What a beautiful night.....

[chiltonstar]

Excellent transparency and seeing (24:00)!

Pleiades - naked eye - 6 occasionally 7 stars

M31 - naked eye - a very long clear oval 

M33 - naked eye - just visible at the limit

Mirach's Ghost - as clear as I've ever seen it, a bright little cloud floating in space (Mak 180, 40mm Plossl).

Trapezium - E & F both clear and held at x190 (Mak 180, 15mm Vixen SLV)

Uranus - a pretty little lilac blue golf ball, 3 moons visible (Mak 180, x270)

Chris

 

[Stu]

Lovely stuff Chris. Didn't look great here earlier on, might have cleared now but too late. Can't wait to have a decent crack at Orion soon.

[newtyng5]

Really misty here, and with all the light pollution > it looks almost cloudy.

[Demonperformer]

Sounds like an excellent session, Chris.

[Size9Hex]

Terrific stuff. To get M33 unaided... must have been superb skies! I’m not sure I’ve ever quite got it - maybe the most fleeting of glimpses - even from my dark site.

[chiltonstar]

Thanks for the comments. M31 and M33 were nearly exactly overhead, and as on the previous very few times I've seen M33 with the naked eye, it was after a day of rain to clear the murk.

M31 was odd - I normally see it on very clear nights as a "dumpy" oval, yet last night it was very long compared with its width - an effect of the transparency I imagine.

It was hazy at 23:00, yet in half an hour the sky had cleared and a heavy dew formed which started to freeze; the fact that the scope stayed dew-free for nearly two hours was perhaps due to the insulating cladding I've recently put on it.

Carpe Diem isn't the astronomer's motto for nothing - grab every clear moment when the seeing is good!

Chris

[Eastman]

On ‎02‎/‎11‎/‎2018 at 01:10, chiltonstar said:

Uranus - a pretty little lilac blue golf ball, 3 moons visible (Mak 180, x270)

great stuff Chris

[DHEB]

On 02/11/2018 at 01:10, chiltonstar said:

Uranus - a pretty little lilac blue golf ball, 3 moons visible (Mak 180, x270) 

Very neat! Congratulations. I never saw them in my 200 mm Newtonian. Will try sometime when I can set up away from the trees. What was the sucess factor? Seeing, magnification? Or perhaps just the Mak?

[DHEB]

On 02/11/2018 at 09:34, chiltonstar said:

Carpe Diem isn't the astronomer's motto for nothing - grab every clear moment when the seeing is good! 

Could not agree more. In my case a grab and go did a lot of difference for my observing frequency. One important aspect is to eliminate as many practical hinders to observing as possible.

[chiltonstar]

19 hours ago, DHEB said:

Very neat! Congratulations. I never saw them in my 200 mm Newtonian. Will try sometime when I can set up away from the trees. What was the sucess factor? Seeing, magnification? Or perhaps just the Mak?

Success factor? Excellent seeing, transparency, x270 mag, and the eyes very well adapted. A bit easier too if you run Uranus just out of the field of view which brings out the moons a bit more easily. My view to the south is reasonably LP free as well, and Uranus will be 8 degrees or so higher in the sky here in the south of the UK than if you are in Stockholm for example.

Chris

[cotterless45]

On 02/11/2018 at 08:34, chiltonstar said:

Thanks for the comments. M31 and M33 were nearly exactly overhead, and as on the previous very few times I've seen M33 with the naked eye, it was after a day of rain to clear the murk

I've spotted M33 a few times by eye from dark sites. There's probably no finer target for any aperture under dark skies.

The rain has an absolute minimal effect , what does is the clear stable air after a weather front has gone through. Watch out that it's not the jet stream driving over us. Sometimes even wide binaries look as if they're clacking castanets !

Nick.

[chiltonstar]

2 hours ago, cotterless45 said:

 

The rain has an absolute minimal effect , what does is the clear stable air after a weather front has gone through. Watch out that it's not the jet stream driving over us. Sometimes even wide binaries look as if they're clacking castanets !

Nick.

There was a nice discussion on this in 2010, commenting on how rain washes the crud out of the atmosphere:-

Chris

 

[mapstar]

Sounds like I've missed another transparent night although I do remember it being awful in my part of the country.

The new moon was just around the corner so the skies would've been very dark at that time, which my have been why m31 was wider as the fainter parts would've been visible. The transparency would've also added to this.

Nice to read and keep up with hunting out the visual delights.