Dark sky testing .

[cotterless45]

My friend Patbloke came over from West Bromwich. He had bought a used Altair Astro 102mm f11 and a 150mm f8 Helios. This he had a car respray professionally finished in gleaming white.

He used his AVX mount, never seen one in action, but it's very very accurate. It's packed with features, even an encyclopaedic entry for showpiece targets.
He used 25 and 6.5mm 5000 Meade eyepieces. We spent some time seeing how good the scopes were and just how good. The 102 is just a joy to use, a real classic. Ca was practically not there . A very relaxing and user friendly scope, just a delight to use .

We observed these targets, with stunning results at a nearby secure dark site. It was a great learning experience, trying to figure out custom position for the site and changing scope midway.

Andromeda.
M31, lovely expanse with a dusty lane.
NGC 752, another Caroline Herschel discovery.
M34, lots of find stars here.

Aquarius.
M2, really compact and hard to resolve.

Cassiopeia.
Iota Cassiopeiae, lovely triple , obvious at lower power. Wide open with the 6.5mm.
Eta Cassiopeiae, just full of colour.
Psi Cassiopeiae, lovely colourful triple.
NGC 7788, NGC 7789, the double cluster NGC 869 showing its dense detail.

Cepheus.
The Garnet Star, what glorious colour !
The triple to the middle of IC1396, giving a green and violet companion.

Lacerta. 
Just a sitting height for the ep.
Open clusters,
IC 1434 dusty, full of stars.
IC 1442 dusty in a dark field.
NGC 7209 a Christmas tree !
NGC 7243, trails of dust and stars.
NGC 7245, dusty and expansive.
NGC 7296, lovely arrows head and ring.
NGC 7394, a slope of stars.

Lyra.
The double double, really clear with dark between the splits.

Pegasus.
NGC 7662, lovely blue colour.
NGC 7331, lovely streak.

Perseus.
Melotte 20.
NGC 1023, lovely bright streak.

Scutum.
M11, just gorgeous.

Then having got used to the scopes and the coming and going of good seeing , we went to 36 Andromedae and using the 6.5mm got a lovely split at 1.1". Just focussing on the sharp diffraction rings, the split popped in and out. It was very pleasing in the 150, another superb Chinese f8.Not all are created like this.

We popped in the UHC filter and got a spidery M27 in a dark background.
The sky was stunning with the Milky Way and rifts to Cygnus, going through to Cassiopeia and a glowing Perseus. Even M33 showed up as an amorphous shape at x50.

High thin murk began to pick up light and ribbons of cloud moved in at one, we packed in very happy.
Two different scopes, they are both 1200mm focal length. The 102 excels with Colour and the 150 from this site is equivalent to an 8" Newtonian.
Clear skies,
Nick.

 

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[John]

Great report again Nick

I have recently acquired an AVX mount and have been impressed with it from the 1 outing that it's had.

It's amazing how a dark site "grows" the apparent aperture of the scope isn't it ?

[Davesellars]

Great report and some wonderful objects!

[Patbloke]

A fascinating night was had despite several rather comical moments...

The observing was class, surpassed only by the usual banter that bounces back and forth between us all night... Yes, I know, I couldn't enter the coordinates of our rather dubious secret location (surrounded by giraffes and monkeys) which held up alignment for 30 minutes in which I was probably heard to mutter the words - 'this is a really stupid pastime'..

Anyway, I did it somehow achieve great alignment and will be practising handset drills in the comfort of my own home later today :-)

I love that AVX and the Starwave 102 in pearlescent white is my pride and joy... The 150 is a special instrument in that we 'kind of' rescued it from it's slightly battered sky blue state, cleaned it, flocked it, re bolted the rings and felted the inside so as not to scratch the tube body, and finally she was treated to a bright white professional respray £50 (including a huge tip) love it! This morning I have also followed advice and taken the slack out of the focuser. Well chuffed!

Going back to my alignment process again; I have to say having the illuminated reticule is amazing, once again I was able to locate targets at 184x with good centered targets with the press of a few buttons. I did however use the 24mm Starguider EP for most searching though.

I also had a courtesy car which had more lights flashing on opening then the runways at Heathrow airport which knocked out our night vision a few times during the evening..

To put the tin hat on an eventful night I banged and cut my head on the rear door of the Ford Eco Sport when packing away... Great! blood running down my face which on the drive home probably raised concern in the young lady at the drive through although to her credit she never batted an eyelid or mentioned the blood ha ha)

Couple of things I learned is that I need a better compass app, as even I know a setting sun is not North and I desperately need a handset extension cable... Oh and don't forget your observing chairs!

Attached a picture of the resting 150 having received some post observing love..... 

 

[Special K]

Great tour of the sky!  I bet that Helios looks incredible in white.  Thanks for the write up and clear skies. 

EDIT:. not sure how I missed the picture of the Helios when posting earlier, but now I can say it does look incredible!  Good focuser onboard as well which is important. 

[FenlandPaul]

Sounds like a great night, Nick and Patbloke.  Packed full of a good range of objects and loads of lovely doubles.

The Helios looks great!

Your reports always make me think about whether one day I should get a goto mount.  I think my heart is in manually locating things because I enjoy the thrill of hte chase, but whenever I can't track something down I get disproportionately annoyed and wonder whether some electronic assistance would lead to fewer hissy fits and mumbled rants.  You always seem to find everything you look for!!

[Patbloke]

2 hours ago, FenlandPaul said:

Your reports always make me think about whether one day I should get a goto mount.  I think my heart is in manually locating things because I enjoy the thrill of hte chase, but whenever I can't track something down I get disproportionately annoyed and wonder whether some electronic assistance would lead to fewer hissy fits and mumbled rants.  You always seem to find everything you look for!!

Paul,

From personal experience I have seen a lot more than I would ever have seen by using a GoTo... Don't worry the frustration can still be there until you master alignment.

When I first started using scopes manually searching from star maps, I was forever running indoors saying I've found this, I've found that blah blah, and the thrill of the chase cannot be undersold! 

The good news is that you can still search without using a GoTo if you want with some mounts (probably all) or save up and get a nice cheap Dob to drift around the stars with :-) There's room for lot's of different methods of stargazing, GoTos, manual, binoculars, naked eye, cameras advantages and disadvantages for each... Most importantly I have learned you have to make the effort to get out there whenever you can :-)

 

[John]

During the session that I 1st lighted my AVX mount I simply got Polaris visible more or less in the centre of the RA axis (no polar scope used) and then switched the mount on and used "Quick Align" to get it tracking. From there on I used it as a tracking mount and found what I wanted myself by loosening the clutches then tightening them again when I wanted the scope to track. This seemed to work perfectly and objects stayed in the FoV at 200x plus for 15 mins or more before I needed to touch the hand control to re-centre them.

This is not using the capabilites of the mount at all really but it has assured me that I don't need to use any elaborate setup routines if all I want is tracking. And it is nice and relaxing viewing at high power without having to nudge the scope every 20 seconds or so

I've still got the wonders of the GOTO system to explore in due course

The scope involved was my TMB / LZOS 130mm F/9.2 triplet apo BTW. It's around 8kg in weight but the 1.2 metre tube needs a pretty sturdy mount to hold it steady at high powers and the AVX seemed up to the job

 

[alan potts]

As ever a top report from you Nick!! I am away for a week now down at the sea I hope while I am away I get some clear sky though we seriously need rain here and I hope you get some more as well, not rain may I add.

Alan