Persistence or madness and a cocoon through binoculars

[Ships and Stars]

Edit - I've added a few more details here over my initial post which was very brief due to fatigue at the time.

Finally firing on all cylinders with the 500p after many recent nights of frustration. A two hour, 70 mile drive in my lumbering old van on twisty A and B roads to clear, very dark skies in the camper to Glenshee A93 south of Braemar between the distant light domes of Dundee and Aberdeen. Left at 10pm expecting a goosechase. Much darker than this would require a four hour drive to the west coast of Scotland, probably around Applecross on up. 

Wind howling, so no goto, van parked as windbreak.

Seeing rubbish. Transparency brilliant.

Veil absolutely stunning with the 20mm APM XWA and Astronomik OIII. All of it, really excellent views, still breathtaking to see under these conditions.  

Crescent nebula excellent as well, lots of detail, but best part, finally saw the cocoon nebula after two years. Not through the dob - no no - through the bins with filters!

No mistake to my mind, as there are a few star clusters in that part of the sky that could be misleading through binoculars, but the cocoon was residing happily down the end of the dark lane.

Orion cleared the hill, so that's Hb filter on the Morpheus, took me a minute, somethings not right, an ha, finderscope off, centred that...and the Horsehead was right there. Probably the best view I've had. Could make out the nose and back of head (mane?). Nae bad. Or is that neigh bad? Sorry...

M42 and M43...on fire. 

Chased up Andromeda with the bins before I trained the scope on it. It extended across the 15x70s fov, m110 on full display, m32 tucked into the glow of m31, so a quick nip over to m33. I left it at that, no need for a scope on those tonight, especially given my fatigue by this point. 3 or 4am I think. The galaxies were amazing though!

Feeling unstoppable at this point due to a dangerous mix of ego, fatigue and caffeine, I trained the filtered 15x70s on the Horsehead -  went  with UHC and Nebustar combination as I thought the Hb on one side would be too restrictive. A bit wobbly to concentrate handheld, so I set up the tripod and had a steadier look. Could just sense the dark lane against IC434 but no horsey. In hindsight, I do want to try the Horsehead with Hb filter on one side of the binoculars again. If I had my 20/40x100 Helios binoculars with Hb and Nebustar or UHC, I'm fairly certain it would have been possible. 

Money well spent on fuel tonight.

Edited September 30, 2020 by Ships and Stars
add a bit more detail...

[Mark at Beaufort]

Brilliant - really pleased you caught the Cocoon Neb - I tried the other night but was not successful. Were you using a Hb filter on one or both sides?

[markse68]

3 hours ago, Ships and Stars said:

neigh bad?

🤦‍♂️😂

Amazing sounding night S&S! Sights I can but dream of. One day hopefully 🤞

[Paul73]

Well worth the effort! 
Nice write up too.

Paul

[scarp15]

A worthwhile journey, good to read that you finally got a session in with your 500p and continue to gain impressive binocular observations. The filter compatibility on the binoculars is working really well, as with Mark, did you have H-beta attachments for the Cocoon?

[Ships and Stars]

4 hours ago, Mark at Beaufort said:

Brilliant - really pleased you caught the Cocoon Neb - I tried the other night but was not successful. Were you using a Hb filter on one or both sides?

Uhc, you can suss it out much easisr. .The name of the game is contrast. Filters don't make things brighter, they provide contrast, Hb works in a big scope but everything is ultimately a compromise with filters as you drop in aperture. Hb is a struggle in bins. The Uhc in bins will let tons of useful light in at smaller apertures, the Hb is needy, as is OIII. Those filters will do the job, but in bins less contrast needed.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 27, 2020 by Ships and Stars

[Mark at Beaufort]

Thanks for that. I will try again with the 15x70 Apollo binos and have the TeleVue Nebustar 11 and the Lumicon UHC again.

 

[Ships and Stars]

16 hours ago, Mark at Beaufort said:

Thanks for that. I will try again with the 15x70 Apollo binos and have the TeleVue Nebustar 11 and the Lumicon UHC again.

 

Good selection - the nebustar and uhc go well together.

Edited September 28, 2020 by Ships and Stars

[Barry-W-Fenner]

Hi sas.

Excellent report with some nice humour 😀 sounds like a great night's observing. Not had a clearish night here since 21st September so Reading  this was a nice shot in the arm.

 👍

Baz

[Ships and Stars]

12 hours ago, Barry-W-Fenner said:

Hi sas.

Excellent report with some nice humour 😀 sounds like a great night's observing. Not had a clearish night here since 21st September so Reading  this was a nice shot in the arm.

 👍

Baz

Thanks Baz, I was exhausted but had a long kip yesterday in some beautiful countryside, I woke up and realised it was 6pm and raced home! Wife not overly impressed with my extended absence, I'm usually back in the wee hours, but all's well today

 

 

[Ships and Stars]

I do enjoy the long jaunts when everything comes together, but at the same time I'd like to find a local farm or rural lockup nearby to park the big dob so I don't have to lug it around all the time. Perhaps next new moon I'll take the 300p, weather permitting of course.

I've also taken several trips already this month that didn't pan out, but that comes with the territory I suppose. A local dark storage spot for the 500p would be wonderful! I'll do some checking around. Thanks all!

[PeterW]

You’ll need to organise a starparty up that way, preferably one with fixed accommodation (in case the weather isn’t friendly). 
Well done on the cocoon, I hop from the North American. Did you poke the bins around gamma cygni? Maybe the helix too?

Peter

[estwing]

Great read....glad you're enjoying that scope...more please!

[Whistlin Bob]

Great write up... making me wish my bins had filter threads! 

[PeterW]

You can hold the filters in the eyecups (with some ingenuity). I have a few pairs with front treads and use camera filter ring adapters to hold 2” filters on the front.

Larger angled binoculars can take 1.25” eyepieces so are easy to filter.

Peter

[Ships and Stars]

On 28/09/2020 at 21:55, PeterW said:

You’ll need to organise a starparty up that way, preferably one with fixed accommodation (in case the weather isn’t friendly). 
Well done on the cocoon, I hop from the North American. Did you poke the bins around gamma cygni? Maybe the helix too?

You can hold the filters in the eyecups (with some ingenuity). I have a few pairs with front treads and use camera filter ring adapters to hold 2” filters on the front.

Larger angled binoculars can take 1.25” eyepieces so are easy to filter.

Peter

 

On 28/09/2020 at 22:07, estwing said:

Great read....glad you're enjoying that scope...more please!

 

On 29/09/2020 at 07:30, Whistlin Bob said:

Great write up... making me wish my bins had filter threads! 

Thanks all,

I'd love to set up a star party - but the thing is weather of course and getting a good night or two - still quite possible. The main thing for me is time and family commitments, I feel like I'm pushing it just to get away late after the children are asleep. I was shattered the next day after this but happy!

There were still quite a few targets I'd like to observe, the wind Saturday night/Sunday morning was horrendous so that's part of the reason I ended up using the binoculars so much. If I had goto operating, then I have two or three pages of targets waiting to be ticked off. Doubt that will happen this season. 

This stretch of A93 south of Braemar down almost to Spittal of Glenshee has some excellent skies, but it's a glacial valley and the sides are quite steep. Still, I was able to get a good view of most of it, though Deneb set fast on me.  There are lots of parking places along the route, but this year there are also a lot of people, full stop. 

My plan for the past few years is to write several big estate owners or ask farmers and see if there is some way I could park the 500p in an outbuilding, etc. That way I could drive my small, faster, much more fuel efficient car out to use the scope and pop back home without much fuss. My van is great, but it's a slow lumbering contraption that easily turns a 1:30hr drive in a normal motor into a 2hr drive on twisty roads and gets through a fair bit of diesel in the process.

Filter threads are nice, but as Peter notes, if you want to try it out, there are a number of temporary solutions to see if it works for you. Because the filters are mounted on the outside of the occular in most instances, the mirrored surface means you will need a hood or some way to seal out light as they will reflect anything around you and you'll lose contrast. 

If someone wants to try filters, there are probably a number of ways you could temporarily mount them, depending on how desperate you are 😀

PS one of these days I'll write more detailed observations in my reports, but I was absolutely shattered after this one - I didn't leave home until 9:45 or 10pm, and wasn't viewing until 1:15am or so, then was literally at it until dawn.

Good, but it takes it out of you for a few days afterwards!

[estwing]

You should look into the star party at Galloway in spring.

[Ships and Stars]

12 minutes ago, estwing said:

You should look into the star party at Galloway in spring.

I worked down that way in February. I took binoculars but should have taken the 300p, skies were excellent. I was doing survey work on an absolutely massive farm, the farmhouse I discovered was abandoned/unoccupied so I parked in the steading courtyard in my camper - it made a perfect windbreak yet still gave excellent views of the skies. The farmhouse was on a hill as well. I think they were going to demolish the farmhouse sadly. That would have been a dream location for retired/work at home astronomers or someone willing to commute to the nearest towns. 

I may well have to make it to Drumroamin, it's still around a five hour drive for me, though motorway for most of it, smooth sailing compared to the bumpy narrow cart tracks I frequently navigate up here.

It would be great to finally meet some other astronomers 👍

 

Edited September 30, 2020 by Ships and Stars

[ParallaxPete]

Nice writeup 😀

I've been looking for some observing sites in that area to take advantage of the dark skies (found a nice site up by the Lecht I'll be going to). I believe most of the area is Bortle 2, which is nice. Even though I've been in the north east for over 40 years I think I've only been up in the cairngorms a couple of times before.

[Ships and Stars]

1 hour ago, ParallaxPete said:

Nice writeup 😀

I've been looking for some observing sites in that area to take advantage of the dark skies (found a nice site up by the Lecht I'll be going to). I believe most of the area is Bortle 2, which is nice. Even though I've been in the north east for over 40 years I think I've only been up in the cairngorms a couple of times before.

Thanks, yes there are a number of good viewing spots with decent parking well off the main roads in the Cairngorms as well as the Eastern Glens off the A90 - Clova, Tarfside, Glenn Doll etc.  I've found it to be pretty safe with no problems, and people are used to seeing the odd car or van parked up with all the walkers and campers about. Up near the Lecht wold be great, snow permitting in the winter of course if the snow gates are open (and a handy cafe right at the top! - same as Glenshee). Great elevation to dodge the dew but generally quite windswept of course.

Large areas around there showing anywhere from 21.75 to 21.94SQM, so a solid Bortle 2 going on Bortle 1. About as good as you'll get when the wind isn't howling and transparency is there. Gets bitterly cold of course, but I wear a cheap insulated boiler suit or a thermal undersuit for drysuit diving,  easier to move around in than the boiler suit. 

 

Edited October 1, 2020 by Ships and Stars

[scarp15]

Seen some pictures of a good Aurora display across the Cairngorms from a few evenings ago. Good idea for the thermal undersuit, the windchill is a particular factor there. That is definitely a consideration concerning snow at the Lecht and Glenshee road. Had to make a very long detour back to Newcastle from Braemar a good few years ago, when Glenshee closed due to snow drifts.