Good seeing tonight

[Stu]

I've just come back in for dinner, but will be straight out afterwards as the conditions seem very good. Roger (should be Rigel! 🤣) looked very tight at the secondary pin sharp at x200 in the Mewlon. Both E and F in the Trap were easy, and it's not often I say that!

Will have to wait for Sirius to rise higher and go into the gap between the houses before having a go at it.

Other than that, am touring round OCs that Skysafari is suggesting for me.

[niallk]

Fingers crossed here - scope out cooling   When the kids are in bed I hope to throw it into the car and head out for a while...

[Captain Scarlet]

Roger?

[Greymouser]

Well I have just given up after admitting defeat due to the dew. Added to which clouds are rolling in.

According to my thermometer, 1.7 degrees and 95% humidity, but seconds before the eyepiece dewed up beyond use. Think I will have to dig out the eyepiece dewstrap...

[niallk]

3 minutes ago, Captain Magenta said:

Roger?

🤣 thought it was just me not familiar with an astro object!  Then i guessed autocorrect working its magic on Rigel (??)

[Captain Scarlet]

Ah yes of course 😁

[John]

I agree Stu. I've manged to split both 52 and 32 Orionis with the 130mm triplet tonight. Pleased with that

Waiting for Sirius myself here as well - I have to view it through a gap between our house roof and the neighbours !

 

[John]

Well, I can't seem to split Sirus tonight. I've tried all sorts of eyepieces but the star is just a little too glaring tonight. I guess the seeing here, while good higher in the sky, is just not good enough at the level that Sirius is at.

Hope others have better luck.

Otherwise a very pleasant evening at the eyepiece

[Stu]

26 minutes ago, John said:

Well, I can't seem to split Sirus tonight. I've tried all sorts of eyepieces but the star is just a little too glaring tonight. I guess the seeing here, while good higher in the sky, is just not good enough at the level that Sirius is at.

Hope others have better luck.

Otherwise a very pleasant evening at the eyepiece

Same here John. Trapezium was as good as I've seen it for a long time, but no luck with Sirius. I think the jet stream must have moved since last night as it was much better.

I stuck mainly with open clusters as I mentioned on the other thread. Very nice comparing the views between the Genesis with a 24mm Panoptic giving x21 and 3.3 degrees and the Mewlon with 20mm APM giving x120 and 0.8 degrees. Some of the smaller ones were just not visible in the Gen, but were lovely in the Mewlon, M52 for instance. Others obviously benefited from the field of view such as M44, but even some of the dimmer ones are great to see in context with their surroundings. There is also the loveliness of the tiny stars in the middle of some of these clusters when viewed in the refractor which I will never get bored of.  Even better in your 130mm I'm sure!

Caroline's Rose was better than usual from here, NGC2244 looked great, no sign of the Rosette nebula unsurprisingly. I enjoyed the Christmas Tree cluster in the refractor, and also checked Beta Mon and Tegmine, managing the tight split on Tegmine in the Mewlon at about x345.

I managed to spot the Comet C/2017 T2 tonight too. No go in the 4" obviously, but in 8" it was just about visible as a tiny smudge just east of HD15666. Fairly undramatic but nice to have seen it.

Plenty more seen too, best session I've had for quite a while. Just thawing out before bed, it was certainly chilly out there tonight but I'm glad I made the effort. The scopes were covered in frost by the end of it, but stayed dew free thanks to my dew heaters.

Roger and out! 😉

[John]

Great stuff Stu. I'm inside now warming myself up with a cuppa soup

 

[Stu]

15 hours ago, Greymouser said:

Well I have just given up after admitting defeat due to the dew. Added to which clouds are rolling in.

According to my thermometer, 1.7 degrees and 95% humidity, but seconds before the eyepiece dewed up beyond use. Think I will have to dig out the eyepiece dewstrap...

Definitely worth using dewstraps. I get alot of dew around here as I'm near the river Thames and also close to two large reservoirs. Dew is an almost constant problem, although the other night everything remained as dry as a bone!

Last night I had four straps running and kept everything clear throughout. Eyepieces often fog up too as you say, keeping one in a warm pocket, using another then alternating them is one answer if you don't have dew kit.

[John]

The TMB/LZOS 130 refractor is amazing in dewey conditions - it simply does not dew up. This seems to be due to the use of Kruppax 50 as a tube material. Last night the outside of the tube, the focuser and finder were running with dew but the objective stayed completely clear for over 4 hours. I have to use a dew shield with my ED120 under those conditions.

Its been very clear for most of the day today despite Clear Outside predicting 95-99% cloud cover all day. Hope it stays clear through the evening into darkness

[Stu]

That great, yes must be something to do with the Kruppax. Mine weren't running with dew last night, they were frozen! Nice thing about the Mewlon is that it has no corrector plate so even though there was some frost on the inside of the OTA the optics stayed clear.

[Greymouser]

5 hours ago, Stu said:

Nice thing about the Mewlon is that it has no corrector plate

Neither does my new little classical Cassegrain, yet the secondary still dewed up a little, which whilst surprising to me, perhaps it shouldn't have been surprising with 95% humidity. 

[Captain Scarlet]

5 hours ago, John said:

The TMB/LZOS 130 refractor is amazing in dewey conditions - it simply does not dew up. This seems to be due to the use of Kruppax 50 as a tube material. Last night the outside of the tube, the focuser and finder were running with dew but the objective stayed completely clear for over 4 hours.

This was exactly my experience Sunday night too with my Kruppax-tubed 105. Objective crystal clear, water dripping off everything else.

[niallk]

I lost my primary to dew last night 😫 - left the shroud off because there was a hint of a breeze on the coast... silly me!!