After the dust had settled...searching in the wee hours

[BigBoot]

After a few days hiding away from the red duct, I decided to venture out again last night. Having watched the Falcon 9 launch and then waited for news of the barge landing (landed but then tipped over), I didn't get the scope outside until about 10pm.

The sky was the clearest that I have seen it for a while, with many stars visible, so I was hopeful.

This was to be my first attempt at using the SynScan functionality of my EQ5 mount, so I hoped that the blanket of stars would aid me with the alignment.I quickly found and downloaded an app on my tablet, which I hoped would give me a very accurate GPS fix, and was a little surprised when the SynScan handset only asked for whole degrees and minutes. With the location and time entered, I decided to skip the polar alignment (just pressing enter when prompted). It was a decision that I would come to regret, but I hadn't practiced with the polar scope before, it was dark, and I thought I vaguely remembered reading somewhere that it didn't matter too much with a 3-star alignment.

So, on to the 3-star alignment, helped by that blanket of stars. Except they didn't help at all.

The handset asked me to point it at Acturus, but I decided that Capella would be an easier target, selected it and pressed enter. The motors did their stuff and the scope swung over towards Capella...towards but not to. The scope was very clearly pointing too far north, and I started questioning whether the polar alignment might have been a good idea after all. Deciding to carry on regardless I fairly easily found Capella in the finderscope and managed to wrestle it into view in the eyepiece, took to the chance to re-align the finderscope and then re-centred Capella in the eyepiece and pushed enter on the computer.

I can't remember if the computer asked for Regulus next, or whether I just decided that it was one that I had a good chance of picking out (aided by another app on the tablet).The motors did their stuff but, again, the scope was clearly a way off from the target...and now I started to have problems.

I had no trouble identifying Regulus (thanks to the app) but I had real difficulty picking it out in the finder scope. It was sitting a distance away from Jupiter but pretty much in a straight line, so my initial idea was to simply find Jupiter and then "go left". That's when I figured out that going left on an equatorial mount is not as simply as I had thought..."why won't you just go in a straight line!!"I had thought that more stars would help, and perhaps they would to somebody with any experience of the sky, but they just seemed to confuse me more, as I tried to use them to work my way to Regulus. The fact that I was seeing more stars through the scope, than with the naked eye, meant that I couldn't tie the two views together.

Eventually I settled on a bright star, that seemed roughly in the right location, and wearily pressed enter.On to the third star. I'm not sure if the computer asked for Castor or Pollux, but I do know that I spent the next 10 minutes finding neither (or maybe both), even though they were close to a chimney that I had hoped to use for navigation, and eventually gave up.Finally, through random use of the Esc, Scroll and Enter keys I managed to strong-arm the computer into letting me change my mind and pick a star that seemed pretty much on its own (Spica).The motors whirred again, and once more pointed the scope not very close to the target. Still I found Spica (I think) pretty easily and entered it into the computer.

"Alignment complete" the SynScan confidently declared. I was not so sure, so decided to test it by asking it to find Jupiter. To my surpise it actually did get Jupiter into the eyepiece, albeit right at the edge...so probably not much use for smaller objects.I had a quick look at Jupiter but, to be honest, the alignment had worn me out so I decided to go in for a cup of tea.

Then I looked at the clock...1.30am.

Two thoughts occured to me. Firstly, had I really been out for three and a half hours? Secondly....Saturn!

I don't have a good view of the horizon (mostly blocked by houses or rows of trees, but there is a gap pointing south-east, so the possibility of Saturn had been on my mind.Once  problem was a hedge and the fact that Stellerium seems to show it only rising a little over the horizon, so I wasn't confident that it would get over the hedge, the other problem was that I don't normally stay up late enough to catch Saturn rising.Well, if the mount alignment fiasco had helped with anything, it was the staying up problem, so I thought I might as well give Saturn a shot. I popped oustide to set the mount to head over towards Saturn and went inside to finish my tea.

I headed back out at around 2am and could see that the scope was now pointing slightly over the hedge. Scanning the sky I could see a bright object, I thought it was too high to be Saturn, but felt that it must be worth a shot.This time the target wasn't in the eyepiece and, although I could get the bright object in the finderscope I couldn't seem to get it in the eyepiece (not sure how the two get out of sync, but they seem to very regularly). So, I had to fall back on trying to find it by following a search pattern. I tried something akin to a "creeping line" pattern, I would have ideally tried something like an "expanding square" but the motion of the mount would have quickly confused me.After a couple of minutes I did find a pair of objects, and initially hoped that one of them might be an out of focus Saturn (here is a reproduction of sketch I made, I would be interested in knowing what I had found - again it was roughly south-east).

However, after working with the focus, I realised that it was only ever going to be a point of light, and I was pretty sure that Saturn would be more obvious, so I searched again, until after probably another ten minutes, I finally found a much brighter object.After fiddling with the focus, it finally came into clear view...Saturn...unmistakeably Saturn.

I could very clearly see the "ears" and as I kept looking and adjusting the focus, I seemed to get good distinction between the planet and the band of light around it. I think that the seeing was not great last night, but I tried the 2x barlow, and did manage to get a reasonable view (I was using the basic 10mm eyepiece that comes with the scope), although it did look very much like I was viewing through moving water.

Taking the barlow out again, I had a very good view, and went to wake up the family (by this time it was 2:40am). They were a lot more amenable than I expected, and seemed to really appreciate the view (although they did quickly go back to bed).

There was a point of light, that was pretty much in line with the rings (although it seemed to be a few degrees off), and probably about x5 the diameter of the rings away from the planet. I wondered if it was a moon, but could not be sure.

Overall a great experience, although not as clear as Jupiter, Saturn had a strange ethereal, truely other-worldy, feel and I am very pleased to have seen it.I shall be out again tonight (weather permitting) and I will certainly be polar aligning, but  I (sadly) don't think I will be able to stay up for Saturn again...but who knows...maybe the polar alignment will take me five hours, and I'll suddenly find that it is 2am again...fingers crossed!!


 

[Pondus]

The "blue tinge" might have been ω¹ Scorpii in the constellation Scorpius. Its pretty close to Saturn this season.

Nice report from you again.  .

I`ll stay up late and try to get a glimpse of Saturn later this week.

Rune

[Vox45]

Very nice report

Glad to see the the family enjoys this too !

I also own an HEQ5 and now that I have solved most of my polar alignement issue (no views to N/E/W... only south !) I have started using EQMOD to do multiple stars alignement using Carte Du Ciel (choosing even the faintest stars and not bothering with the handset)

After a few minutes and 5 or 6 stars, I have any chosen target bang on in the middle of the EP when I slew to its coordinates... and tracking is quite good to, I had Saturn in the middle of the EP for 8 minutes before it started to drift a little. I am quite pleased considering the hurdles I had to overcome

[Astro Imp]

Nice report, a great read. 

I had no trouble identifying Regulus (thanks to the app) but I had real difficulty picking it out in the finder scope. It was sitting a distance away from Jupiter but pretty much in a straight line, so my initial idea was to simply find Jupiter and then "go left". That's when I figured out that going left on an equatorial mount is not as simply as I had thought..."why won't you just go in a straight line!!"I had thought that more stars would help, and perhaps they would to somebody with any experience of the sky, but they just seemed to confuse me more, as I tried to use them to work my way to Regulus. The fact that I was seeing more stars through the scope, than with the naked eye, meant that I couldn't tie the two views together.

It sounds as though you are looking through the finder scope with the other eye closed. Keep both eyes open and move the scope until the view in the finder overlays the view in the other eye.

Good luck and clear skies.

[BigBoot]

The "blue tinge" might have been ω¹ Scorpii in the constellation Scorpius. Its pretty close to Saturn this season.

I looked up Omega Scorpii and I think that pair of stars were almost certainly ω¹ Scorpii and ω² Scorpii. Thanks, much appreciated.

It sounds as though you are looking through the finder scope with the other eye closed. Keep both eyes open and move the scope until the view in the finder overlays the view in the other eye.

Great, thanks for the tip. I will hopefully get chance to try that tonight.

[brrttpaul]

That sounds very much like the problem I had last night still trying to figure it out,