Last night . Poor poor poor !

[Telescope40]

Well. Lovely day yesterday here in Cheshire. I set up my 150ED with my BV’s all set for a rather nice “planet” nite.  My well used Skytee in use. Scope lives in my garage so cool down not normally an issue. 
Balmy evening.  Shorts and hoodie. The Bar set too high. !?! 
Jupe and Saturn pass next doors garage by 8.30 now so I settled in with a cuppa. Let’s go !! 
ER, no John. Seeing was the pits. Soldiered on for about an hour. Tried some cyclops views - just wasn’t happening. Really thought my scope was damaged at one point. Double checked by running over to Mizar to check. 
Packed up bout 9.45.  Very puzzling. Just no sharpness coming thru. No “ jelly” moments with turbulent winds which can normally be the case but hey ho. Previous session I’d got the GRS showing a lovely salmon colour. 
Next time maybe. 
Hope others had more luck. 
John 

[sputniksteve]

Yeah, similar here. Was clear with some cloud at around 20:30 so I get my 127 GOTO out. By the time I'd plugged it all in and got it pointing at where Jupiter should be - cloud. Jupiter occasionally popped through just enough for me to re-centre it and see that my scope wasn't tracking properly. But the planet looked very poor indeed. I went in, had a cup of tea and watched Des. Came back out around 23:00 to solid cloud. Slewed to Mars in the vain hope that it might clear but alas, apart from one brief flash of appearance, nothing. Packed up and came on here for an hour instead! In fact, I still need to go and dismount the scope etc because I just plonked it in the garage still mounted. 

[cotterless45]

Ditto, there wasn't a forecast giving out the misery of cloud pouring in. Seems high presssure does little favours for seeing .

There have been a few nights when I thought that there was something wrong with the Optics or my eyes. Just blame the sky !

old Nick.

[Franklin]

Same in Sheffield. Clear all day, clouds rolling in after sunset! I've been finding Jupiter at around 6.30-7.00 in twilight just to get half hour but the seeing has been terrible really. Last week was brill, best I've seen in ages.

[Telescope40]

Hello all. I sympathise but for me clouds weren’t the issue, just the seeing. More than used to the jelly and wobble views but this was just a mushy outlook. 
Im quite adept at curseing the cloud  gods as we all do. Lol 

John 

Edited September 20, 2020 by Telescope40

[JeremyS]

1 hour ago, Telescope40 said:

Hello all. I sympathise but for me clouds weren’t the issue, just the seeing.

Seeing was poor in this part of Cheshire last night, too. Had problems focusing the CCD on the C11 using the Bhatinov mask: the middle bar was moving a lot. 

So it came as no surprise trying some visual with the Tak TSA 120 that Mars was quite poor too. There were, however, the odd moments of good seeing when much more detail stood out, including Solis Lacus and those intricate fingers that project from the dark park into the ochre region. So it's worth persevering for a while before giving up. I do find it more relaxing looking out for these moments in bino mode rather than cyclops.

[Telescope40]

1 hour ago, JeremyS said:

Seeing was poor in this part of Cheshire last night, too. Had problems focusing the CCD on the C11 using the Bhatinov mask: the middle bar was moving a lot. 

So it came as no surprise trying some visual with the Tak TSA 120 that Mars was quite poor too. There were, however, the odd moments of good seeing when much more detail stood out, including Solis Lacus and those intricate fingers that project from the dark park into the ochre region. So it's worth persevering for a while before giving up. I do find it more relaxing looking out for these moments in bino mode rather than cyclops.

Hello Jeremy. Mars was part of my plan for the nite but it just wasn’t going to happen. Best glimpses I got were a transit spot on Jupiter of Ganymeade. I only felt I saw that as using the S&N app. 
Once I gave Saturn a real concentrated go of 20 mins or so I knew the writing was on the wall. Hey ho 

John 

[Jiggy 67]

Very strange, I also live in Cheshire and found the seeing on Saturday to be almost perfect 🥺. I started around 9pm and managed to bag a couple of planetary nebulae that I had struggled with on the previous 2 nights, NGC40 for example was impossible on Friday night but found it quite easily on Saturday. Also observed Neptune which was small but clear as a bell, a lovely blue colour 

[Saganite]

On 20/09/2020 at 10:08, Telescope40 said:

Well. Lovely day yesterday here in Cheshire. I set up my 150ED with my BV’s all set for a rather nice “planet” nite.  My well used Skytee in use. Scope lives in my garage so cool down not normally an issue. 
Balmy evening.  Shorts and hoodie. The Bar set too high. !?! 
Jupe and Saturn pass next doors garage by 8.30 now so I settled in with a cuppa. Let’s go !! 
ER, no John. Seeing was the pits. Soldiered on for about an hour. Tried some cyclops views - just wasn’t happening. Really thought my scope was damaged at one point. Double checked by running over to Mizar to check. 
Packed up bout 9.45.  Very puzzling. Just no sharpness coming thru. No “ jelly” moments with turbulent winds which can normally be the case but hey ho. Previous session I’d got the GRS showing a lovely salmon colour. 
Next time maybe. 
Hope others had more luck. 
John 

I  gave up because the seeing was so poor on Saturday night John, but tonight is different again, with Saturn presenting a lovely image at 198x. I hope it is better for you tonight.

[Telescope40]

1 hour ago, Saganite said:

I  gave up because the seeing was so poor on Saturday night John, but tonight is different again, with Saturn presenting a lovely image at 198x. I hope it is better for you tonight.

Yes. Actually out tonight with my smaller frac- Stellarvue 102. 
Much success on all of the targets I had a few nights ago. Must have been “ one of those nights” I guess 

Hope you are the same. Saturn still beating Jupiter in the pleasing view stakes. 
John 

[Saganite]

10 minutes ago, Telescope40 said:

Yes. Actually out tonight with my smaller frac- Stellarvue 102. 
Much success on all of the targets I had a few nights ago. Must have been “ one of those nights” I guess 

Hope you are the same. Saturn still beating Jupiter in the pleasing view stakes. 
John 

It was very definitely "  one of those nights " on Saturday. Apart from the poor seeing, a power failure and being generally 'ham fisted' all conspiring against me....

Tonight though is making up for it in bucket loads.

Edited September 21, 2020 by Saganite

[Robindonne]

3 hours ago, Saganite said:

Tonight though is making up for it in bucket loads.

Tonight was one to remember.   First time i  had the feeling my 3.5 mm ep wasn’t enough. Such a nice couple of hours.   Sore wrist from my manual control cables🙂

Edited September 22, 2020 by Robindonne