Fingers crossed for tonight, what might I see, what should I use? Now - observation diary

[JOC]

So for January 2017 I make that only 4 clear nights for observing.  That's not brilliant weather is it, about 13% clear nights?  I hope things get better as the year progresses it would be a shame not to do better than that average over the whole year.

[mikey2000]

Finishing the school run, the clouds broke and a saw a bit of blue sky and a glimpse of a crescent moon.   After sunset,  I saw the moon, mars and Venus all lined up.  

A frisson of excitement!   

 

The children are all heading to bed now and of course, it's raining again.

 

maybe March will be better....

[JOC]

So, if you read my other comments the question will be did I get Jupiter last night or not?

Well around 5pm I looked out and despite what 'clear skies' said it looked decently clear so I threw caution to the wind and lugged everything outside to the water-butt stand.    Then I did the sheep and put on my ski-suit and went outside for a session about 7pm.  It is still difficult to find Polaris through the finder-scope so having tried and failed to do a two star calibration from Polaris to Betelguese, I went back to doing it the other way around.  Orion is much easier to find than a single star in the middle of nowhere - what makes Polaris difficult is that it appears to be by itself and therefore findable in the sky, but even through the finderscope there are actually far more stars around it when you start to add magnification and its still not an easy find.  So in the finish I got it calibrated and had a think about what to look at.   My old friend Orion was blazing clear above the house so I thought I'd start with M42 and do a comparison of the two lenses - I'll stick that on the other thread though.  I got some fabulous views of M42 some really nice wispy nebula using a Celestron 32mm Omni Plossl and nicely split the trapezium into the usual 4 stars that I seem able to see.  When I had Orion up for the first half hour it did seem particularly good viewing. 

Now what to look at next.  So I'd taken a list of Messier objects out with me.  I tried for a couple of nebulas, having been making notes on what people have written on SGL about.  I asked it for M51, M57 and M81/82, but maybe because they were above my light pollution direction I didn't see anything that looked 'wispy' so having wasted a fair amount on time on non-existent wisps I had a think about what might be more interesting.  Double stars maybe - I tried a couple of those in Orion (I can find Orion :-) - heaven knows what I will do when it disappears for the year), but I couldn't split them - why? came to mind.  So I went back to Castor - that one I know how it should look.  Mmmmm............I can tell both stars are there, but it's all getting a bit fuzzy up top - I wonder if the atmospherics are at work - looked up and the sky has started to reflect back on me from the west - there's a thin layer of cloud starting to make its presence felt.  So doubles are not brilliant, fuzzies are out, clusters!  I haven't tried those yet and they are on the Messier list.  Pleiades (M45) - I have looked at it previously, but still beautiful, what next?  Consult list and start picking - M44 apparently the beehive cluster - lovely!  M35 - liked this one - I couldn't see it with the naked eye, but a great sprinkling of stars some of which appeared to be almost chained together.  These are all open clusters - I fancied a look at globular clusters, but without exception every single one I picked of my list was below the horizon - bit of a shame. 

Getting a bit colder now check watch - about 9pm - asked the system for Jupiter - vain hope still below the horizon - cloud is steadily marching across my view (but slowly).  So came inside, but thought I'd leave the kit out as I think Jupiter should be up around 22:30 and it may still be clear.  So I came inside and found a nice website which showed Jupiter should be up around 21:40!!  i.e. soon!  Raced upstairs - it will be low on the horizon but could I see it - should be East-ish?  Faint light up between the trees - could that be it?  Downstairs - how to tell for certain - it's where I can't see with the telescope where it is, now what do the SGLers use a lot of ?- binoculars!  Grabbed my birding bins and got the field boundary - big reddish light point in the sky - a disc in the bins - that has to be it and it's now above the trees.  The trouble is I'm 150 yards from seeing it with the telescope and those damned clouds are getting closer.  Need to make a decision...........sod it...........lets move the telescope............so I quickly dug my strong son out of the sofa and asked him to help and we raced the telescope across the garden - those clouds are now really, really close.  Sod the goto, 32mm on swing the telescope and run along the tree line - there she is - Jupiter - 3 moons above close together and one below a bit further away, she's getting fainter by minute to the eye as the clouds close the gap, 10mm on there she is - a little bit of looking and we have two faint dark bands just about visible, son and I got a quick look and then she vanished completely - so that was it, my first look at Jupiter through my own telescope, but she was quite blurry.  I hope another night that what I see might be better defined, but at least I got a quick look :-)  Howzatt!!?

[kilix]

1 hour ago, JOC said:

So, if you read my other comments the question will be did I get Jupiter last night or not?

Well around 5pm I looked out and despite what 'clear skies' said it looked decently clear so I threw caution to the wind and lugged everything outside to the water-butt stand.    Then I did the sheep and put on my ski-suit and went outside for a session about 7pm.  It is still difficult to find Polaris through the finder-scope so having tried and failed to do a two star calibration from Polaris to Betelguese, I went back to doing it the other way around.  Orion is much easier to find than a single star in the middle of nowhere - what makes Polaris difficult is that it appears to be by itself and therefore findable in the sky, but even through the finderscope there are actually far more stars around it when you start to add magnification and its still not an easy find.  So in the finish I got it calibrated and had a think about what to look at.   My old friend Orion was blazing clear above the house so I thought I'd start with M42 and do a comparison of the two lenses - I'll stick that on the other thread though.  I got some fabulous views of M42 some really nice wispy nebula using a Celestron 32mm Omni Plossl and nicely split the trapezium into the usual 4 stars that I seem able to see.  When I had Orion up for the first half hour it did seem particularly good viewing. 

Now what to look at next.  So I'd taken a list of Messier objects out with me.  I tried for a couple of nebulas, having been making notes on what people have written on SGL about.  I asked it for M51, M57 and M81/82, but maybe because they were above my light pollution direction I didn't see anything that looked 'wispy' so having wasted a fair amount on time on non-existent wisps I had a think about what might be more interesting.  Double stars maybe - I tried a couple of those in Orion (I can find Orion :-) - heaven knows what I will do when it disappears for the year), but I couldn't split them - why? came to mind.  So I went back to Castor - that one I know how it should look.  Mmmmm............I can tell both stars are there, but it's all getting a bit fuzzy up top - I wonder if the atmospherics are at work - looked up and the sky has started to reflect back on me from the west - there's a thin layer of cloud starting to make its presence felt.  So doubles are not brilliant, fuzzies are out, clusters!  I haven't tried those yet and they are on the Messier list.  Pleiades (M45) - I have looked at it previously, but still beautiful, what next?  Consult list and start picking - M44 apparently the beehive cluster - lovely!  M35 - liked this one - I couldn't see it with the naked eye, but a great sprinkling of stars some of which appeared to be almost chained together.  These are all open clusters - I fancied a look at globular clusters, but without exception every single one I picked of my list was below the horizon - bit of a shame. 

Getting a bit colder now check watch - about 9pm - asked the system for Jupiter - vain hope still below the horizon - cloud is steadily marching across my view (but slowly).  So came inside, but thought I'd leave the kit out as I think Jupiter should be up around 22:30 and it may still be clear.  So I came inside and found a nice website which showed Jupiter should be up around 21:40!!  i.e. soon!  Raced upstairs - it will be low on the horizon but could I see it - should be East-ish?  Faint light up between the trees - could that be it?  Downstairs - how to tell for certain - it's where I can't see with the telescope where it is, now what do the SGLers use a lot of ?- binoculars!  Grabbed my birding bins and got the field boundary - big reddish light point in the sky - a disc in the bins - that has to be it and it's now above the trees.  The trouble is I'm 150 yards from seeing it with the telescope and those damned clouds are getting closer.  Need to make a decision...........sod it...........lets move the telescope............so I quickly dug my strong son out of the sofa and asked him to help and we raced the telescope across the garden - those clouds are now really, really close.  Sod the goto, 32mm on swing the telescope and run along the tree line - there she is - Jupiter - 3 moons above close together and one below a bit further away, she's getting fainter by minute to the eye as the clouds close the gap, 10mm on there she is - a little bit of looking and we have two faint dark bands just about visible, son and I got a quick look and then she vanished completely - so that was it, my first look at Jupiter through my own telescope, but she was quite blurry.  I hope another night that what I see might be better defined, but at least I got a quick look :-)  Howzatt!!?

you made it sound like a real drama! I enjoyed reading. Hope you get many more pleasant views of Jupiter, it's really beautiful planet. No worries thou, you didn't miss anything, in april Jupiter is at it's closest, so better views are yet to come!

[Scott Brown]

15 hours ago, JOC said:

So, if you read my other comments the question will be did I get Jupiter last night or not?

Well around 5pm I looked out and despite what 'clear skies' said it looked decently clear so I threw caution to the wind and lugged everything outside to the water-butt stand.    Then I did the sheep and put on my ski-suit and went outside for a session about 7pm.  It is still difficult to find Polaris through the finder-scope so having tried and failed to do a two star calibration from Polaris to Betelguese, I went back to doing it the other way around.  Orion is much easier to find than a single star in the middle of nowhere - what makes Polaris difficult is that it appears to be by itself and therefore findable in the sky, but even through the finderscope there are actually far more stars around it when you start to add magnification and its still not an easy find.  So in the finish I got it calibrated and had a think about what to look at.   My old friend Orion was blazing clear above the house so I thought I'd start with M42 and do a comparison of the two lenses - I'll stick that on the other thread though.  I got some fabulous views of M42 some really nice wispy nebula using a Celestron 32mm Omni Plossl and nicely split the trapezium into the usual 4 stars that I seem able to see.  When I had Orion up for the first half hour it did seem particularly good viewing. 

Now what to look at next.  So I'd taken a list of Messier objects out with me.  I tried for a couple of nebulas, having been making notes on what people have written on SGL about.  I asked it for M51, M57 and M81/82, but maybe because they were above my light pollution direction I didn't see anything that looked 'wispy' so having wasted a fair amount on time on non-existent wisps I had a think about what might be more interesting.  Double stars maybe - I tried a couple of those in Orion (I can find Orion :-) - heaven knows what I will do when it disappears for the year), but I couldn't split them - why? came to mind.  So I went back to Castor - that one I know how it should look.  Mmmmm............I can tell both stars are there, but it's all getting a bit fuzzy up top - I wonder if the atmospherics are at work - looked up and the sky has started to reflect back on me from the west - there's a thin layer of cloud starting to make its presence felt.  So doubles are not brilliant, fuzzies are out, clusters!  I haven't tried those yet and they are on the Messier list.  Pleiades (M45) - I have looked at it previously, but still beautiful, what next?  Consult list and start picking - M44 apparently the beehive cluster - lovely!  M35 - liked this one - I couldn't see it with the naked eye, but a great sprinkling of stars some of which appeared to be almost chained together.  These are all open clusters - I fancied a look at globular clusters, but without exception every single one I picked of my list was below the horizon - bit of a shame. 

Getting a bit colder now check watch - about 9pm - asked the system for Jupiter - vain hope still below the horizon - cloud is steadily marching across my view (but slowly).  So came inside, but thought I'd leave the kit out as I think Jupiter should be up around 22:30 and it may still be clear.  So I came inside and found a nice website which showed Jupiter should be up around 21:40!!  i.e. soon!  Raced upstairs - it will be low on the horizon but could I see it - should be East-ish?  Faint light up between the trees - could that be it?  Downstairs - how to tell for certain - it's where I can't see with the telescope where it is, now what do the SGLers use a lot of ?- binoculars!  Grabbed my birding bins and got the field boundary - big reddish light point in the sky - a disc in the bins - that has to be it and it's now above the trees.  The trouble is I'm 150 yards from seeing it with the telescope and those damned clouds are getting closer.  Need to make a decision...........sod it...........lets move the telescope............so I quickly dug my strong son out of the sofa and asked him to help and we raced the telescope across the garden - those clouds are now really, really close.  Sod the goto, 32mm on swing the telescope and run along the tree line - there she is - Jupiter - 3 moons above close together and one below a bit further away, she's getting fainter by minute to the eye as the clouds close the gap, 10mm on there she is - a little bit of looking and we have two faint dark bands just about visible, son and I got a quick look and then she vanished completely - so that was it, my first look at Jupiter through my own telescope, but she was quite blurry.  I hope another night that what I see might be better defined, but at least I got a quick look :-)  Howzatt!!?

Great read JOC, I'm glad you got a glimpse and pretty sure you will get better views soon. I am like a kid when I see Jupiter in the sky and rush about all excited lol. I must admit my work mates are getting fed up of me telling them how great he looks.

[JOC]

So it looked like it might be set clear when we looked out at about 16:00.  Luna was out in the sunshine so as I was desperate to see something through the telescope I thought I'd set up and take a look at her in the daytime and maybe take some snaps of her too.  Of course the ulterior motive was to be ready to catch Jupiter after karate practice.  Luna went well filling the EP at about 25mm and then we had a look at the edge relief with the baby 11mm TV plossl and tried taking some snaps (still in camera).  Mmmm.....still light..... is there anything else to see?  Venus caught my so I swung the scope round for a look.

I got my best view of Venus so far.  A perfectly focussed fine slither of a cresent.  No flaring, no auras just total perfection - really wonderful.  I used the TV plossl again.  The telescope seems to lap up EP's at around the 10-11mm mark.  For some reason I couldn't take a photo of the slither wich was quite quite as thin as I saw my own eyes .

The I went to Karate and when I got back all the stars had vanished and Jupiter was nowhere close, but at least we got a good look at Venus before clouds rolled in..

[Charic]

6 hours ago, JOC said:

The telescope seems to lap up EP's at around the 10-11mm mark

It would appear that a sweet spot is achieved at around twice the telescopes  focal ratio! Works for me too.

[JOC]

I had taken the telescope to the East Essex astronomy club last night and was delighted that everyone seemed to like it and wanted to take a look at Venus through it, it was a nice feeling to share the excitement.  The clouds meant I couldn't have identified the stars to use the goto, but it was easy enough to sight up on Venus which was just to one side of house roof, so I had an easy guide and was able to find her straight away (very important for face saving purposes LOL)  We also tried Luna and got a passable look at her through thin cloud, but it wasn't ideal.  It was interesting that someone else had a frac set up and one lady commented that it was strange to see the Venus crescent facing one was in the Frac and the opposite way through my one.  I must take a look in a Frac one day see Luna the correct way around!

Anyhow, when I got back home around 21:30 I looked up to see Luna practically cloud free and it seemed begging for me to take a better look before I lugged the kit back into the house from the car.  I got my son out of the house and we had a nice look at her, I've acquired a Meade super plossl 15mm, and, although we tried the TV 11mm plossl, the 15mm Meade seemed to give a more satisfactory view esp. as we were still nudging rather than on the goto as it was still too cloudy to set it up (I don't know if it possible to just ask it to track without calibrating it - I am guess tracking relies on it knowing where it is and so one precludes the other - if anyone knows otherwise please can they tell me how to track without calibrating?), the 15mm kept more of the bit of the moon we were looking at in the viewfinder for longer than the 11mm was doing.  We did have a play with using the plastic hole aperture reducer - it made a big difference and Luna was a lot less blinding with the aperture reduced, I shall try this again.  It was about 10pm when son started to get cold and the clouds weren't helping with seeing much else so we lifted the kit back inside. 

Then I wandered back out and turned SE and thought 'big light in the sky'  its got to be Jupiter!  Sure enough the birding bins confirmed big bright point source of light with little light dots around it.  Sod it!  Went back inside and lugged all the kit back outside again - can't miss this!  Sure enough it was a little hazy/cloudy every now and then, but Jupiter was again up there with four little moons.  As I wanted to show the family I thought about the experience with the moon and guessed that we would forever be losing the view without the goto if I went to 11mm or more magnification, so popped the little Meade 15mm back into the system again - we got 2 good stripes, a darker area towards one of the poles and 4 nice moons - no big red dot. The clouds kept inferring so it wasn't brilliant, but my mum and my son both had a really good look and it was a much more successful view than we had the first night we saw her.  She was also higher in the sky and I didn't have to move the telescope 200 yards to the other side of the tall trees.  Once we had our fill we then put things away again!  LOL

[JOC]

It didn't look at all promising earlier tonight, but we came back from karate and there was a beautiful moon up and right next to it was Jupiter!  My son hauled the scope from the porch (where it is fairly cool anyway) and we had a lovely look at her.  I discovered tonight how to make her larger - I used my new x2 Barlow with the new 15mm Meade super plossl.  Then Jupiter decorated  with 4 shiney moons almost entirely filled the Eyepiece :-D  I was still disappointed with the lack of detail - still only 2 stripes, but it was def. Larger and she is def. Coloured in the EP which is nice.  I would love to have been skilled enough to have taken a photo of Jupiter next to the moon, but I had too much magnification going on and couldn't get them both in the same shot even without the Barlow.  In fact I think we may have missed their closest point.  I also tried the polariser on Jupiter, but I think I need more practice.  Then the clouds came over  :-(  so yet another session without the goto running.  These unplanned grab and go and beat the cloud essions will be th death of me.  I like it all planned and organised, not spot something at the last minute and pull something unplanned out of the bag just to fit in!

[Mognet]

The haze and closeness of the moon made it hard to get much detail from Jupiter on Tuesday night. It seemed easier tonight even though the sky was worse

[kilix]

On 15. 3. 2017 at 00:54, JOC said:

It didn't look at all promising earlier tonight, but we came back from karate and there was a beautiful moon up and right next to it was Jupiter!  My son hauled the scope from the porch (where it is fairly cool anyway) and we had a lovely look at her.  I discovered tonight how to make her larger - I used my new x2 Barlow with the new 15mm Meade super plossl.  Then Jupiter decorated  with 4 shiney moons almost entirely filled the Eyepiece :-D  I was still disappointed with the lack of detail - still only 2 stripes, but it was def. Larger and she is def. Coloured in the EP which is nice.  I would love to have been skilled enough to have taken a photo of Jupiter next to the moon, but I had too much magnification going on and couldn't get them both in the same shot even without the Barlow.  In fact I think we may have missed their closest point.  I also tried the polariser on Jupiter, but I think I need more practice.  Then the clouds came over  :-(  so yet another session without the goto running.  These unplanned grab and go and beat the cloud essions will be th death of me.  I like it all planned and organised, not spot something at the last minute and pull something unplanned out of the bag just to fit in!

I found out, that somehow, with multiple viewings, details start to pop out. Maybe it's the eye-brain combination recalibrating to what is percieved, but I definitely see much more detail these days, than I did when I viewed Jupiter for the first time.
Too bad, that seeing was really terrible yesterday, no cloud layer here, finally! But I could not see anything on Jupiter, worst seeing I've ever experienced. Moon was the only somewhat observable object, but still, the atmosphere was shaky and detail kept slipping away.

[Stu]

Not sure how I missed this thread, some great reading in here which I shall go back and check out when I have time.

Jupiter is definitely as case of the longer and more often you look, the more you see. It is easy to spend an hour just looking and waiting for the moments of excellent seeing. It is not uncommon to spend several hours or more watch as moons, shadow or the GRS transit the surface. It's an amazing planet, very dynamic.

As reported elsewhere, I was getting excellent detail on it last night with a 65mm Newt  GRS very clear, plus more than just the two main belts in terms of surface detail.

[JOC]

I went out to have a really good session last night - we were 'clear through to Flag Town' (Convoy!) in terms of sky - the first really decently clear night for ages.  I had several new 'toys' to try so I got it all set-up properly, got the power out, put on my new Astrozap dew shield for the front (still need to aquire something for the middle of the truss tube), the Astrozap is rather smart though, and added my new tray of rotating filters that I wanted to try on the Nebulas.  I also had a play with my new EP's.  I still struggled with the goto calibration - tried it twice and then gave up - it was getting me close and then more of less tracking because at least it was running, so I was just giving it a shunt once it got close.  I don't know what I'm going to do when Orion vanishes for the year - at least I can reliably find Betelgeuse!  Polaris is still a real problem to locate in the scope though - I know which one it is by eye, but it is still not easy to find with the finder-scope as there are a lot of starts up there once you magnify things (yes, I guess I'll capitulate and buy a red-dot finder sooner or later). 

I started with M42 (I love M42) I tried wide view on the nebula itself and experimented with the O-III and the UHC - I had them in a rotating tray I've acquired under the EP and could switch from one to the other - I don't know how much of an improvement they are over no filter, but they do change the view.  Each bringing out a different overall shape which are different from the no filter shape.  I shall continue to experiment.  Lesson learned last night - don't over unscrew a small knurled nut and drop it on a gravel drive  you have to destroy your night vision and spend 10 mins with a white torch to find it!

Then I had a bash at the trapezium.  I tried splitting it with my new 8mm TV Plossl, but this seems to have a very small 'looking through' hole.  I don't doubt it is a good EP, but I think it will take more practice to use it to its fullest - jaeboo has suggested to try it on Jupiter.  My favourite combo currently is the 15mm Meade super plossl with x2 Barlow (I have to remove the filter tray though).  With it the trapezium split beautifully  - still only 4 stars (John has given some more hints on E & F in another thread), but superbly split with a really decent gap between them - best look at them so far - really pleased with them. 

Flush with success and my filters on M42 I tried finding M81/82 (they are still above my floodlit factory) - I spent over 20 minutes looking for them at 35mm and then 15mm and I swear they aren't up there!  Fed-up with that I wanted an easy win so turned back to Pleiades which always 'gives' - still as pretty as ever.  They are def. all starting to appear in different parts of the sky though - Orion is now shifted right round as is Pleiades.  Then as it seemed good seeing I tried Sirius - not overly sparkly, but I didn't see the pup, I've seen the picture of what to look for and couldn't find it - apparently it will get better.  Still it's always a fun look.  I was now running out of easily finable targets and was getting colder so came in for a hour or so whilst I waited for Jupiter.

Jupiter duly appeared with the moon in tow, Four pretty moon last night at the top - I love the way they all twinkle around the main planet.  Not having had success with the TV 8mm earlier in the evening I went straight for the Meade 15mm X2 Barlow combo - it really pulls it in close, but I still seem have a fair FOV.  It's a nice combination.  I could still only see two stripes on Jupiter, but the view was nice and mum came out and shared it with me (this time minus a white light - I am gradually teaching her), then once we'd had our fill of Jupiter and just because we could, I turned the Combo on the edge of the moon and we both really enjoyed nearly climbing into the craters on the edge. 

The other thing I did was to have 10 minutes holding up Stellarium on my mobile and trying to find some new constellations for when I have to say bye, bye to Orion, I am fairly sure I found Leo! 

So that was last night - only my normal predictable objects - nothing overly spectacular, but a good view and I was really impressed with the split of the 4 main trapezium stars.

[mikey2000]

I've been quietly following this thread - it's always a good read.   I exactly understand the desire to return to a few easy and rewarding targets :-)

 

ive been so busy trying to get my scope under computer control, I'd almost forgotten the pleasure of observing!   I'm such a newb that I hadn't even heard of the Trapezium before.  So, I had a quick half hour to have a look.  It won't be long before Orion has disappeared until next winter....   there they were! 4 little stars in a  trapezium shape, cloaked with faint nebulosity.   My best view was with 12mm (on 150PDS) giving a very obvious split and a nice surrounding view.

 

No time for an extended view tonight (annoying as conditions looks quite settled tonight....). I have an early rise tomorrow :-(

 

An idea for a reasonably interesting constellation at the moment might be Auriga (about 35 degrees north of Orion's head). Its chock full of clusters that are relatively easy to find (none of these disappointingly faint galaxies....).  Auriga is a bit higher overhead than Orion so should stay visible for a few more weeks.  Happy hunting!

[JOC]

So just a quick update.  Tuesday is my day away and karate practice in the evening.  I could tell it was set fair when I got in earlier, but knowing I was off out again I tried to ignore it.  However, just arriving back after karate and the sky was lovely.  We might not be pristinely dark here next to our factory, but some directions are pretty good and straight up tonight looked quite superb.  Absolutely hundreds and hundreds of stars.  I think we must have the edge on town based locations despite next door's lights.  

Anyhow, although at 22:30 I've pretty much run out of time esp. On a week night, I couldn't resist a peek to see where Jupe's moons were.  So I'm developing what I'll call 'grab and go' telescoping.  This involves grabbing scope on its base.  Heaving it off the ground and my best 'egg between my legs'  penguin gait waddle to get it 5 yard outside.  Dumping it, no water butt stand, where it lands, grabbing a pocket full of favourite  EPs, not bothering with the finderscope! (Get me!!!  Lol), and doing everything manually.  I sighted along the truss tubes and you wouldn't believe it with son's help within 30 seconds we'd knabbed Jupiter and were enjoying the sight (albeit) with some nudging.  

Had time for a quick try with the 'aperture reduction' plastic lid - a bit too dark, but the variable polariser with the open tube def. Has possibilities. What I find was that she wouldn't stay in focus.  Almost as though she drifted in and out focus although I wasn't  touching anything.  Perhaps that was some sort of atmospherics?  

Anyhow , that was it for tonight.  As I say just a quick peek.  However, we did enjoy the baffling array of stars seen with the naked eye, quite beautiful, I am now quite sure that I am def. not going to know what's what up there once Orion is gone though.

NB.  Apologies for typo's above (now fixed) - when I write one that seems chock full of errors you can tell I'm upstairs doing a post on my phone and doing the butterfingers routine on the 'tripe-o' typing screen.  I'm much better on my full size keyboard as I am a touch typist!

[rockystar]

10 hours ago, JOC said:

not going to know what's what up there once Orion is gone though.

see of you can identify Leo next, some easyish galaxies in there. It should be at about the same night as Orion in the south-east

 

[JOC]

Hi Rockystar, I had a look for Leo at the weekend when it was clear.  I used stellarium on the phone and was pretty sure I found it, but when I looked up last night without stellarium on the phone I'd lost it again.  However, finding it is going to be repeatable when I have the app. running and hopefully in time I'll get it sussed with just my eye.  With the App. I could see the whole thing - head, mane, legs etc. so was quite pleased, with a bit more time and a night like last night perhaps I'll go looking for those galaxies you mention.  :-D

I could still find the Plough last night and I've noted that it seems to be rotating and standing more upright each night.  Orion was in the West/North West type direction and getting lower on the horizon when we looked and the 'monster raving party star' (which is my son's monicker for Sirius) had also shifted position right around to the West/South West type location - to our eyes it was still doing its 'party crazy' routine.   Formerly both were much more South to South-East.  It's actually interesting just to see them all move, something I didn't pay much attention to before I had a telescope.

[Scott Brown]

13 hours ago, JOC said:

So just a quick update.  Tuesday is my day away and karate practice in the evening.  I could tell it was set fair when I got in earlier, but knowing I was off out again I tried to ignore it.  However, just arriving back after karate and the sky was lovely.  We might not be pristinely dark here next to our factory, but some directions are pretty good and straight up tonight looked quite superb.  Absolutely hundreds and hundreds of stars.  I think we must have the edge on town based locations despite next door's lights.  

Anyhow, although at 22:30 I've pretty much run out of time esp. On a week night, I couldn't resist a peek to see where Jupe's moons were.  So I'm developing what I'll call 'grab and go' telescoping.  This involves grabbing scope on its base.  Heaving it off the ground and my best 'egg between my legs'  penguin gait waddle to get it 5 yard outside.  Dumping it, no water butt stand, where it lands, grabbing a pocket full of favourite  EPs, not bothering with the finderscope! (Get me!!!  Lol), and doing everything manually.  I sighted along the truss tubes and you wouldn't believe it with son's help within 30 seconds we'd knabbed Jupiter and were enjoying the sight (albeit) with some nudging.  

Had time for a quick try with the 'aperture reduction' plastic lid - a bit too dark, but the variable polariser with the open tube def. Has possibilities. What I find was that she wouldn't stay in focus.  Almost as though she drifted in and out focus although I wasn't  touching anything.  Perhaps that was some sort of atmospherics?  

Anyhow , that was it for tonight.  As I say just a quick peek.  However, we did enjoy the baffling array of stars seen with the naked eye, quite beautiful, I am now quite sure that I am def. not going to know what's what up there once Orion is gone though.

NB.  Apologies for typo's above (now fixed) - when I write one that seems chock full of errors you can tell I'm upstairs doing a post on my phone and doing the butterfingers routine on the 'tripe-o' typing screen.  I'm much better on my full size keyboard as I am a touch typist!

Jupiter was the same for me last night JOC.... In and out of focus all the time but still ok to view. The plough gets higher in the sky for me and by the time I moved on to M51 it was no use as it was directly above me, I must try and get out a wee bit earlier I think.

[rockystar]

@JOC My first season was a couple of summers ago, I learned to identify Cygnus and Lyra, pretty quickly, then Hercules; i already knew Cassiopea so that became my pointer to Perseus and Andromeda. I thought, yeah, this learning the sky is easy. Then a few weeks of clouds with no observing, got back out in the autumn and everything had changed!!! I had to start again!

It's great seeing the sky change over time, now you are aware of it. And tracking the phase of the moon and having a reasonable idea when it will rise and set, which planets are in the sky and when Jupiter and Saturn will be back round, is all useless knowledge outside of the hobby and gets lots of remarks along the lines of "how do you know that!?"

 

[rockystar]

Oh yeah, and then when Hercules started rising again in the east (around about this time of year) it was upside down!!

[JOC]

Upside down!!  Oh, no!  I'm still having a job with them the 'right' way up, let alone inverted!  I even had to search for Ursa Major last night until I realised that the plough was standing on its end!

[JOC]

Hmmph.....I wanted to go outside and play tonight - low cloud 0%.......medium cloud 0%........wait for it...........High cloud 96%+ for all this evening :-(  It's lovely and bright and sunny outside at the moment, but yes, I can see thin layer of high cloud up there and I presume I won't see enough through high cloud to make it worth setting up will I?

[Stu]

46 minutes ago, JOC said:

Hmmph.....I wanted to go outside and play tonight - low cloud 0%.......medium cloud 0%........wait for it...........High cloud 96%+ for all this evening :-(  It's lovely and bright and sunny outside at the moment, but yes, I can see thin layer of high cloud up there and I presume I won't see enough through high cloud to make it worth setting up will I?

Tricky one. I really want to try to see the Asteroid tonight but it looks like I will have similar conditions making it unlikely. Think I will still set up though, Jupiter can still look good through thin cloud.

[bingevader]

Pretty good from here.

Not expecting much, so just nipped out with the ETX90.

Wouldn't take much magnification, but good bands and moons.

First time I've seen Jupiter in ages!

[JOC]

I went outside about 21:30 and had a look with my eyes - it was all up there, Jupy was doing her stuff, but somehow it seemed to me that it wasn't all crystal clear, given that the telescope was still well through the house in the lounge (where I took those snaps yesterday when I stuck the base back on) and it was damn cold outside (1 degree here when I looked out!) I decided to give it a miss - the telescope also wouldn't have had time to cool down and had been in the warmest part of the house.  I'll take it back to porch later and that gives plus points all round to a snap decision set-up if I want one another night.  Hope that those that went out were pleased with what they saw.