What a night

[Stu]

28 minutes ago, John said:

It was about mag 5.5 naked eye limit at the zenith here last night.

I could see M51 with the 50mm finder, which is usually a reasonably good sign.

 

Wow, lucky you John. Basically invisible in any scope here 😞. Will try it tonight to see if things have improved with the transparency lately.

[Captain Scarlet]

12 minutes ago, Stu said:

Wow, lucky you John. Basically invisible in any scope here 😞. Will try it tonight to see if things have improved with the transparency lately.

I've generally been able to get M51 in Sunbury quite readily through my scopes? Or is it transparency just lately?

[Stu]

1 minute ago, Captain Magenta said:

I've generally been able to get M51 in Sunbury quite readily through my scopes? Or is it transparency just lately?

I do think the transparency of late has been significantly better.

I will give it a go next chance I get, I guess it is up high currently.

[Davey-T]

10 minutes ago, Stu said:

I do think the transparency of late has been significantly better.

Definitely seemed better here the last couple of clear nights, maybe lack of aircraft ?

Dave

[Captain Scarlet]

I'm just planning my night's viewing using my spreadsheet, and to start off I'll be shamelessly plagiarizing the difficult doubles you chose @markse68. When I looked for the details of zeta Herculis in my databse, I found that in my "comments" column I've annotated it "Stu's Nemesis" !

[Stu]

7 minutes ago, Captain Magenta said:

I'm just planning my night's viewing using my spreadsheet, and to start off I'll be shamelessly plagiarizing the difficult doubles you chose @markse68. When I looked for the details of zeta Herculis in my databse, I found that in my "comments" column I've annotated it "Stu's Nemesis" !

Tee hee, indeed it has been my nemesis Magnus. If I am crazy enough I may get up at silly o’clock and have a go at it when it is higher up in the early hours tomorrow morning. I also need to try and fail to split Pi Aquilae with the Telementor to prove @chiltonstar right 👍

[John]

I've gone for the ED120 refractor this evening so I'll have a gander at some of these and see how it does

I'm interested in comparing my 6 year old sketch made with the same scope with the current view of Zeta Herc.

[John]

1 hour ago, John said:

I've gone for the ED120 refractor this evening so I'll have a gander at some of these and see how it does

I'm interested in comparing my 6 year old sketch made with the same scope with the current view of Zeta Herc.

I've updated my sketch - this is the 2020 version. Position angle has changed more than I had realised. Split and definition of secondary star is a little clearer now. I observed this at 225x, 257x and 300x with the ED120 using the Nagler 2-4mm zoom eyepiece. The sketch greatly enlarges the image visible at the eyepiece though. Primary star looked a touch yellow tonight but this is a monochrome sketch !

 

 

[chiltonstar]

A very nice sketch John - far better than I can manage.

After a few nights of excellent seeing here, tonight was "unremarkable" although the transparency was pretty good.

Chris

[markse68]

Great- thanks John- it’s what I’m seeing right now

[John]

1 minute ago, markse68 said:

Great- thanks John- it’s what I’m seeing right now

Excellent - what scope and what magnification ?

 

[markse68]

11 minutes ago, John said:

Excellent - what scope and what magnification ?

 

8.75” f7.4 newt 460x- needs that mag to clear the noise

[John]

11 minutes ago, markse68 said:

8.75” f7.4 newt 460x- needs that mag to clear the noise

Really great spec for such tasks. Must be a killer planetary and lunar scope as well ? 

 

[markse68]

Sorry John, was trying to find the slice of lemon neb but it’s eluding me! Well it’s been really great on the moon of late but I didn’t see any detail on Venus. But Craig made an incredible image of Venus with his identical spec fullerscope. I’ve changed the secondary for a really nice one that’s cleared up the astigmatism I was plagued with last year and fitted cooling fan so I’m very excited for Jupiter Saturn and Mars this year 🤞

[markse68]

I just caught and tracked right across the sky a very bright iss pass- solar panels clearly visible

 

[markse68]

The seeing was phenomenal tonight. I don’t know if it got better as it cooled down or if it was my scope settling but wow! Tonight’s M13 was the best I’ve seen- mesmerising with its depth of detail. No propeller for me though. Likewise the ring nebula- I should have spent  more time on it because by 2am it was so sharply defined. I didn’t see a central star though. Jupiter looked pretty good at 320x- it was still too low to see much detail but the 4 major moons looked like proper moons- they seemed to have form! Might have been field stars but I might have seen a few extra moons too.

Second time round by the end of the night both Zeta Herc and Pi Aqu were a clean split at 320x with the 5xw but more than that they were discreet airy disks with colour! Zeta Herc b a grayish colour while Pi Aqu A leading was a lemon yellow and B trailing a slightly smaller slightly bluer hue. 

Antares felt even more like it wanted to split- by the end of the night it wasn’t just a blurry colourful haze but a dancing group of blobs- sometimes 2, sometimes 3 or 4 jumping around and so almost separating. If this keeps up I have a good feeling about Antares 😉

I’m really having trouble quite believing this! Compared to the views and frustration last year it’s like looking through a different scope but really it must be down to the incredible clarity of the sky at the moment- what a couple of nights!

Had a brief interlude when a police car spotted me, did a u-turn then came back shining his very bright search light right at me. Ended up me showing them both M13 and Jupiter and them being a little bit taken aback and very grateful. I would have shown them pi Aqu but don’t think they’d have got it 😉 So much for social distancing lol 🤦‍♂️

Edited May 15, 2020 by markse68

[Stu]

Excellent stuff @markse68 wish I had got out last night but too tired and up at 5.30. Perhaps over the weekend.

Your scope sounds like it is performing beautifully now, well done on those splits. Pi Aquilae stars are described as the same colour (yellow) in SkySafari so I guess the brightness difference was causing any apparent colour difference to your eye? Zeta Herc secondary definitely listed as cooler than the primary so it’s great to catch that at the scope!

Jupiter extra ‘moons’ are field stars, all the rest are beyond normal amateur range I’m afraid. Lovely when you see the Galilean Moons as tiny disks though isn’t it? 👍👍

Like you, I’m sure the current clear skies, better transparency and seeing are due to the current situation. It won’t last so we need to make the most of it, then sleep for a year to catch up 🤣🤣

[Captain Scarlet]

I tried very, very hard on Zeta Herculis last night with my 12", mostly at 250x but did try 429x. Seeing wasn't good, though transparency was amazing. There was, maybe 30-40% of the time, a hint of something bluish in the right place but never any sort of separation, just a shifting splodge, no hint of any rings at best focus for that or any other star. Iota Cass was a nice triple though, though the brightest component again was somewhat blurry (are there more than 3 in iota Cass?). Pi Aquilae was behind a set of branches. Izar was reasonably decent though...

[markse68]

11 minutes ago, Captain Magenta said:

I tried very, very hard on Zeta Herculis last night with my 12", mostly at 250x but did try 429x. Seeing wasn't good, though transparency was amazing. There was, maybe 30-40% of the time, a hint of something bluish in the right place but never any sort of separation, just a shifting splodge, no hint of any rings at best focus for that or any other star. Iota Cass was a nice triple though, though the brightest component again was somewhat blurry (are there more than 3 in iota Cass?). Pi Aquilae was behind a set of branches. Izar was reasonably decent though...

According to Skysafari iota Cas A is an unresolved binary so technically it’s 4 stars but only 3 visible Magnus.

It seemed to clear up for me as the frost set in around 2am. Before that much like your description Magnus but after that everything just popped into sharp focus. Could have just been the scope reaching equilibrium 🤷‍♂️ Star testing showed it still hadn’t settled perfectly though

[markse68]

4 hours ago, Stu said:

Perhaps over the weekend.

Forecast here is looking great from Tuesday on @Stu  🤞

[Captain Scarlet]

Yes not sure whether my problem was tube currents or atmosphere or local seeing. Temp was steadily dropping from 12 degrees to 5-6 over 2.5 hours and it is a 12". In-focus diff rings were reasonably sharp, out-focus were spiky and wobbling around. I must consult my Suiter to see...

[markse68]

7 minutes ago, Captain Magenta said:

Yes not sure whether my problem was tube currents or atmosphere or local seeing. Temp was steadily dropping from 12 degrees to 5-6 over 2.5 hours and it is a 12". In-focus diff rings were reasonably sharp, out-focus were spiky and wobbling around. I must consult my Suiter to see...

Ditto. Iirc it could mean over or under corrected parabola or a turned edge. I’ve seen mine much better matched either side of focus on occasion so fairly confident it’s not an inherent problem rather glass not at equilibrium

[Captain Scarlet]

yes mine too on good nights are symmetrical either side...

[John]

The seeing has been excellent recently and, unusually, so has the transparency on some nights.

Last night I was going up to 450x with my ED120 refractor on double stars and still getting good, tight star shapes.

Challenging to track with an undriven alt-az mount at those powers though and even more so with the 50 degree field of the Nagler zoom !

 

[Captain Scarlet]

I've just found the program Aberrator, so rather than try to combine and compare with separated images from Suiter's book, I can now make my own composites. Potential for me to waste a huuuuge amount of time!