What did you see tonight?

[Astro_Dad]

Another clear crisp night last night, this time I opted for simplicity and no real plan. Just a basic but enjoyable sweep around with the 10x50’s. Taking in a few classic winter highlights along with a pleasurable immersion across the whole sky - just noting the vastness of the sky with star fields and and clusters galore. Beautiful. And freezing. 

[ScouseSpaceCadet]

2 hours ago, Stu1smartcookie said:

Ashamed , but Warm 

Last night the skies were as clear as i've seen them for sometime , but , for me it was "no way Pedro" ... 

I did have a short stay in the garden looking up ! 

The trouble is , and i'm sure i am not alone in this , i felt quite guilty knowing that others have braved the cold , but also knowing the equipment wasnt used . 

Anyway ... i am "hoping " to get out tonight . 

 

Have a 'like' for honesty.. 😀  One more thing late last night while observing I watched a very bright yellowish non blinking light to my west move from roughly north to south before dimming and disappearing. Very much like a good bright west - east ISS pass but the wrong direction and yellow (I'm colour blind so it could've been green or orange!) I immediately checked Orbitrack and Flightradar 24 but nothing showed up on that trajectory...

[catburglar]

Had a great night last night with my 90mm ETX (deforked) on a Neewer fluid head. Setup at about 5pm for the scope to cool and then at about 5:45 homed in on Jupiter ready for the Ganymede transit. All 4 moons were visible as tiny discs surrounded by a faint first diffraction ring with a 7mm ortho for approx 180x. Jupiter was clear and detailed for most of the time rather than fleeting glimpses of clarity that come and go with the seeing. I was nipping in and out whilst cooking and caught the first contact- it was a memorable sight with Ganymede just touching the limb. I was able to follow the moon over the limb and across the disk of Jupiter as a slightly darker but pin sharp spot- which is something I’d not managed to see before this. I followed the transit almost to third contact but Jupiter dipped behind some trees so I missed egress.

Whilst the seeing was so steady, I took a few detours during the transit - to pi Aquila which split with two slightly uneven airy disks just touching and a shared diffraction ring, Rigel - split fairly easily but not a ‘nice view’ because it was still pretty low down in the murk, Saturn - as for Rigel- not a great view, couldn’t see Casini division or any banding on the planet, and finally Mars- with definite dark but indiatinct surface markings in both the north and south hemispheres, a small north polar cap and some brightening towards the limb- not sure if these were Martian clouds or an effect of local seeing - because although it was at a decent altitude, the line of sight was over some adjacent houses - so the seeing was not quite as good as to my south.

I’m always impressed by the quality of the view in the little mak- I’d been observing Jupiter and Mars the previous night with my 10inch SCT and the views hadn’t been as pleasing… I don’t know if the seeing was so much better than the previous night or if the bigger scope was having problems tracking the falling temps (scope handset said -10 Celsius at the end of the session), but I’m planning a side by side session tonight to see how the views compare. I’m hoping to get some really sharp views of Mars with the big scope at some point during this opposition…but not been lucky enough yet.

[MalcolmM]

13 hours ago, HollyHound said:

M42 awesome as always

Gotta say I had another jaw dropping moment with the Mewlon when I looked at M42. So much detail and so bright! Was not able to see E and F but I was looking through a lot of atmosphere, Orion being quite low. 

And congratulations @HollyHound, great photo of a great looking couple. Wishing you many happy years together!

Malcolm 

[Stu1smartcookie]

29 minutes ago, catburglar said:

Had a great night last night with my 90mm ETX (deforked) on a Neewer fluid head. Setup at about 5pm for the scope to cool and then at about 5:45 homed in on Jupiter ready for the Ganymede transit. All 4 moons were visible as tiny discs surrounded by a faint first diffraction ring with a 7mm ortho for approx 180x. Jupiter was clear and detailed for most of the time rather than fleeting glimpses of clarity that come and go with the seeing. I was nipping in and out whilst cooking and caught the first contact- it was a memorable sight with Ganymede just touching the limb. I was able to follow the moon over the limb and across the disk of Jupiter as a slightly darker but pin sharp spot- which is something I’d not managed to see before this. I followed the transit almost to third contact but Jupiter dipped behind some trees so I missed egress.

Whilst the seeing was so steady, I took a few detours during the transit - to pi Aquila which split with two slightly uneven airy disks just touching and a shared diffraction ring, Rigel - split fairly easily but not a ‘nice view’ because it was still pretty low down in the murk, Saturn - as for Rigel- not a great view, couldn’t see Casini division or any banding on the planet, and finally Mars- with definite dark but indiatinct surface markings in both the north and south hemispheres, a small north polar cap and some brightening towards the limb- not sure if these were Martian clouds or an effect of local seeing - because although it was at a decent altitude, the line of sight was over some adjacent houses - so the seeing was not quite as good as to my south.

I’m always impressed by the quality of the view in the little mak- I’d been observing Jupiter and Mars the previous night with my 10inch SCT and the views hadn’t been as pleasing… I don’t know if the seeing was so much better than the previous night or if the bigger scope was having problems tracking the falling temps (scope handset said -10 Celsius at the end of the session), but I’m planning a side by side session tonight to see how the views compare. I’m hoping to get some really sharp views of Mars with the big scope at some point during this opposition…but not been lucky enough yet.

Great report , I agree that sometimes a smaller scope is all you need to get the views you require . Nice one .

[HollyHound]

1 hour ago, MalcolmM said:

Gotta say I had another jaw dropping moment with the Mewlon when I looked at M42. So much detail and so bright! Was not able to see E and F but I was looking through a lot of atmosphere, Orion being quite low. 

And congratulations @HollyHound, great photo of a great looking couple. Wishing you many happy years together!

Malcolm 

Same here... great views of M42, but I also couldn't see E or F (which have been almost trivial in the 10" Bresser Dob on occasion) 🤔

Thanks... we had a great day and we're super happy together 😁

[JeremyS]

3 hours ago, ScouseSpaceCadet said:

Have a 'like' for honesty.. 😀  One more thing late last night while observing I watched a very bright yellowish non blinking light to my west move from roughly north to south before dimming and disappearing. Very much like a good bright west - east ISS pass but the wrong direction and yellow (I'm colour blind so it could've been green or orange!) I immediately checked Orbitrack and Flightradar 24 but nothing showed up on that trajectory...

THEY are watching you @ScouseSpaceCadet 🫣

[ScouseSpaceCadet]

14 minutes ago, JeremyS said:

THEY are watching you @ScouseSpaceCadet 🫣

I've rechecked Orbitrack since posting and have convinced myself on this occasion, the light wasn't aliens or a secret Illuminati high altitude spy drone. Likely a very bright Starlink if I have my timings right...

[JeremyS]

1 minute ago, ScouseSpaceCadet said:

I've rechecked Orbitrack since posting and have convinced myself on this occasion, the light wasn't aliens or a secret Illuminati high altitude spy drone. Likely a very bright Starlink if I have my timings right...

Ah well…I’m still waiting for a fluorite spacecraft to land in my garden and they alien saying “I extend the handle of peace - Tak me to your leader”

[IB20]

Castor A & B system through the f12.75 76DCQ is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. Just the most outstanding star colouration and control; two perfectly and I mean perfectly, spherical white orbs 🤩. Incredible.  

[markse68]

Mars is very sharp here in London tonight (as was Jupiter) Maybe the haze is helping- better than last night anyway. Feel like I'm on the verge of making out the finger protrusions near the Valles Marineris, and Acidalia Planitia further north is quite clearly defined with a bridge reaching up to I guess Margaritifer Terra. The cloud/ice at the pole seems to be extending above the the disk a little making it slightly non-circular- bit of a bulge? Is that even possible?

Mark

[Epick Crom]

On 16/12/2022 at 06:57, PeterStudz said:

Basically clouds over the pole. From my limited experience it’s not as bright as when you see ice at the poles. I managed to catch that back in the summer and even though Mars was very small the ice at the South Pole almost glowed. 

Ahh I think this is what I've been seeing recently too! It looks like a tiny white spot, not as bright or extensive as a polar cap. I was wondering why the polar cap was less bright and tiny compared to last opposition, now I now it was the polar hood. Thanks for that!

[allworlds]

@catburglarI've noticed in my 105 that at high power the planet "jitters" as it drifts through the view. I wonder if you're getting the effect people talk about of the "cell size" of seeing that makes a larger telescope show more blurring while a smaller one has the entire view moving about?

[josefk]

Well last night i manage to re-prove the old adage "there's no such thing as bad weather just bad clothing". I dressed for grab 'n' go rather than extensive "camping out" and the cold was brutal; it beat me just after the hour mark. But what an hour. Had three lovely surprises at the eyepiece:

I was hopping around open clusters in Auriga with the small spotting scope (after starting a bit unsatisfactorily with Mars to the West) and settled on NGC 1931. I was really taken aback to not just observe the cluster but also see nebulosity here. It wasn't extensive or dramatic but it was definite and clearly not the atmosphere or glare or a scope aberration. I was super impressed. 

While making excited notes on NGC 1931 i was turned away from the scope - when i turned back to the eyepiece - M36 The Pinwheel Cluster had almost perfectly rotated into view. It was a fantastic unlooked for surprise at the eyepiece (and looked great in any event). It means it took just less than 5-minutes to "write up" NGC 1931.  Pleased me no end.

The third little surprise was another open cluster - NGC 1907. I'd looked for this before on a less nice night and hadn't been convinced i'd found it. Last night it was clear and it is superb. I would find this one very easy to mistakenly ID as the foreground group of stars if the transparency wasn't good (that was probably what i had been doing previously). Last night transparency was better in the scope than i would have thought from just eyeballing the sky and "the real" NGC 1907 was "obvious". It is a fine castor sugar and misty filigree group in the background and was a very very nice and satisfying observation indeed. i recommend it. 

Keep warm.

[josefk]

5 hours ago, allworlds said:

@catburglarI've noticed in my 105 that at high power the planet "jitters" as it drifts through the view. I wonder if you're getting the effect people talk about of the "cell size" of seeing that makes a larger telescope show more blurring while a smaller one has the entire view moving about?

My facetious reply would be if that had been my experience last night it would have been because i had frozen a hand to a tripod leg and was shaking the scope with my shivering. 😄

[Astro_Dad]

12 hours ago, IB20 said:

Castor A & B system through the f12.75 76DCQ is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. Just the most outstanding star colouration and control; two perfectly and I mean perfectly, spherical white orbs 🤩. Incredible.  

This sounds amazing. Thanks for sharing. Just been reading up a bit more on Castor as a result. Fascinating. 

[Whistlin Bob]

It's all cloudy tonight, so can't make it 4 nights running. Last night was a bit different- went down to Rosliston AG with my binoculars, and had some fun on m42 and the double cluster, but the big news of the evening was that we got first light in our club observatory. This project has been a lot of years in the making, and has been the hard work of a lot of people. The building was finished in March 2020 and then closed for a long time with the pandemic. 

Last night saw it finally come to light- with big cheers as first the owl cluster, then m42 appeared gloriously on the big screen! 😀😀😀

 

[Franklin]

I think I've had more use out of my scopes during this extended cold spell and the clear skies that came with it, than the rest of 2022 all together. The clouds are back now though😪.

[Neil_104]

That's a shame but glad to hear you've been able to take advantage of the crisp clear nights of late. Clear night where I am, very dewy though. Currently out imaging M45. Reckon I can get in a good couple of hours before the trees decide to photobomb it...

[Ratlet]

26 minutes ago, Franklin said:

I think I've had more use out of my scopes during this extended cold spell and the clear skies that came with it, than the rest of 2022 all together. The clouds are back now though😪.

I've missed a lot of the clear skies as I just started back at work on Tuesday.  Closest I've come was having a look at Pleiades and Orion from a dark site.  The only reason I was at the dark site when I should have been working was cause my car had been hit by a bus lol and I was waiting for them to clear the road.

Edited December 17, 2022 by Ratlet

[Neil_104]

😬 hope you weren't in the car at the time and not too much damage? 

[Ratlet]

3 minutes ago, Neil_104 said:

😬 hope you weren't in the car at the time and not too much damage? 

I was in the car.  I was unhurt and I don't think there were any serious injuries to anyone else.  All good.

[Astro_Dad]

Mixed results tonight. Clear earlier and I had hoped for an attempt at imaging Mars using my DSLR. Unfortunately no joy here at all - struggled to get anything to show in live view, and error messages on screen suggested I didn’t have a lens in place (I’d set up with the 8” Dob, camera, T Ring adapter and Astro Essentials 2x Barlow). Couldn’t get anything to show on screen despite being aligned on Mars. No luck at all. 
Abandoning AP (probably a little impatient) I opted for a visual on the red planet and wasn’t disappointed- good detail on offer with albedo features Aurorae Sinus and Mare Sirenum.

Onto deep sky.

Several Auriga targets were in the plan , and did manage a great result on OC M36. Unfortunately the clouds rolled in at this point so retreated inside. Perhaps better luck tomorrow…

[scotty1]

On 16/12/2022 at 16:36, JeremyS said:

Ah well…I’m still waiting for a fluorite spacecraft to land in my garden and they alien saying “I extend the handle of peace - Tak me to your leader”

I remember that Jeremy Beadle prank , when a spacecraft crashed in the street, it wasn't flourite though lol. 

The lady asking the ET " would you like a cup of tea? "  

A repeat of that would be impossible nowadays, with antisocial media latching onto it before they had dug the crater.

Edited December 18, 2022 by scotty1

[maw lod qan]

Out at 3:40 am to add some air in a tire on the BDROSB. Finished and just stood there for a moment looking at the incredible clear sky.

As a reward, a fast moving meteor left a long trail across the sky! 

Then off to work!