Observing in the warm

[GavStar]

So it was a lovely sunny day today and nice clear skies forecast for this evening. So far my observing session has been good fun and pleasingly nice and warm - a definite benefit compared with the winter.

I did start with conventional eyepieces but with my light polluted skies (18.2 sqm) the views of galaxies and globulars were both disappointing. 

So I switched to night vision and immediately I was getting some nice results including seeing the spiral arms of N51 which I haven’t seen before. M81/82 was also much better in NV compared to conventional where they were barely visible. More galaxies to try now.

 

[Littleguy80]

Great pics. I feel like the spiral arms of M51 are clearer than I saw with conventional eyepiece under dark skies. However, the view of M81/M82 was better with the conventional eyepiece under dark skies. Hard to judge from photos though

[Ibbo!]

Yep it makes a change being warm , but I could do without the bugs biting.

 

Jupiter is calling

[GavStar]

It turned into a real tour of galaxies tonight. It was fun just pointing to them on sky safari and then getting to see them immediately. Some pics of some of them below.

Black eye galaxy (like the name! You can just see the black bit in the eye, particularly if you zoom the image.

Whale galaxy (does look like a thin whale!)

Needle galaxy (old favourite)

 

[MarsG76]

Nice..... 

[DirkSteele]

Seeing those images is making me mighty tempted to investigated image intensified astronomy further.  My wallet does not thank you! 

[GavStar]

10 minutes ago, DirkSteele said:

Seeing those images is making me mighty tempted to investigated image intensified astronomy further.  My wallet does not thank you! 

Matthew, and galaxies are not the forte of night vision. If you like nebulae you will love NV. I really tried with conventional eyepieces last night but with London LP, DSOs are pretty hopeless. 

If you have access to dark skies then I think NV maybe has less impact (I’ve got a trip to a much darker site tomorrow so can test this out for the first time). But for LP observing it really does expand the options  - very addictive! 

[DirkSteele]

I noted you mentioned on the BSIA facebook page you might bring it along to the next meeting.  I will be sure to introduce myself and take a quick look if that is OK.  I suspect it might be quite exciting.  I have managed two of the Leo triplet for certain (and possibly the 3rd) with my APM LZOS 105 from the Hub in Regents Park so it would be great to see how much the NV adds.

[GavStar]

31 minutes ago, DirkSteele said:

I noted you mentioned on the BSIA facebook page you might bring it along to the next meeting.  I will be sure to introduce myself and take a quick look if that is OK.  I suspect it might be quite exciting.  I have managed two of the Leo triplet for certain (and possibly the 3rd) with my APM LZOS 105 from the Hub in Regents Park so it would be great to see how much the NV adds.

Of course ? I’ll send you a PM to let you know if I’m going. It’s a shame that there’s not much in the way of nebulae at the moment because that works really well in smaller scopes.

For galaxies you need large scopes imo to get decent image scale since you need to keep the system fast and can’t magnify the views with smaller scopes.

For the BSIA meeting, I’ll only be able to bring a 60 or 72mm scope with me - galaxies won’t look great in these. But if there are larger scopes there it’s easy to plonk the NV eyepiece in for a test out...