can be nothing more than an optical illusion but it was the first time I had noticed this. I was then interupted by a local cat that though I may just feed it, I guess with it being Bulgarian it didn't understand "go catch a mouse."

That was a very nice session on the planet which was interspersed with trips to Trapezium.

Trapezium, hunt for ‘E and F’.

Moving across to Messier 42, this was now getting up in the sky to such an extent that it was now about as high as it will ever get from any part of the UK. Condition had not got any better but more to the point they had not got any worse.

I was on to the trapezium first of all with a 9mm Nagler which give me X89 on this scope and there shinning bright, well not so bright really, was the ‘E ‘ component of the system but I could not clearly make out the ‘F’ star.

Increasing the stakes to a 7mm Nagler at x115, there it was the other part of the puzzle but now I could not make out the ‘E’ component.  Oddly about then some very thin haze must have drifted across the nebula and without touching a thing I could see both stars clearly, this must have acted like some type of neutral density filter. One thing I did find was how the tiniest movement of the fine focus wheel can help these matters, you think something is in focus when sometimes it is not exactly, it goes without saying care should always be taken with this aspect of our hobby. I think this helps show the conditions are so important as this failed me on Tuesday night with a much larger scope though maybe not of the same optical quality.

Sirius.

Colder now and maybe a little damper but still very good all round seeing now the haze had gone to annoy someone else or dissipated. There was no shortage of aircraft flying over head though, where do they all go to. Sirius was fairly steady in the night air showing a little scintillation though by no means like it was the night before when it looked like a whiling Dervish with lights on. Having the 7mm still in the breach so to speak I slewed to the star, much to my surprise there it was in the eyepiece. Very bright but with little flashing I studied the star and on this occasion with this eyepiece had no luck. I increased the power but this just made matters worse taking things up to X202 ( 4mm Radian) and still could see nothing of the Pup. Dropping back down the scale to X89 I had a feeling that it was there but could not be sure, I find the control of the star is of paramount importance to crack this double and with the quality of the optics at both front and back being about as good as it gets the Pup usually succumbs, but not this time. Bad dog!  

Maybe I will have better luck next time.

Clear skies one and all.

Alan.       

[YKSE]

Nice write up, I wish that I can have a bit of your clear sky.

The only time I found the pup was with a red filter, tips I got from Michael, it has two major advantages:

1. the size of the glare is reduced, in my case, some 25 to 30%.

2. I saw many floaters when looking at Sirius at 200x or higher mag, a red filter makes stars red, while floaters are still "white".

[Qualia]

A cracking report, Alan and glad to hear you had a fruitful evening. You're right about the need of care in this hobby and how the slightest tweaks or changes, especially when it comes to planetary viewing can turn an evening from anything to very good to very bad. It sounds like the Radian is a lovely planetary eyepiece. Although on slightly more humbler terms, I''ve found the same with TV's 8mm plossl. At the moment, I think I prefer the image it offers me of Jupiter than either the 7mm or 9mm BGO.

[Pig]

Alan,

Where do you find all this time to write these reports ? Another  fine read once again.   

I managed to see the "e" in the trapezium last night for the first time, although I had to look at the whole centre of the nebula for around 15 minutes before it pooped into view.

Serious looks like it is going to explode it is flashing like crazy.

[alan potts]

Shaun

Congratulations on the 'E' star, the 'F' will come to you. You need to get just the correct magnification, it is normally around X100 give or take.

Where do I get the time, well I can't do any concrete work at the moment and I no longer work, I am also fairly quick at typing just so long as I know what I am going to say. The reviews take longer as I use my old dictaphone and many times cant find the right tape or can't remember what the hell I was talking about, the locals must think I am nuts sitting talking to telescope.

Alan

[alan potts]

Just a very quick addition to the report from Jan 8th, the following night both "E and F' were seen as they should be, together at the same time. This was done with the 190mm Maksutov/Newtonian using the 9mm Nagler giving a magnification of X111, it seems as this figure is around the best power judging by one of two other site members reports. Give it a try you do not need a large scope when the Moon gets out the way, it can be done with 4 inch refractors and probably less if conditions are good.

Alan.