Who is out to play tonight?

[carastro]

Quote

Last night promised to be clear, ended to messing back and forth between 10:30 to 2am, with intermittent cloud. I finally left it running as it cleared up at 2am, only to check this morning to see all subsequent subs with cloud.

And the forecast for next ten days.

Do feel for you guys in Ireland, you get the full blast of the jet stream.

Carole 

[maw lod qan]

Great to see all of you getting some good skies finally. 

I have to admit, the enthusiasm I see in those with so much time and experience with astro to be amazing! 👍

[Beulah]

2 hours ago, DaveS said:

Seeing all these replies is making me kick myself for wimping out at 1.30 last night. Could easily have got another hour and a half on Mel15.

Kick, kick, kick.

But hearing the guide star problems people have had makes me glad I do encoder guiding.

I had no choice but to chicken out at midnight as the most rolled in...last night was variable; moments of great transparency with a lot of humidity and 'mushiness'. NGC7789 (Caroline's Rose) looked spectacular, in addition to observing the Veil Nebula without an OIII filter. Managed to study plenty of targets in a couple of hours.

[mcrowle]

Cloud was thickening all the while for me. I went to bed at 1:30am, having done nothing astronomy-related (except reading threads here on SGL of course ). However, CO and the Met Office both have Wednesday night forecast clear - it's a work night, so an early morning start, but I'll try to get an hour or two in if possible.

Regards, Mike.

[geordie85]

Unfortunately I had no choice but to pack away as I'm at work today. Hopefully I managed to get some good data. 

I started on c9 in S11 then on to c24 for the rest of the night

[DaveS]

Been looking at the subs I got of Mel15. Urgh!

HII is ok-ish (For only 80 mins) but there is so little [OIII] and even less [SII] that I wonder if it's worth trying to do a Hubble Palette job. What makes it worse is the horrible alignment edges that need a huge crop, but at least they're orthogonal. How does C du C place successive nights so far off each other?

[Geoff Barnes]

At last! A clear sky and no wind - good seeing and my first successful session for what, 8 weeks? I don't know it's been so long!

I concentrated almost exclusively on Jupiter and Saturn, got to make the most of them while they're so high.

Saturn was awesome! With both the Skywatcher Planetary 4mm A, B and C rings and Encke minima clear as a bell, Mimas, Dione and Rhea on one side, Enceladus and Tethys on the other. Nice shadow of the planet projected on the back of the rings and four distinct coloured bands on the disc.

Jupiter was nice and clear too, but not much happening on the surface tonight, no GRS and apart from a couple of festoons I couldn't make out any other unusual features apart from all the main belts and bands.

Had hoped for my first view of the Veil Nebula tonight but alas it's still behind the trees, another month and I should be able to see it.

Annoying cloud cover then came over so I packed up, but just so thrilled to have been able to brush the cobwebs off the 12 inch Dob at long last and get some quality views, it's been a long time coming but was well worth it.

Spring is just around the corner here so more opportunities should be coming soon!

 

[Captain Scarlet]

9 hours ago, JamesF said:

The Moon is starting to wash the sky out to the east now, so I don't think there's a huge amount of time left for me.  Won't be long before M27 disappears behind the trees to the west anyhow.

James

I saw the dumbell nebula for the first time last night, I’d had no idea it was so big. My goto was a little off at first point, but I was aware of something nebulously impinging on the right hand side of my view. When I slewed across this great bright shape hove into view, very impressive!

[don4l]

What a fantastic night!

Managed 210m of usable OIII on the squid.   I tried this last year, but I didn't get anywhere.

Here is a rough and ready (scaled down) last night's OIII on top of last years Ha,G,B.

 

 

[geoflewis]

1 hour ago, don4l said:

What a fantastic night!

Managed 210m of usable OIII on the squid.   I tried this last year, but I didn't get anywhere.

Here is a rough and ready (scaled down) last night's OIII on top of last years Ha,G,B.

That looks great Donal, well done. Geof

[Dragon_Astro]

I was out for a bit last night, but cloud and mist rolled in alot  earlier than forecasted.

Plate solve in sgp wasn’t playing ball, which was unusual because it’s been pretty reliable up till now.

Managed an hour live stack imaging in Sharpcap, trying out the new dither function, which worked well straight away.

[don4l]

41 minutes ago, geoflewis said:

That looks great Donal, well done. Geof

Thank you, Geof.

How did you get on with M16 last night?   I tried it a couple of months ago, but it was only above the neighbour's hedge for 30 minutes each night.

[geoflewis]

1 hour ago, don4l said:

Thank you, Geof.

How did you get on with M16 last night?   I tried it a couple of months ago, but it was only above the neighbour's hedge for 30 minutes each night.

Hi Donal, I’ve got about 1.5 hours L and 40 mins each RGB in the can over 3 nights, though night 2 was rubbish seeing so really only 2 nights, so it remains to be seen. My horizon goes down to about 10 degrees, but I stopped capturing once M16 got down to about 15 deg. The L and R subs looked pretty good as they downloaded, the G&B less so, but that may be just what the target gives. I haven’t tried to process any of it yet, will leave that for a rainy day, or cloudy night - I’m sure that I won’t have to wait too long....!! I just opened the Obs again for tonight and it’s 37C in there. The mount and CW are very warm, bordering on hot to touch. Last night the scope OTA temp sensors (one internal one external) were still reporting 25 degrees at 10pm and my warm room was still pretty toasty at 2:00am...!!

Cheers, Geof

[Gina]

The sky shows signs of clearing so I've opened up the observatory and set up my widefield imaging rig in hope.

[mcrowle]

4 hours ago, don4l said:

Managed 210m of usable OIII on the squid.

That's an amazing image, Donal, especially still in-progress! I didn't realise there was so much to capture in Sh2-129. By the way, I also Googled "Squid Nebula" and discovered there's an Aussie band of the same name. That's 2 things learned 😀.

Regards, Mike.

[carastro]

Quote

Managed 210m of usable OIII on the squid.

Excellent job, I am still struggling to get decent Oiii on the Squid even at a dark location.  What's your Bortle scale at Camberley?

Carole 

[JamesF]

13 minutes ago, Gina said:

The sky shows signs of clearing so I've opened up the observatory and set up my widefield imaging rig in hope.

Bit of a mixed bag here at the moment, but we'll see.  Still feel a little weary having only had five hours sleep last night

James

[JamesF]

5 minutes ago, mcrowle said:

That's an amazing image, Donal, especially still in-progress!

It is indeed.  Most impressive.

James

[Gina]

Unfortunately, an observatory doesn't cure all ill but it sure goes a long way!

[carastro]

Looks like another clear night, and to co-incide with a waning crescent Moon is a rarity.  I go on holiday on Friday and struggling to get my act together as regards organising the packing and other things I need to do feeling like death warmed up after several all nighters.

I think I am going to have to make this my last night whatever happens.  running out of suitable targets for Bortle 9 imaging anyway, at least targets I haven't previously done. 

Carole 

Edited August 26, 2019 by carastro

[Gina]

Clouded over again here.

[JamesF]

I shall be keeping the observatory roof closed for a while even if I do go out tonight.  The dew has been so heavy this week.  By the time I closed everything up last night water was quite literally running off the OTAs.

James

[geordie85]

Ill be at work till about midnight tonight after only a few hours sleep last night, still hoping I can play out again. 

Clear skies don't happen too often so I'll catch up on sleep some other time. 

[don4l]

 

50 minutes ago, mcrowle said:

That's an amazing image, Donal, especially still in-progress!

It is indeed.  Most impressive.

James

 

Thank you both.  I'm over the moon with it (so to speak) - and also my 3nm filter!

The sky is looking better than last night, so it will be interesting to see the results.  Last night I had to really dark adapt to see the stars in Cygnus.  It isn't even dark yet, and I can already see the main stars.

 

Camera is currently cooling.

 

[Dragon_Astro]

S.Wales doesn’t look hopeful tonight, the rest of the UK looks good though.

Early night for me I think.