Very good viewing so far tonight ! (18-04-14)

[John]

Excellent viewing conditions and no moon intruding, as yet 

So far my 12" dob has targeted:

- Jupiter: in twilight with 6 very nicely defined belts and the two darker polar zones.

- Castor, Iota Leonis, Algieba and a number of other doubles very nicely split.

- Mars: Lovely view of Syrtis Major and other by now familiar features. Strong colours tonight.

- Comet Comet C/2012 K1 Panstarrs as a mag 9.5 fuzzy teardrop in Bootes

- Supernova SN2014J still shining at around mag 13 in M82. The galaxy itself looking fascinatingly clumpy and crossed by dark rifts. 

- Galaxy M51 showing some spiral structure and quite extensive halos around the pair of galactic cores.

- M13, the great globular cluster in Hercules just pulling itself up from the Bristol skyglow to the NW. Resolved deep into the core at 133x.

A real mix of subjects tonight but none has disappointed so far 

[Steve777]

Sounds great; caught the GRS transit & Mars is great, M13 not high enough here for a great view though.

[Marki]

Sounds like a great haul, John! Quite envious .

Bit more frustrating for me, unfortunately. Got some double early one and then Mars was great, though. Some really great detail at x300. I even decided to play about and really push the magnitifation - I have to report that x750 (5mm BGO, and 2.5x Powermate in the Istar) was not really happening, lol. 535x (7mm BGO in the powermate) was a bit more recognizable as a planet, though. And actually x375 was not at all bad (10mm in the powermate), with a fair amount of detail visible - contrast was better at x300 and below, though. Hellas seemed really pronounced tonight for some reason.

Saturn was not so good - I could barely make out the Cassini division, although I could make out some colour differentiation on the planet itself with hints of banding and seeming darker towards the pole.

I decided to go for some DSOs (pinwheel etc.), but I think my optics were dewing-up a bit and my power tank was losing charge, I was losing alignment and going to other targets was a bit of a faff, and the moon was beginning to wash everything out so I decided to turn in for the night.

[Emmanuel Marchal]

I had a similar experience tonight John, with very stable skies/good viewing. I tried to image Mars and i think a good a good sets of AVI to be worked on tomorrow. In live view i could easily see syrtis major, sinus meridiani, a small polar cap and some white/bluish clouds on the limb. nice to have good skies like this (and no dew!!!)

[John]

Sounds like a great haul, John! Quite envious .

Bit more frustrating for me, unfortunately. Got some double early one and then Mars was great, though. Some really great detail at x300. I even decided to play about and really push the magnitifation - I have to report that x750 (5mm BGO, and 2.5x Powermate in the Istar) was not really happening, lol. 535x (7mm BGO in the powermate) was a bit more recognizable as a planet, though. And actually x375 was not at all bad (10mm in the powermate), with a fair amount of detail visible - contrast was better at x300 and below, though. Hellas seemed really pronounced tonight for some reason.

Saturn was not so good - I could barely make out the Cassini division, although I could make out some colour differentiation on the planet itself with hints of banding and seeming darker towards the pole.

I decided to go for some DSOs (pinwheel etc.), but I think my optics were dewing-up a bit and my power tank was losing charge, I was losing alignment and going to other targets was a bit of a faff, and the moon was beginning to wash everything out so I decided to turn in for the night.

Sounds a bit of a mixed bag Mark.

When I used my Istar 150 F/12 on Mars a couple of days ago I found that up to 300x was very good and I got some really nice views. 360x was not bad but in all honesty the "bite" had gone from the image so I did not stay with that for long on Mars. Dropping back to 300x and 257x bought things sharply back into focus again.

During the periods of best seeing I'd say the 6" F/12 was showing Mars with around the same quality that the 12" dob does under good conditions. The larger aperture does have a little more "in hand" when you want to push even further on though.

[andrew65]

Well I was looking at mars last night with the 10" dob around 12:30 and it doesn't do it for me I can't see any deatail and on top of that the police helicopter came right over with lights blazing and ruined it for me they were right overhead and I thought for a minute they were going to swing the light on me now that would have been interesting but never mind I'll try mars again in a few days if it's clear

[Mark at Beaufort]

Sound like a great night John - I really liked your 12" Orion. Interesting that you can still pick up Supernova SN2014J - I tried to view it on Friday night with the 10" Dob and could not see it. Thanks for the 'Heads Up' on Comet Comet C/2012 K1 Panstarrs did not appreciate that it was visible even though I spent a good two hours last night viewing doubles in Bootes.