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Tonight looks good

Chefgage

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Chefgage

Chefgage

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Checked the weather earlier and around midnight looks to be 0% cloud. Also no work tomorrow means I can stay out as late as I want!

Heading out in an hour or so armed with this, my trusty copy of sky atlas and my nearly empty roll of tape which is near enough the field of view of my finder scope.

Wish me luck!! :)

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Knighty2112

Knighty2112

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Clouded over here now, but was clear earlier on. Managed to bag Mercury briefly, and the third night also of also tracking Vesta in its orbit. Came in early because it was blumming cold. My feet are still warming up! Good luck with your observations tonight! :) 

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Chefgage

Chefgage

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4 minutes ago, Knighty2112 said:

Silly question maybe, but what is the tape for? 

Its not so much the tape but the holder its on. The hole is pretty much what I see through tue finderscope so i place that on the star chart

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Chefgage

Chefgage

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21 minutes ago, wookie1965 said:

I'm gutted clear skies here but mount needs fixing. 

I have had a couple of clear skies but i needed to collimate the scope. Having never done it before i decided not to go out with the scope untill i learnt how to do it.

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wookie1965

wookie1965

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1 minute ago, Chefgage said:

I have had a couple of clear skies but i needed to collimate the scope. Having never done it before i decided not to go out with the scope untill i learnt how to do it.

Took me 2 days first time a friend flocked my 150p I watched him strip it down and put it back and collimating it. Now takes me minutes after I got the 200p stripped that cleaned the mirror flocked it when came to collimate only took 5 minutes. It does get easier. 

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wookie1965

wookie1965

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31 minutes ago, Knighty2112 said:

Clouded over here now, but was clear earlier on. Managed to bag Mercury briefly, and the third night also of also tracking Vesta in its orbit. Came in early because it was blumming cold. My feet are still warming up! Good luck with your observations tonight! :) 

Get some heat holder socks they are £5 but they are 2.3tog lovely and warm. 

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Chefgage

Chefgage

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6 minutes ago, wookie1965 said:

Took me 2 days first time a friend flocked my 150p I watched him strip it down and put it back and collimating it. Now takes me minutes after I got the 200p stripped that cleaned the mirror flocked it when came to collimate only took 5 minutes. It does get easier. 

I think i understand the collimating process now. It seemed very complicated when i first started reading about it but in reality it seemed quite easy when i had a go

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John

John

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Still clear here but a touch milky for serious deep sky stuff. I'm waiting for Jupiter to rise a bit further but managed to find comet Johnson in Hercules just now. Rather small and insignificant I thought. I also reminded myself where Markarian's Chain (of galaxies) was in Coma Berenices. Rather surprisinly managed to see around 8 or 9 of those but there will be better nights for that.

Just had a peek at M13 and M97 rising in Hercules. Decent resolution for their limited altitude but they will be better still in a few weeks time.

Hoping Jupiter will be nice but the GRS is out of view until the early hours :rolleyes2:

 

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JOC

JOC

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How do you guys get a view of Jupiter good enough to see the shadow of a moon transit?  I am certain my views so far would not have been clear/sharp enough to see this.  What sort of X magnification shows that sort of detail please?

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John

John

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I was using 199x last night with my 12" dobsonian. I think the transit shadow would have been visible with a smaller scope at lower magnifications though. Probably a 4" scope at around 130x or so would show it as a tiny dark dot against the jovian surface. You sometimes initally think that there is a piece of grit or similar on your eyepiece !

 

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Chefgage

Chefgage

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Well that did not go to plan. It was looking favourable at about 11pm, still plenty of small clouds but they looked to be clearing. Decided to go out to get a look at jupiter while the clouds fully cleared but they didnt. Instead more and more clouds appeared, then the fog came in!!

so gave up and went to bed.

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JOC

JOC

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Thanks John, so If I've got a 1200mm FL I think that means I should be approaching similar magnification with a 6-7mm EP in mine - in actual fact that seems to be about the maximum that I can get any improved views with.  I've tried higher magnifications it doesn't seem to improve things beyond that.  I'll look out for that 'dirt' on my lens LOL!

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