Little and Large

[John]

Tonight, for a bit of fun, I have my 12 inch dobsonian out and also my little Tele Vue Ranger 70mm refractor. The largest and smallest aperture scopes that I have. I'm seeing how faint an object the 70mm scope can detect. The 12 inch is massively better at DSO's of course but it's fun to push the small aperture as far as it will go under my skies.

So far this evening the faintest DSO's that the Ranger has shown are NGCs 3190 and 3193 from the Hickson 44 group in the "neck" of Leo. They are approx magnitude 11 galaxies which are 80 million light years away. Not bad for a little "light thimble"

With the 12 inch the two magnitude 12 members of the Hickson 44 group can also be seen and not so far away, just along the Lions back from Algeiba, the intereacting pair of dwarf galaxies NGC 3227 and 3226. This pair have so far eluded the 70mm scope, perhaps not suprisingly - they are not exactly prominent with the 12 inch tonight.

These two scopes do look a little unevenly matched - talk about "the odd couple" !

 

[Geoff Barnes]

I think the TV Ranger would make an excellent finder scope for the Dob John! 

[Piero]

Small refractors can be lovely tools.. I know something about that!

Great report, John!

[Paul73]

Hi John

A lovely couple to be sure, but why is your finder scope not attached to your main scope?

Paul

[Paul73]

Sorry. Couldn’t resist.

Although I’m sure that I have seen a little Pronto nailed to the side of an OOUK 12” Dob.

Several Dobbers have 70mm+ finders. It makes stark hopping a real treat and finding the brighter targets an a/solute doddle. I believe that Damien spotted the Whale through his finder during one dark sky trip!!! 

The only problem being that quality 70mm fracs are often a bit too heavy. My Celestron 70mm cheapy frac ?. SW ED72 ?. Once I’d thrown away the diagonal and the stock eyepieces, and replaced with TV Plossls, the views aren’t half bad (at low mag anyway).

Paul

 

[Mark at Beaufort]

Well done John its good to compare scopes especially when they are quality.

 I have had non stop cloud moving over from the North. I made the decision tonight to view DSOs in Leo. Before starting on Leo I tried to view the Medusa Nebula but no joy. I think the sky needs to be better and possibly a bigger scope.

Anyway first on the list NGC 3190 and 3193, same as you, but after 30 minutes of total cloud I have retired indoors - hopefully less cloud tomorrow.

Hopefully, John the cloud won't come to far South tonight.

[John]

30 minutes ago, Paul73 said:

Sorry. Couldn’t resist.

Although I’m sure that I have seen a little Pronto nailed to the side of an OOUK 12” Dob.

Several Dobbers have 70mm+ finders. It makes stark hopping a real treat and finding the brighter targets an a/solute doddle. I believe that Damien spotted the Whale through his finder during one dark sky trip!!! 

The only problem being that quality 70mm fracs are often a bit too heavy. My Celestron 70mm cheapy frac ?. SW ED72 ?. Once I’d thrown away the diagonal and the stock eyepieces, and replaced with TV Plossls, the views aren’t half bad (at low mag anyway).

Paul

 

"stark hopping" - do dobbers do it in the buff ?

The Ranger weighs 1.6kg so about as light as a quality scope in that aperture gets I reckon. It's happy up to 150x I've found.

 

[estwing]

1 hour ago, Paul73 said:

 I believe that Damien spotted the Whale through his finder during one dark sky trip!!! 

We all did that night at Elan....stunning. 

[John]

Not the best transparency (again) here tonight but I've just been exploiting the aperture of the 12 inch dob to run up and down Markarian's Chain. Got 11 galaxies without too much problem and probably a couple more hinted at.

1st time I've observed this rich patch of sky for some time - glorious even under my semi-urban sky

Pan around the Virgo / Coma Berenices area with a decent aperture and the galaxies just keep popping into view. Can't beat aperture for that !

 

[Geoff Barnes]

I'm desperate to see those galaxies in Virgo and Leo, and they are just visible here but obscured by our trees until the early hours of the morning, so I never get to see them, (I'm not alive in the early hours).

I'll have to make an extra effort to get out at 3am one night or I'm never going to see them from here. ☹️

[Stu]

6 hours ago, Geoff Barnes said:

I'm desperate to see those galaxies in Virgo and Leo, and they are just visible here but obscured by our trees until the early hours of the morning, so I never get to see them, (I'm not alive in the early hours).

I'll have to make an extra effort to get out at 3am one night or I'm never going to see them from here. ☹️

Work making the effort for Geoff. I've only seen then properly once, and that was with a 16" dob at the SGL10 star party. Amazing sight.

[Paul73]

8 hours ago, John said:

"stark hopping" - do dobbers do it in the buff ?

The Ranger weighs 1.6kg

Dedicated Dobbers do a lot of things under the cover of darkness that would be frowned on by civilised society......

I’ve just weighed them and the difference isn’t as much as I thought. With diagonal and eyepiece, the little Celestron is 1.3. The SW ED72 is a kilo heavier. So, I’ll have to give it a try.

Paul

[estwing]

2 hours ago, Paul73 said:

Dedicated Dobbers do a lot of things under the cover of darkness that would be frowned on by civilised society......

It goes downhill when we rough camp!..?

[estwing]

Those 12" dobs are a real work horse in dark skies.

[mapstar]

Nice report John and I've had some good views through quite a few 12" dobs.

On 26/03/2019 at 22:25, Paul73 said:

 I believe that Damien spotted the Whale through his finder during one dark sky trip!!! 

Whale and hockey stick in the 50mm finder at Elan. We all saw them and were blown away by just how well they stood out. It's a good gauge of the quality of the skies.  I'd really struggle with hickson 44 though and would have to use the big gun for those. 

 

[wookie1965]

37 minutes ago, mapstar said:

Nice report John and I've had some good views through quite a few 12" dobs.

Whale and hockey stick in the 50mm finder at Elan. We all saw them and were blown away by just how well they stood out. It's a good gauge of the quality of the skies.  I'd really struggle with hickson 44 though and would have to use the big gun for those. 

 

I saw the Whale and hockey stick in Buxton the night Damian showed me the Leo trio and M51 through his scope I had a piddling 8"