30 minutes with Neowise

[Dr Strange]

Scope: TSA-120 f/7.5 900mm focal length

Eyepiece 1: Tele Vue Nagler 16mm 56.25x magnification

Eyepiece 2: Tele Vue Delite 11mm 81.81x magnification connected to a Tele Vue Night Vision Device

Mount: DiscMounts DM6 on a Avalon Tpod 130 no DSC was used

Seeing: Good

Transparency: Above Average

Skies: Bortle 8/9

I decided that tonight was the night to bag Neowise. I am in the foothills of our local mountain range and it was about 12 degrees above one of the peaks in the Northwest part of the sky. It was an easy hop from Mirfak down and over to the comet. I found it in my 60mm RACI finderscope without trouble. It was about the span of my extended thumb to my extended pinky (like you are doing the Hawaiian "hang loose" sign) away from Mirfak. In other words about 25 degrees away at about a 25ish degree angle from Mirfak. 

Using the 16mm I had 56.25x magnification. I was in my front yard with plenty of neighborhood light pollution including my neighbor who has a floodlight on a motion sensor so any time a car went by it would light up the street bright enough I could read a book in my living room. With no light amplification the head of the comet was a nice round ball of pretty high brightness. I perceived it to be about 1/2 a millimeter in diameter*. The tail was visible stretching about 1-3 minutes in length behind the comet. It was a very faint grey/silver shadowish object.

I recently purchased the Tele Vue Night Vision System (NVD). It is a white phosphorus tube instead of the Army green one. I explained to SWMBO that a) this is my only hobby and is much less expensive than other hobbies like sailing and b) astronomy keeps me out of the pubs. This was the first real test of the NVD. I had a brief first light with it just panning around looking at nothing in particular. I was floored at the difference! I hadn't upped the magnification that much going from 56.25x to 81.81x but the definition, brightness, and detail were literally like night and day! No pun intended. The head was easily over a millimeter in diameter*, very bright, and well defined. What really came out was the tail. It was very well defined, very visible, stretched about 7-8 minutes behind the comet, and looked like a contrail from an aircraft or like an object with a trail entering the atmosphere but instead of orange and red fire it was silver and grey. 

As we will not be seeing this comet for another 7,000 years after this pass it was nice to bag it for the log book!

 

* Size is perceived by the observer and not actual size.

[mikeDnight]

That's a nice report, and I'm ever so slightly envious you have night vision available. I've never used that technology, and will probably have to wait until Skywatcher bring a cheap as chips version onto the market before I could afford it. Still, I had about half an hour with Neowise last night before the clouds moved in. The sketch shows north approximately top with the view E/W reversed due to a diagonal being used.

[John]

Good report @Dr Strange and great sketch Mike

@Dr Strange - we have a section of the forum dedicated to night vision devices and their use and observations made with them here. The term EEVA is used :

https://stargazerslounge.com/forum/208-eeva-electronically-enhanced-visual-astronomy/

 

 

 

[Dippy]

3 hours ago, John said:

Good report @Dr Strange and great sketch Mike

@Dr Strange - we have a section of the forum dedicated to night vision devices and their use and observations made with them here. The term EEVA is used :

https://stargazerslounge.com/forum/208-eeva-electronically-enhanced-visual-astronomy/

 

 

 

American night vision viewers are banned for non US citizens, even to look through, so forget about them. They are not that great anyway since many decades ago I had several of the Russian night vision viewers for repair and what I could see with them was superior to what you can see in YouTube videos of today’s US night vision viewers. The slightest point of light would have been blinding with Russian night vision gear, and a single match stick 20m away would have shined like the Sun. The details I could see in the night sky were out of this world. That was the Russian technology of 1970s and I am sure they have made more advanced versions now. I see sometimes some old Russian night vision cameras on sale in auction sites. 

Edited July 19, 2020 by Dippy

[John]

2 hours ago, Dippy said:

American night vision viewers are banned for non US citizens, even to look through, so forget about them.....

That is really not the case. There are export restrictions on some types of night vision gear but there are also some excellent alternatives that are available to us.

Just have a look at the threads in the EEVA section that I've linked to above and see what folks based on this side of the Atlantic have achieved.

It is not a low cost field to get into but if you are prepared to spend and do some research there is some excellent equipment available.

 

[Dippy]

1 hour ago, John said:

That is really not the case. There are export restrictions on some types of night vision gear but there are also some excellent alternatives that are available to us.

Just have a look at the threads in the EEVA section that I've linked to above and see what folks based on this side of the Atlantic have achieved.

It is not a low cost field to get into but if you are prepared to spend and do some research there is some excellent equipment available.

 

Thank you John for your thoughts on this. My reference to this is from TeleVue’s website which clearly says that it is illegal to ship, export, look through or read the manual ( even inside US soil) of the US made night vision equipment. There are known cases of covert sting operations by American agents that people have been arrested, extradited and charged from abroad for trying to buy or export such equipment,  based on the US law. With UK as a junior partner, not being able to even extradite the murderer of Harry Dunn from US, I would recommend any UK citizen think twice before buying American made night vision equipment as UK government is unable to support its citizens. TeleVue website is clear on that ( screenshot attached). There are better Russian and Chinese equipment available but it seems there are left unknown. I have worked with and repaired the old Russian night vision military grade equipment and they were superior to modern US ones that I have watched video of them used on astronomical telescopes in YouTube.

Edited July 19, 2020 by Dippy

[John]

@GavStar is UK based and has championed the use of NV technology without breaking any laws as far as I am aware:

 

 

[John]

I think we must keep politics out of any discussions on here as well.

Thanks.

 

[Dr Strange]

Mike

Great sketch! That is what I saw with the NVD. 

John

Thank you for mentioning the EEVA forum. I am aware of the EEVA forum. I use a ASI 553 as well as the NVD for EEVA but because I was primarily using unaided vision for this observation I posted it here. The Majority of the 30 minutes I spent with the comet were using my Mark 1 Mod 0 eyeball. I used the NVD for about 5 minutes. Frankly I wish I had used it sooner. It was a very startling contrast in what I could see.