What did you see tonight?

[SuburbanMak]

Unplanned garden GoTo session with the old brass Clarkson 3” f15. Seeing good & transparency moderate to good depending on the high haze bands. Aligned carefully on Arcturus & Altair and enjoyed pinpoint accuracy from the AZGTi all night. 
Looked at: M27,M57, M56 (surprisingly well seen), M10, M12,M14,M3,M5, M13. 
Galaxies M94, M81,M82 (dim in 
LP but oval & stripe shapes apparent on the same field) & could just pick out M51 in AV but no form seen. 
M39, M29, M52, NGC 457. 
Finished on some doubles Alberio, Rasalghetti (a first for me), 95 Herc & Dabih (Capricornus). 
Switched between Celestron 40mm Plossl & BCO 18mm & 10mm all night giving powers 30x, 67x & 120x. 

Love marrying this 120 year old scope to a computerised mount. 

Best of all, no work in the morning - fab way to start the bank holiday. 

Edited June 2, 2022 by SuburbanMak

[Starwatcher2001]

Glorious looking evening with clear blue skies, so put the tube out for a couple of hours to cool. Eventually started seeing the brighter stars out and went for it, hauling the C9.25 evo out and all the tackle. By around 11pm I realised I'd been suckered and high haze was obscuring most of the sky. Just for a laugh I tried aligning with StarSense and it joined in the laughter. I had a quick peek at Arcturus and it looked awful.  12:00 hauled the gear back in. 12:30 looked out again on my way to bed and it was clearing up. Sigh.

The good news is we're going to a beer festival today. Cheers 🙂

 

[Kon]

Having the long bank holiday weekend, I was up at 3am to image and view Saturn, and it didn't disappoint. Cassini division was easily observable. Seeing can get better. No sign of Jupiter from my site yet.

[Zermelo]

We've escaped to a cottage near Dartmoor for a long weekend. CO says the location is around 21.7, I'm not sure, but it must be Bortle 3.

I packed the Mak and some bits, more in hope than expectation, and the forecasts yesterday were split on the chances of some clear stuff or mid range cloud.

One of the aims was to find a decent southern horizon, which we lack at home. As soon as we arrived I got the compass out, but it wasn't great as the farm house rose quite high in that direction. But I got chatting to the farmer and explained what I was doing, and he took me around the other side to reveal a wide southern vista across an open field, with a nice mown spot to set up on and no-one nearby to be disturbed later on.

Alignment at 22.30 was a bit challenging, as the list I'd prepared in advance were mostly hidden behind the trees behind us in the North. But I did find a good pair and we were away. A fox ran across a dozen paces away, and a badger came over for an even closer look.

HD130412 in Libra was split in the twilight, then Porrima. M3 was a boiling mass of pinpricks jumping in and out. The Whale galaxy was obvious, though I'd failed to see it at all from home. Then the Sunflower, and inevitably M51. For the first time I could see some definite spiral structure.

The brighter galaxies were visible in the finder.

I could just fit M81 and M82 into the field of a 23mm EP. M82 in a 9mm Morpheus showed the light and dark patches that I'd never seen before.

M13 was spectacular in the OVL zoom, showing much structure. M10 also very nice. To finish, I panned down the SE sky with the finder, stopped on an interesting splodge, and it was the Wild Duck cluster, superb in the Morpheus.

As I was packing up at 01.30, the forecast cloud was just making an appearance on the horizon. To finish, a brilliant meteor struck down vertically in the east, leaving a bright green trail.

[Astro_Dad]

Torrential rain followed glorious sun with clear skies marked my camping trip in N Yorkshire this week.  Pleasing views of the waxing Cresent moon by naked eye and then with the Heritage 150p. Family, including kids all suitably impressed with the views - turbulent air flows early evening made for poor seeing but lots interesting crater features showing through a 25mm Plossl and then 18mm BST Starguider. Not the best shot but just a quick snap using phone afocally with the 25mm captured the memory nicely. 👍

[PeterC65]

2 hours ago, Zermelo said:

We've escaped to a cottage near Dartmoor for a long weekend. CO says the location is around 21.7, I'm not sure, but it must be Bortle 3.

I packed the Mak and some bits, more in hope than expectation, and the forecasts yesterday were split on the chances of some clear stuff or mid range cloud.

One of the aims was to find a decent southern horizon, which we lack at home. As soon as we arrived I got the compass out, but it wasn't great as the farm house rose quite high in that direction. But I got chatting to the farmer and explained what I was doing, and he took me around the other side to reveal a wide southern vista across an open field, with a nice mown spot to set up on and no-one nearby to be disturbed later on.

Alignment at 22.30 was a bit challenging, as the list I'd prepared in advance were mostly hidden behind the trees behind us in the North. But I did find a good pair and we were away. A fox ran across a dozen paces away, and a badger came over for an even closer look.

HD130412 in Libra was split in the twilight, then Porrima. M3 was a boiling mass of pinpricks jumping in and out. The Whale galaxy was obvious, though I'd failed to see it at all from home. Then the Sunflower, and inevitably M51. For the first time I could see some definite spiral structure.

The brighter galaxies were visible in the finder.

I could just fit M81 and M82 into the field of a 23mm EP. M82 in a 9mm Morpheus showed the light and dark patches that I'd never seen before.

M13 was spectacular in the OVL zoom, showing much structure. M10 also very nice. To finish, I panned down the SE sky with the finder, stopped on an interesting splodge, and it was the Wild Duck cluster, superb in the Morpheus.

As I was packing up at 01.30, the forecast cloud was just making an appearance on the horizon. To finish, a brilliant meteor struck down vertically in the east, leaving a bright green trail.

Interesting to hear that just a slightly darker sky made such a big difference to what you could see.

[Zermelo]

3 hours ago, PeterC65 said:

Interesting to hear that just a slightly darker sky made such a big difference to what you could see.

I'm not sure how much darker it actually is. The Web says about 21.3 for my house (which I think is very optimistic, but shows the relative difference) . Of course, there was no stray light here. There was no brightening to be seen on any horizon except where the sun had set. The milky way was the best I've seen it (when I've been taking any notice). And of course there was no Astro dark.

Edited June 3, 2022 by Zermelo

[Nyctimene]

Was out with the 8" f/4 Hofheim traveldob this morning under 5.0 mag/21.04 SQM-L skies to revisit the nice galaxy chain extending from NGC 5846 in eastern Virgo. Starting as usual from M5, the 10 mag galaxy close by was found easily with direct vision and appeared round with a brighter central region. It's neighbour to the east, the barred spiral 5850, was more demanding and only visible with AV at 124x mag (Docter 12,5 mmf+Abbe 2x Barlow). The fainter 5845 and 5839 to the west could not be made out under the slightly hazy and slowly brightening skies. Three years ago, I had a good view of this chain with the 13.1" Coulter Odyssey (posted here). Finished after an hour with another visit of M 5 at 02.30 CEST.

Stephan

[fozzybear]

Heads up guys the gods are playing tonight as started here grey and nasty heading north sorry @Stu  as i think last time you got the brunt of it.

[Stu]

5 minutes ago, fozzybear said:

Heads up guys the gods are playing tonight as started here grey and nasty heading north sorry @Stu  as i think last time you got the brunt of it.

Thanks for the heads up. It does look like something noisy is heading our way, might take a while to get here though

[Mr Spock]

Nothing but cloud to look at here 

[fozzybear]

7 minutes ago, Stu said:

Thanks for the heads up. It does look like something noisy is heading our way, might take a while to get here though

IMG_1355.MOV

She is here with me so tv no sat cov and the dog is not happy.. 

 

[iapa]

sympathy to those who may be affect

however, <shrug> 500miles away, who cares LOL

9mph is about the lowest I see, and mostly 80+% cloud for the 6-12 months; except for today; clear skies and temp above 14C

[fozzybear]

https://www.windy.com/-Rain-thunder-rain?rain,46.073,11.558,5

 

[Kon]

I think I can observe through this tiny bit of clear sky tonight 🤣

 

[Pixies]

Sorry guys - beautifully clear, calm and warm up in Edinburgh tonight. The seeing is great too, steady as a rock. Not exactly dark, though!

Split both ends of double-double at x70 in the 80M Vixen. 

Have just come in to gloat, now heading back out for further stuff.

[johninderby]

What’s a clear sky??? 😁

Clouded out every night since the Evolux82 arrived last Tuesday. The new scope curse is alive and well.😢😢😢

[iapa]

8 hours ago, johninderby said:

What’s a clear sky??? 😁

Clouded out every night since the Evolux82 arrived last Tuesday. The new scope curse is alive and well.😢😢😢

hehe

last night was probably the first clear night here since my 8"RC was delivered (just after that ship cleared the Suez Canal) - it is still in it's box

issues with mount last night so, nowt captured. Maybe tonight?

[LaurenceT]

Here in Burgundy where we are "camping" in our motorhome we saw 2 stars last night  the first for 5 nights, my wife said that I could finally get the scope out later. An hour later we had 5 hours of intense rain accompanied by incredible thunder and lightning. 

I blame my wife.....

[Mr Spock]

10 hours ago, Pixies said:

Sorry guys - beautifully clear, calm and warm up in Edinburgh tonight. The seeing is great too, steady as a rock. Not exactly dark, though!

Split both ends of double-double at x70 in the 80M Vixen. 

Have just come in to gloat, now heading back out for further stuff.

LVW 13mm - so choice 👍

[Pixies]

Last night's observing was a bit of a tour of old favourites. I started off observing in late spring and thee targets were some of the first I observed.

Using the Vixen 80M achro (F11), the seeing was very good but the skies not very dark. Even nautical darkness has gone up here now.

Started with double-double. An easy split with the good seeing. Best views with the Vixen NPL 10mm and BCO 10mm. I got the latter recently after all the rave reviews and want to compare with the Vixen, which I really like. Both showed similar quality views (although the Vixen appeared to have a slightly wider FOV) - but I don't think this target was really going to show up any major differences.

M57 Ring nebula. More a fuzzy disk in the little frac and with light skies.  Still very visible, though.

M56 GC. Very faint and just visible with AV. I remember the first time I tried hunting this down in the 8" dob - my ability to find small faint fuzzy things has definitely improved! What a life-skill to have!

Albireo - as beautiful as ever. Never sure if I prefer high or low mag on this.

M27 Dumbbell. Another easy find and visible in many magnifications, but UHC filter improved all views too, even with <1mm exit pupil in an 80mm refractor.

M71 GC - another very faint one. Barely visible even with AV

61 Cygni - Piazzi's Flying Star. Always pretty and distinctive. The B star appeared very slightly cooler orange. Not sure if that was a trick of the luminosity.

NGC 6826 - Blinking Planetary nebula. Yep, it did!

 

Edited June 5, 2022 by Pixies

[Astro_Dad]

7th June. Always good to take advantage of an early evening (well c 22:00 BST) moon observation - cloud likely later so making the most of this - the moon is always attractive at this time with its golden yellow hue contrasting brilliantly with deep blue sky background. 

I took out the Heritage 150p and enjoyed 30 mins or so using the 15mm BST Starguider (so 50x power). 

Very sharp views of the Plato crater north of Mare Imbrium, and also Archimedes, Autolycus and Aristillus popping out of the view with sharp contrast. Moving South close the terminator I was able to identify several prominent features with the help of Moon Atlas- Alpetragius and Thebit for example, eventually losing myself in the Southern highlands before the clouds rolled back in. Interesting to go back and identify further features with the phone photo taken outside compared against Moon Atlas - a nice challenge!

[paulastro]

You did well to have some clear sky Andrew.

[johninderby]

Arrrghhhh!!!!

Nice clear sky and the moon out so a bit of a first light of the Evolux82 so got the scope out and in the couple of minutes it took to get it set up wall to wall clouds. Give me a break. 🤬🤬🤬

Edited

Clearing up a bit so maybenot hopeless after all.

 

Edited June 8, 2022 by johninderby

[IB20]

A quick 40 minute session with the Tak 76DC & 5XW. Observed some interesting craters at the Northern limb in Fontenelle, Fontenelle A & Anaxagoras alongside an interesting looking region of Goldschmidt.

Clavius, Rupes Recta, Plato & Copernicus looking stunning. Eratosthenes and the Montes Apenninus region really caught my eye too. Also a feature above Copernicus that looked like the Pit of Sarlacc, which I can’t seem to identify?

Grabbed a quick iPhone shot before the clouds rolled in.

 

 

Edited June 8, 2022 by IB20