What did you see tonight?

[Captain Scarlet]

On 05/12/2021 at 03:09, ONIKKINEN said:

I saw what could have been comet Leonard. Hard to tell in the conditions really.

Took a late night walk with the Nikon aculons in hopes of seeing comet Leonard before it drops below the horizon, and this was probably the last chance. Nice and fresh -22 celsius with wind chill 😆. Skies were a bit milky, probably some high cloud and coupled with the city conditions of bortle 8 i wasn't really expecting much but hey its not going to be visible probably ever again. Scanned the skies up from Arcturus and i am certain it was in the field of view and one of the starlike specks of light in there. Just no way to be certain of the observation as there was no shape or tail of any kind. I am at least partly tempted to haul the VX8 outside but since its getting late (5am is late, not early for me), its probably best to let it go as it would be probably an hour until its set up and cooled.

Did however see a shooting star of sorts, quite bright and lasted longer than a typical blink of an eye, possibly more than a second with a slightly brightening end before it faded. Probably burned in the upper atmosphere at that moment.

The Comet should appear as a smudge, not unlike the core of M31, rather than a star-like pinprick. I was still _just about_ able to detect it yesterday as dawn arrived with the sky-brightness at 19.70 .

[Captain Scarlet]

1 hour ago, Stu said:

… unless I drags a little scope out later. …

You seem to be getting the hang of the Somerset way of speech it seems 🤣🤣

[ONIKKINEN]

7 minutes ago, Captain Magenta said:

The Comet should appear as a smudge, not unlike the core of M31, rather than a star-like pinprick. I was still _just about_ able to detect it yesterday as dawn arrived with the sky-brightness at 19.70 .

Bummer, since i cant see M31 when its towards east at home with the 7x aculons, background is far too bright. Tonight is one of these maybe clear maybe not nights, perhaps ill try again.

[Stu]

14 hours ago, Captain Magenta said:

You seem to be getting the hang of the Somerset way of speech it seems 🤣🤣

Shouldn’t that be ‘unless oi drags a little scope out later….’? More practise needed!

Well, having established the comet (A1) would be visible over the neighbouring house at about 6am, I set the alarm and was all ready to go out, but it was cloudy 😖😖

[John]

I did an outreach event at a nearby school with Bristol AS last night, which went quite well despite a brief (and un-forecast) rain shower just as we were setting up !.

Stuck to a variety of easy to find / easy to view targets as you do at such events. Visitors seemed to appreciate it though.

When I got back home I stuck the 8 inch scope out again to catch a hour or so of clear sky before it clouded over. Seeing was not the best but I did get some nice views of Comet C/2019 L3 Atlas in Lynx and the very, very distant globular cluster NGC 2419 / Caldwell 25 still within a couple of degrees of the comet.

M42 was starting to look quite spectacular as the clouds rolled in (naturally )

Also got M1, M27, M15, M31, M32, M110 plus a few others during the outreach session earlier.

 

[scotty1]

Despite having a flu like bug I stupidly stood in the garden for 2 hours 2.30-4.30 am with camera, tripod and thermals. 

As the sky was clear under a brief ridge of high pressure, I wanted to try and photo Leonard again. While waiting for Leonard to rise past the murky light polluted horizon, I saw three meteors, one left a white glowing trail heading from north east almost overhead. Another seemed to be a Geminid, also caught a meteor on a wide angle shot of Orion. Managed to get a bad photo of Comet 67P Churyumuv Garesimenko above the beehive cluster. 

About 04.30 I thought my lens had fogged up, but it was a thin veil of cirrus ejected ahead of storm Berra. Just before the sky became too milky I grabbed a few shots of Leonard and Arcturus.  

Lots of cloud in the forecast so I'm happy I made the effort, was feeling too rough to drive out of town. 

Cheers 

 

Edited December 7, 2021 by scotty1

[ONIKKINEN]

Clouds cleared out late last night, and while it was still 90%+ humidity, poor seeing and visibility i still went for it and packed all my stuff at 3am and headed to a B6 area. Never getting the chance again (this time im sure). Did manage to see Leonard through the VX8! The sight itself wasn't very spectacular since it was low in the eastern sky, which is by far the worst place anything can be in for the location. Never seen seeing this bad either, Arcturus was like a strobe light with how it shimmers. Still this will probably remain as the best view of comet Leonard i will ever get and while tired i am glad i did it.

The comet looked a lot like M31 in terms of fuzziness and brightness, but smaller, more elongated and dimmer. And unlike M31 it was moving, and moving FAST. Shockingly fast in fact, i could see it move in almost real time compared to the nearby star HD 129132 as it overtook it in the view during the 20-30 minutes i spent at the eyepiece. The nucleus was not as bright as the nearby star but this is probably due to the fuzzy nature of the comet. The star is a point source and pierces the light pollution well but the comet loses a lot of contrast against the background. It looked like there was a "veil" of stuff on both sides of the nucleus and a surprisingly long tail in the trailing end. The tail was difficult to see at first but i saw it after a few minutes of observing.

It was a really unpleasant humid frosty -17 celsius so i decided to hook up a camera instead and continue in EAA/imaging until dawn. I watched the subs roll in and while the quality was garbage due to the conditions and i don't think there will be a good image in the end i did observe  a few things. The comet noticeably moved over a few pixels between every single 30s exposure which means in my resolution that there was probably a movement of somewhere around 2-3 arsceconds per exposure! Really strange to see something so big just fly across the screen like it was nothing. In the images from what i could quickly in-situ process and see i noticed the tail could have been as long as a degree, and unusually green compared to the average object in space which entirely lacks green.

[F15Rules]

We're up in Northumberland at the mo, visiting friends who've just moved close to Amble on the coast..

We had a bonus clear spell last night, quite unexpectedly.

My friend Chris asked me if we could go out with the binoculars..his new home has a due south outlook, almost completely unobstructed for 180 degrees, and Bortle 4 skies, just 2 mile's from the sea. So I gave him a tour of some celestial lollipops for almost an hour, with both my Vixen 8x32 roof bins and my tripod mounted Orion Mini Giant 9x63 porros.

M42 was superb, as was Praesepe, the Auriga clusters, Pleiades, Hyades, Double Cluster, Mizar and Castor & Pollux. A really enjoyable little session and Chris was well enthused by what he saw.

Sometimes the totally unexpected sessions are the most rewarding👍😉.

Dave

[Ouroboros]

I spent a few minutes this evening admiring the line up of Venus, a crescent Moon, Jupiter and Saturn through my Mark1 eyeballs.  

[Nik271]

I was lucky with the clouds this morning and managed to observe C/2021 A1 Leonard for at least half an hour, from 5:45am to about 6:20am 🙂

I put my Celestron 20x80 Skymasters on a tripod and sat watching it creep southeast on the line joining  mag 6  SAO 101379 and mag 8.6 SAO 101352.

It has become much brighter than a few days ago, I estimate it at mag 6 so could be possibly  naked eye visible in dark skies (but not mine).

It has a large tail at least a degree long but quite faint (or so it seemed to me in the brightening sky) and poining north-west. As @ONIKKINEN mentioned above it moves quite rapidly: it changed position noticeably in the 30 mins I observed.

Quite a thrilling sight and good start of the day! I wonder how bright it will get.

[HollyHound]

Just a (very) quick session last night, testing the newly modified FS-60CB with the Extender, so now effectively an FS-60Q... quick looks at Jupiter, Saturn and Pleiades cluster. Very satisfactory views of all with the range of XWs and the new Masuyam 26mm... this is a lovely wide field eyepiece, super sharp and contrasty views, with the edge astigmatism kept under control to about 80% due to being in an f/10 scope.... certainly a nice addition to the stable 👍

Unfortunately, curtailed after 30mins, due to cloud and a sudden rain shower... just got the kit inside before it started 😬

[F15Rules]

From our friends' bedroom window facing south-west between c 5.10 and 5.20pm.

Moto G8 phone, 3 planets, L-R Jupiter, Saturn, Venus and the crescent Moon..😊

Dave

[Ags]

A short, frustrating and cold session, trying out the Baader Q Turret with my C6. The last time I tried out the Q Turret (in a refractor) I saw lots of astigmatism, so I have given it an overhaul (tightened its central screw) and now trying it on the C6. Possibly the tightening will improve the astigmatism, or alternately the astigmatism will be less of an issue in an F10 SCT than an F6 'frac?

Still a lot of astigmatism unfortunately, but image quality wasn't that great without the turret either - just a little better but stars were soft. Collimation looks OK inside and outside focus. I think my adventures with the Q Turret are at an end. As for the C6... when the Moon is back next week I will give it a test on that. 

Edited December 9, 2021 by Ags

[Muc]

Using the Carbon star list from Astronomical league (I think).  Checking out some in Lyra as back garden faces West. Mad how you can still observe Lyra in early Dec. T and HK Lyrae were both lovely. HK in particular had nice field. U Lyrae was too dim at 10th mag to really see. The moon was lovely but air was mushing about at even 40x. Nice way to spend an hour outside. Nice red stars in nice fields. Then in for a cuppa 🙂

[scotty1]

Another clear night yesterday so headed out at 3am, just a couple of miles to escape the worst LP.

I was frustrated by my Astrotracer function that would not operate, the display confirmed calibration complete, but the Astrotracer would not trace, so after a dozen attempts I put the camera in manual mode. 🤬 

Took a few widefield shots of comet Leonard, an occasional Geminid meteor streaked by. I then thought back remembering when I'd been at this location before to photograph comet Wirtanen, I think this was also during December with no moon around. I was able to see Wirtanen with the naked eye, but I've been unable to see Leonard with the naked eye so far. 

Around 5am I headed home to warm up. I set my camera tripod, and Astrotracer up in the garden, the Astrotracer now decided to function, I got 10 second exposures at 260mm without trailing. The sky had lightened a bit around 6 am, so I got my 10x50 bins quickly, and was able to see Leonard. It was a diffuse patch through the bins, that would be easy to miss, unless you knew ware to look, not helped by the arriving dawn. 

Friday into Saturday may offer another chance to observe Leonard if the forecast holds.

 

Edited December 8, 2021 by scotty1

[Ags]

Due to cloud, I put the C6 back indoors after the frustrating experiments with the Q Turret - only to find beautifully clear and dark skies around midnight. It would take too long to re-cool the telescope, so I had a quick tour with binoculars - just the obvious ones: M42 (lovely), M45 (lovely) and clusters in Auriga (lovely, clouds of stars on show, which I have never seen a from a city before). I also did a tour of the first magnitude stars, inspecting their color contrasts. With binoculars you can change targets very quickly so the color differences are far more apparent.

Very good skies - my kingdom for a cooled scope and widefield eyepiece!

Edited December 9, 2021 by Ags

[Nik271]

Nothing beats binoculars for speed, just grab and go and within 60 seconds you are observing. Spotted Leonard again in bins at 6am this morning 🙂

By the way  I've found that at low magnification cooling is not so essential for my Maks. (I usually keep them in a shed outside and occasionally bring them indoors to dry any trapped moisture). If I stay around 50-80x the views are nice even when warm.  Of course low mags kind of defeat the purpose of a Mak, even so views are very nice on many open clusters.

 

 

Edited December 9, 2021 by Nik271

[Ags]

Good point, but I had an appointment in the morning so probably a good thing I went for a quick binocular session instead!

Edited December 9, 2021 by Ags

[IB20]

Rudely awakened at 5:00am by a restless little guy so took the opportunity to observe Leonard again. Located by triangulation from Phi Serp and 40 Serp, Leonard is sandwiched between the two. Nucleus and tail do seem a touch brighter since I last viewed it - still fairly diffuse however but I’d approximate it is closer to mag 6 than 7.
 

The beauty of binos and a south east facing garden is I barely even had to get cold! 
 

[SuburbanMak]

Not making any claims for the photo but the alignment of first quarter moon, Jupiter, Saturn & Venus is stunning tonight. 

Edited December 10, 2021 by SuburbanMak

[SuburbanMak]

My planned Messier hunt plainly wasn’t on tonight - I am chasing some of the nitty-gritty fainter things now and getting them in the 127 Mak will require a special night. 

Have hunted the Crab so many times to no avail I took the opportunity tonight to do a recce around Zeta Tauri in the same way I did to find signposts for the Virgo galaxies. Noted a prominent “bow” of 4 stars just NW of ZT & have confirmed them in Stellarium relative to M1 - useful data filed away for some dark, clear night… 

Watched Sirius flash for a while - noted a chain of 9th & 10th mag stars just to the W. 

Then spent a long time enjoying Orion without a plan.  Drank in the nebula, tried OIII & UHC filters but didn’t improve - best view with the subtler Baader Neodymium paired with the 24mm Hyperion 68 degree. Gorgeous sight.  Was getting 4 stars in the trap with direct vision but no more than rare hints of E&F. (Anyone else sometimes find the encroaching dark bat-wings of M42 a bit sinister? ) 

Put the Hyperion 8-24mm zoom in and toured some Orion doubles. 

Looked at Alnitak & was able to pick out the more distant C component but didn’t split the closer pair. 

Enjoyed the rich cluster at the hunter’s “head” & a nice split of Meisa. 
 

Found an as-yet-unidentified, fainter white pair with the secondary a pale dot, part way along the line from Rigel to Saiph.
 

Rigel’s brightness made for a messy picture tonight but the ghostly secondary was visible. 
 

Sigma Orionis & it’s surrounding field were as superb as ever. 

A bank of high cloud moved in around midnight leaving only the brightest stars visible naked eye & besides I was getting chilly, so I packed up after a very enjoyable Friday night session. 

 

 

 

Edited December 11, 2021 by SuburbanMak

[Nik271]

I had the big Mak out last night but it was complete overkill as the seeing did not support more than 100x. So I looked at some nice wide doubles from  Ags' book: Chi Tauri, Eta Persei and Theta Persei. They are all very unequal in magnitude and made a nice challenge with the poor conditions. I should try this with the 127 Mak on a steady night for a proper workout. Then I remembered the Moon is still out (it was 8pm) and looked briefly -it was a shimmering jelly 😞  The best was for the end: finally hunted down the Crystal Ball nebula (NGC 1514). I have been looking for it before and never saw more than the central star. It looked just the same tonight but this time I had done some reasearch and found John's report from some years ago which recommended using OIII filter. I usually don't bother with filters but this planetary really needs it. I used a UHC filter and the nebuloisity showed up immediately. It was not very prominent but definitely there. An OIII filter  to be added to the Christmas presents list. 

I think that's about the end of my observing for some time judging by the forecast ☁️ 

[Ian McCallum]

Nothing fantastic to report from last night, apart from testing a second hand 2" diagonal I got.  I've read that a diagonal shouldn't add or subtract from what you're viewing i.e. it shouldn't mar the quality of the image.  Well with this diagonal, the image of the moon was crystal clear, using my SW 28mm 2" LET EP.  It certainly saved me a lot of neck strain.

Edited December 11, 2021 by Ian McCallum
typo...

[ScouseSpaceCadet]

Giving up on the weather forecasts I've not even checked for the last week. Tonight locking up, I looked out and the sky was crystal! A good opportunity to try the Opticron 15x70s on my old aluminium Monfrotto Art monopod & Neewer ball head. The whole system worked as expected I managed about 45 minutes just gazing really. Lunar, Pleiades, Hyades and about half the session spent on Orion. I could definitely make out the 'wings' of M42. The longer I looked, the more I saw. The binoculars really provide a sense of scale compared to a telescope view. M42 looked massive against the background expanse.

A nice relaxing session at a balmy 8°c. Unfortunately I forgot to wipe the damp off the garden chair and my bottom was soaked when I went in. 🙄

Edited December 15, 2021 by ScouseSpaceCadet

[Mr Spock]

Great view of the moon tonight with the 102mm. 250mm was a bust (won't go into that here), but the 102mm was on form despite wobbly seeing. Had a very sharp view of Schiller with the 9mm ortho and Meade 140 Barlow - x190. That was the best combination of the night beating the 4mm SLV (x189) comfortably.