24/05/2017 Report

[Chefgage]

Had a good night last night, lovely clear skies all night. The scope I am using is a Skywatcher Skyliner 200P Dobsonian.

Albireo - My first target of the night was to be Albireo. For some reason i have never been able to see the star with the naked eye so finding it had proved difficult. Last night however i could make out most of the constillation Cygnus. So following a line down from Deneb and then Sadr I could just make out Albireo. I managed to get Albireo in my finderscope and then there it was in the eye piece!  A nice bright yellow star along with its fainter blue companion. So thats that one ticked off the list.

M57 - This was to be my next target. Quite close to where I was observing Albireo. Right first job get Vega in the finderscope, no problems there. I then got Vega, Zeta and Epsilon all in the finderscope. I could observe the double stars of Zeta and Epsilon through the finderscope (had a quick look through the eye piece as well). From here on it became a bit frustrating. I could only just make out the stars Sulafat and Sheliak through averted vision. So finding these in the finderscope proved most difficult. I think through perserveriance I eventually managed to get both Sulafat and Sheliak in the finderscope with the star 648 in a line between them. I know that M57 is then between 648 and Sheliak but I could not see M57, ah well try another night

Saturn - Whilst all this was going on trying to find M57 saturn made an appearence over the horizon. So that was worth a look, and I am glad i did! This was my best ever view of Saturn. The rings and planet were in a good position in that you could see a big distance between the rings and the planet as opposed to seeing it tilted the other way so you cannot see the gap (whats the proper term for that??). I could also quite clearly see the cassini division and also I could see a band on the planet itself  . I have made a sketch which i will post up in he sketching part of the forum.

A Bonus - I happened to look up after looking at Saturn and what did i see, the ISS. A quick turn of the scope and I could sort of follow it in the finderscope. I think I had the 4mm eye piece in the scope at this time. I put the finderscope ahead of the ISS's path and quickly looked in the scopes eye piece and there it was!!  I managed to very clumsily 'track' it for awaile. It was a sharp small image but I could clearly see the main body and the solar panel 'wings'. I have also done a sketch from memory so i will post that up to.

Conclusion - The light pollition from my position is bad from around NW through North and round to East. So I guess most of my viewing will have to be from East round through South and back to West.  The bad light pollution is where M57 is so I guess i might have had it in the eye piece but just could not see it.

[Victor Boesen]

Very nice report! I am very interested to see the sketch for both iss and saturn. Saturn is very low in the sky here in Denmark, and when you are stuck with a balcony pointing WWN then saturn is nearly impossible to get.

[Chefgage]

To view saturn i have to be outside at about 2am. So I dont get to see it very often.

[Davesellars]

Nice report!  The ISS is always wonderful to see if a little tricky to follow through a scope!

You must be suffering with LP if you can only see Shellak/Sulafat with averted vision so I would certainly not expect to see M57 with the finder-scope.   However, if you just plonk the scope dead centre between Shellak and Sulafat then with a reasonably low focal length eyepiece (say 20mm) you should see it in the field of view.  It is quite small though so perhaps easy to miss if it's faint due to the LP.

I don't know where you live in Lincolnshire (it'sa big place) but that county has some great dark sky around the wolds if you can get there with your scope or even with some binoculars.

[Chefgage]

1 minute ago, Davesellars said:

Nice report!  The ISS is always wonderful to see if a little tricky to follow through a scope!

You must be suffering with LP if you can only see Shellak/Sulafat with averted vision so I would certainly not expect to see M57 with the finder-scope.   However, if you just plonk the scope dead centre between Shellak and Sulafat then with a reasonably low focal length eyepiece (say 20mm) you should see it in the field of view.  It is quite small though so perhaps easy to miss if it's faint due to the LP.

I don't know where you live in Lincolnshire (it'sa big place) but that county has some great dark sky around the wolds if you can get there with your scope or even with some binoculars.

Its north lincolnshire and we have a steelworks in our town so that adds alot of light pollution.  I have started to look at a few sites that will offer better viewing ie less light pollution. 

To be honest i was not sure if what i was seeing in the finderscope was sulafat and shellak but consulting the star chart it looked like it was, and as there was another star inbetween them both in an almost line which gave the impression it was the star 648. What I need to do is use my finderscope viewing ring ( or whatever you call it) more often. Its actually the middle out of a small roll of sticky tape but the centre is about 5 degress which matches what i see in the finderscope. That way i can put it on the star chart which should hopefully help me.

[Davey-T]

There was a small group of members going to a dark site in Lincolnshire.

Dave

http://www.astronomyclubs.co.uk/Clubs/Details.aspx?ClubId=233

[Davesellars]

20 minutes ago, Davey-T said:

There was a small group of members going to a dark site in Lincolnshire.

Dave

http://www.astronomyclubs.co.uk/Clubs/Details.aspx?ClubId=233

I used to live near there (although 22 years ago)...  I can attest to how dark it is (well it certainly was...)  It should be definitely be worth the trip!

[Chefgage]

Bit of a trek for me unfortunitely (an hours drive).