Quick, its clear !!!

[John]

After over a week of heavily clouded nighttime skies, I've been surprised by a clear start to this evening !

In the interests of getting out there fast I've put the Tak FC100-DL out.

The seeing is actually quite decent.

Mars, though just a 9 arc second disk now, is showing the long northwards projecting snout of the Syrtis Major and the adjacent Mare Tyrrhenum extending to the south west. No sign of the south polar cap. The northern polar limb seems pale and hazy. The phase is 89% illuminated - noticeably gibbous. 

Uranus, grey / greenish disk quite crisp at 300x. Not in the least like a star at that magnification

Alpha Piscium, "Alrisha", the 1.8 arc second double, nicely split.

Gamma Cephi, a 2 arc second but more uneven brightness pair also well shown. This one seems to rejoice under the name of "Kaffaljidhma"  

So all going quite nicely at the moment and I seem to be able to remember, more or less, how to do it after the cloud-enforced break from observing

Have fun, if you are out

 

Edited January 15, 2021 by John

[Paul M]

Oh no it's not!

Glad you've got some action John. No good here. It was this morning at 03:30 when the dog woke me in desperate urgency. I took her down and outside. I intentionally kept the lights off and put my glasses on and was met by a pristine sky. All the constellations standing out spectacularly. The dog did her thing and took off back to bed leaving me watching the sky in my dressing gown at -3 deg  

[John]

Hmmmm - this might not last much longer !

Hazy cloud on it's way in I think.

Did manage to add Theta Aurigae and Castor to the double star tally before putting the scope under cover while I have supper.

We will see what gives later as to whether any more is possible

Never mind if not, after a bit of an observing drought, even 30 minutes at the eyepiece seems to lift the spirits

 

Edited January 15, 2021 by John

[Saganite]

Thanks for the heads up John.  So used to being a hermit, and with this incessant rain, I had not looked out, but it is clear  though with poor transparency . I will put the 4" Vixen out and see.

[Mr Spock]

Yes, it's clear, but... the ground is covered in snow and it's freezing! I'm staying inside where it's cosy 😜

[Mark at Beaufort]

Well just before 5pm I caught sight of the crescent Moon. The cloud was moving in right direction and I thought I might pick up Mercury. Well no hope - it went totally cloudy which is still the situation. Getting very frustrated with constant cloud cover.

[John]

37 minutes ago, Mark at Beaufort said:

.... Getting very frustrated with constant cloud cover.

Me too Mark. Cloudy here again now

 

[faulksy]

1 hour ago, John said:

Me too Mark. Cloudy here again now

 

at least you had a short session john. keeps ya going

[Nik271]

It's great when we get clear sky at last, isn't it.  Thank you, John for the nice report! Both Alpha Piscium and Gamma Ceti are new to me, I will try to have a look at the next opportunity.

I was lucky with the weather too: contrary to the forecast the clouds stayed away until 8pm last night, so I managed almost couple of hours at the scope (180mm Mak). The moon was still up at 6pm and I tried my new BST binoviewers which came with 32mm Plossls. The FOV is a bit narrow at only 48% but I'm quite pleased, much better than cyclops and I hope the binoviewers will counter the floaters I get in high magnification. 

Everything was very still and fog was rising, a sign that the seeing should be good.

And indeed it was great: I looked at Mars and Uranus at x300 and they both looked very crisp. Syrtis Major was visible on Mars and Uranus was a tiny clearly defined disc floating in darkness. No moons visible but still this was my best view ever of Uranus, until now with poor seeing it had just looked like a bloated star. If Herschel could see it like this he could never mistake it for a comet.

After dinner and a hair drier treatment of the corrector plate of the Mak it was a quick tour of double starts. No binoviewers this time, just a 9mm Svbony eyepiece giving x300. I tried Delta3 Tauri but the dim companion was invisible. Too ambitious! 

Something easier: Rigel. There were  currents of hot air from the houses so I only got glimpses of clarity among mush, but in those clear moments I saw the companion. Good start! Next was Eta Orionis, hmmm too much hot air again no luck. But Sigma Orionis was a fine view - a string of four stars drifting across the eyepiece. Really Orion is full of double stars. Trapezium next at x300, looks gigantic but I think it's too low in the sky to show me the F and G stars. (I have a lot of light pollution in the south sky where the city centre is). 

I had better luck with Alnitak: a nice yellow companion south of the white primary.

I finished the evening with Iota Cassiopeiae: three perfect airy discs forming an obtuse triangle. What a difference observing near the zenith makes! Note to myself: no ambitious double star observing below 40 degrees altitude! (but what about Sirius then , have to make an exception! )

Its so nice to observe again, let's hope more clear spells are coming!

Nik

 

 

 

Edited January 16, 2021 by Nik271

[John]

Nice report Nik !

Unfortunately I had lost the clear sky before Orion hove into view here. You are right though, that magnificent constellation is packed full of delights. You can easily spend a whole session there 

When you get some steady observing conditions try 32 Orionis with your big Mac and then to really push things, 52 Orionis on the other side of the constellation closer to Betelgeuse. You 180 should be able to do both under good conditions. 52 is around a 1 arc second split so very seeing dependent.

 

[Mr Spock]

I'm coming to the same conclusion about double star observing. Only at sufficient altitude is it worth the effort. There are too many houses here for atmospheric stability at low altitudes. I'm going to stick to the area s-ssw and over 30-40° - I believe that's my only real stable area.

Still plenty to see though.

[Jiggy 67]

19 hours ago, John said:

Did manage to add Theta Aurigae

I had a good look at TA a few nights ago, lovely double but found it to be a really tight split, how did it look through the Tak?

[Marc1964]

Managed to get the scope out quickly at 1820. Original forecast was cloud cover, so caught by surprise 😁. Had a really nice view of Mars, best that I had seen for a few weeks. Went for the Pleiades and the cloud cover rolled in.😒. Total viewing time approximately 30 minutes.

[John]

4 hours ago, Jiggy 67 said:

I had a good look at TA a few nights ago, lovely double but found it to be a really tight split, how did it look through the Tak?

Quite a clear split at 225x. It's a 4 arc second gap but quite a large brightness difference between the components - mag 2.6 and mag 7.2, which makes it more of a challenge. The dimmer star can be hard to see if the seeing is wobbly or if the optical system is throwing up some diffraction.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 16, 2021 by John

[Jiggy 67]

29 minutes ago, John said:

Quite a clear split at 225x. It's a 4 arc second gap but quite a large brightness difference between the components - mag 2.6 and mag 7.2, which makes it more of a challenge. The dimmer star can be hard to see if the seeing is wobbly or if the optical system is throwing up some diffraction.

 

 

 

 

 

Well I’ve just taken delivery of my first ever refractor 😱 an SW Evostar 100ED and when the clouds clear and I can get out, I’m thinking of using Theta Aurigae to compare the view with the 8 inch newt, I think it will provide a good test and comparison. With the newt I found it as you describe, very dim secondary which could be lost in the diffraction spikes of the primary 

[John]

I thought I might be in luck tonight as well but the "sucker gaps" in the clouds have progressivly got smaller and smaller so the sucker has given up now and bought the scope back in

I got some views of Rigel, Alnitak, Zeta Orionis, Beta Mon in a few favourable cloud gaps but the seeing was rather mediocre so chasing around the sky not that rewarding. 32 Orionis was just about split and 52 elongated. Nothing really at it's best though.

Sometimes you just have to beat a retreat !

 

 

 

Edited January 16, 2021 by John

[Nik271]

10 hours ago, John said:

I thought I might be in luck tonight as well but the "sucker gaps" in the clouds have progressivly got smaller and smaller so the sucker has given up now and bought the scope back in

I got some views of Rigel, Alnitak, Zeta Orionis, Beta Mon in a few favourable cloud gaps but the seeing was rather mediocre so chasing around the sky not that rewarding. 32 Orionis was just about split and 52 elongated. Nothing really at it's best though.

Sometimes you just have to beat a retreat !

 

 

 

I was also tempted by a gap in the clouds around 9pm but it closed too quickly  It seems to be the main feature of observing this winter: chasing brief spells of clear sky.

I found the Met Office's detailed weather map of hourly rain and cloud cover a bit more accurate than CO. But most often both of them have been wrong, at least for cloud cover.