A bit of déjà vu report, with a bit of a mix up!

[Grant93]

Hello everyone!

In my area of the midlands, the weather was absolutely clear last night, so I got both rigs out, time for observing and imaging! I got set up at about 23:20 PM. To allow time for the scope to reach ambient temperature. After collimation and alligning the spotting scope I left it sitting on M13 whilst it got darker. Whilst waiting I set up the imaging rig, Once I set that off on the NA Nebula I began my night! Even though I viewed similar things as my last report, I used a different eyepiece and same barlow. Although didnt plan on using the barlow much, only for a couple of my planned targets.

7-21mm Orion Zoom

2x Celestron Barlow

10" Skywatcher Flextube

Bortle 5 Back garden.

M13 - As mentioned above, I left it hanging on M13. When coming back to the eyepiece I thought it couldn't of moved too much, so without using my spotting scope I moved it around a bit on 21mm to see if I could find it again. I thought I found it (little did I know at the time it was M92). So I viewed it in 21mm, down to 7mm. I was satisfied with it, but not as good as I thought it would be. So I went to move onto M92. When looking through the spotting scope I realised I was way off M13, I was infact on M92. So I moved my scope back towards M13. I was shocked, this truly brought out the quality of this zoom lens for the price, as I've read before on reviews. 21mm it looked its usual sparkily self. 7mm Zoom was better. When I added the barlow, this was when it blew my mind away. I had to back off the zoom ever so slightly very carefully adjust the focuser, and when it reached focus it was about as breathtaking as DSO's go. When I see things like this during astronomical twilight, It makes me even more eager for night time to come back!

M51 - Nothing much to report here, two galactic cores, no signs of outter spirals.

M101 - Even less to report here, never been able to find this, and last night was no different! (Advice on this one is welcome )

Bodes and Cigar - A nice couple of easy galaxys to find, the cigar was easy to resolve, no averted vision needed. Bodes had a bright core, no spirals visible again, but a outter halo with averted vision.

M57 - Another mind blower! As I said in my last report, I've only ever managed to view this lower on the horizon, and didn't manage to last time due to clouds. All I thought when I saw it, was holy smokes (since it was relevant ). Clear difference between the inner circle and the outter ring. Put the barlow on and used the zoom, Not too sure what I went down to, but just so it wasn't covering my full FOV. Didnt take any detail away, so I decided to try averted vision. I can't say whether I saw the centre star for sure or not, so I won't claim I did, just maybe!

I planned on viewing the new nova also, but that was also way behind my house! Going to get the binos out tonight to view it if its clear .

I know they are similar targets to my last report, but I wanted to compare with different eyepieces, and also be able to view M57 this time . All in all happy with the night, the imaging wasn't too disappointing either! Posted that onto the starting with imaging section!

Thank you for reading!

Grant

[Stu]

3 hours ago, Grant93 said:

M101 - Even less to report here, never been able to find this, and last night was no different! (Advice on this one is welcome )

Nice report. M101 is relatively large but with low surface brightness. As a result it is one of the harder Messier objects and really does benefit from dark skies. I’ve never seen it from my house (Bortle 7 ish). Best views were in a large dob at Lucksall during one of the SGL star parties. It doesn’t need a large scope though, just the dark skies.

[Pixies]

Yep - I've easily seen M101 with 10x50 bins in a Bortle 3 sky. I would imagine it's pretty impossible at this time of year with anything, visually.

 

[Grant93]

2 hours ago, Stu said:

Nice report. M101 is relatively large but with low surface brightness. As a result it is one of the harder Messier objects and really does benefit from dark skies. I’ve never seen it from my house (Bortle 7 ish). Best views were in a large dob at Lucksall during one of the SGL star parties. It doesn’t need a large scope though, just the dark skies.

Thank you! Similar to the Triangulum galaxy then. I had a look on a light pollution map the other day coincidentally, I think my closest bortle 4 is 30mins, bortle 3 is about 1 hour 30mins! Surrounded by citys! Will definitely drive out to the bortle 4 regularly when longer nights come back. Was gobsmacked when I visited a bortle 3 in early May, would love to live closer!

59 minutes ago, Pixies said:

Yep - I've easily seen M101 with 10x50 bins in a Bortle 3 sky. I would imagine it's pretty impossible at this time of year with anything, visually.

 

Yes this lack of night time is frustrating!

[Zermelo]

I've managed M101 once so far, it's not the easiest. This was with a 6" on a dark night in a Bortle 4 location.
There is a good local starfield, so I used the finder to position the scope very precisely, and then I could barely make it out at 42x.
It was better at 63x, I could just about see traces of the disc outside the brighter nucleus.

[Whistlin Bob]

Nice report Grant.

I sympathize in the local light pollution. I spotted on your profile that you're in Burton- if you're interested we have a good club on your doorstep: https://www.roslistonastronomy.org.uk/ 

The forestry centre is only a Bortle 4, but I've seen m101 there a few times including with an 8" dob. There are also lots of experienced observers to share the experience with. We're just getting back into the normality of regular observing sessions- you'd be very welcome to join us.

[Kon]

Nice report and targets. It is always nice revisiting targets you have seen before since seeing conditions might be better. I am jealous since I have not had a single clear sky for the past 3 weeks.

 

[Grant93]

3 hours ago, Whistlin Bob said:

Nice report Grant.

I sympathize in the local light pollution. I spotted on your profile that you're in Burton- if you're interested we have a good club on your doorstep: https://www.roslistonastronomy.org.uk/ 

The forestry centre is only a Bortle 4, but I've seen m101 there a few times including with an 8" dob. There are also lots of experienced observers to share the experience with. We're just getting back into the normality of regular observing sessions- you'd be very welcome to join us.

Thank you, that would be brilliant. I'll have to look into when the next meet up is Be nice to get advise off experienced people in person .

2 hours ago, Kon said:

Nice report and targets. It is always nice revisiting targets you have seen before since seeing conditions might be better. I am jealous since I have not had a single clear sky for the past 3 weeks.

 

Cheers! I think I have only had one in the past three weeks now