What did you see tonight?

[badhex]

Had a few clear nights over the last week, and conditions have varied a little with light haze and seeing. I may do a longer write up but at the moment I'm absorbed in a self imposed Enceladus challenge, so that was the main object of my observations for last night. 

Sadly I did not manage to observe Enceladus even with at least an hour of trying, but did manage Rhea, Iapetus and obviously Titan, as well as Saturn himself looking pretty majestic with cloud banding visible even through a light haze.  

Meantime I tracked down Neptune which was surprisingly easy, a very light eggshell blue disc compared with nearby 20 Piscium and SAO 146912. 

Also observed were the Veil, M29, Jupiter, with Ganymede hanging out at the edge of the disc, and then finished with the Hyades, Pleiades and the double cluster. 

[badhex]

1 hour ago, badhex said:

Had a few clear nights over the last week, and conditions have varied a little with light haze and seeing. I may do a longer write up but at the moment I'm absorbed in a self imposed Enceladus challenge, so that was the main object of my observations for last night. 

Sadly I did not manage to observe Enceladus even with at least an hour of trying, but did manage Rhea, Iapetus and obviously Titan, as well as Saturn himself looking pretty majestic with cloud banding visible even through a light haze. 

Actually, I meant to add that if anyone fancies joining in on the Enceladus challenge i.e.  seeing what aperture is required to observe it, I would love to hear anyone's results!

[josefk]

I will definitely have a crack @badhex if (lack of) cloud cover usefully aligns with Enceladus' position and with having a larger scope out. I have Sky Safari at the side of the scope mostly and always have a good look for what i can see/should be able to see in this regard.

Last year i managed Enceladus with the 185mm Cassegrain and using binoviewers - i remarked it in my notes as very faint indeed and not held with direct vision the whole time. Winding back time in SSP i think the separation of Enceladus from Saturn was 20" at the time and if its the observation session i'm thinking of i remember using my slo-mo controls on the mount for "a long time" holding Saturn out of the FOV to hide it's brightness while looking for the closer moons.  Good fun.

[badhex]

21 minutes ago, josefk said:

I will definitely have a crack @badhex if (lack of) cloud cover usefully aligns with Enceladus' position and with having a larger scope out. I have Sky Safari at the side of the scope mostly and always have a good look for what i can see/should be able to see in this regard.

Last year i managed Enceladus with the 185mm Cassegrain and using binoviewers - i remarked it in my notes as very faint indeed and not held with direct vision the whole time. Winding back time in SSP i think the separation of Enceladus from Saturn was 20" at the time and if its the observation session i'm thinking of i remember using my slo-mo controls on the mount for "a long time" holding Saturn out of the FOV to hide it's brightness while looking for the closer moons.  Good fun.

Great stuff! What are your skies like, LP wise? I'm currently in Bortle 5 skies, and only observing with a 73mm F5.9 ZS73 currently so really not the right scope for the job, and in honesty I think probably not possible - but we make do with what have and it makes the challenge more interesting! 

[josefk]

1 hour ago, badhex said:

Great stuff! What are your skies like, LP wise? I'm currently in Bortle 5 skies, and only observing with a 73mm F5.9 ZS73 currently so really not the right scope for the job, and in honesty I think probably not possible - but we make do with what have and it makes the challenge more interesting! 

i think semi rural is a fair description - i'm not super clear on the Bortle scale re. differentiation between 4 and 5 but i am probably in Bortle  4. I use the "dark sky meter" app on my phone and 20.5 SQM would be a long term average. Nearer 21.0 SQM with a favourable late rising or n/a moon and nearer 20.0 SQM with a decent slice of moon.

i pay way too much attention to these things - you could put your scope and sky in here to see if "you're on" or not  - https://www.cruxis.com/scope/limitingmagnitude.htm

Edited September 11, 2023 by josefk

[badhex]

2 hours ago, josefk said:

i think semi rural is a fair description - i'm not super clear on the Bortle scale re. differentiation between 4 and 5 but i am probably in Bortle  4. I use the "dark sky meter" app on my phone and 20.5 SQM would be a long term average. Nearer 21.0 SQM with a favourable late rising or n/a moon and nearer 20.0 SQM with a decent slice of moon.

i pay way too much attention to these things - you could put your scope and sky in here to see if "you're on" or not  - https://www.cruxis.com/scope/limitingmagnitude.htm

Thanks, I've come across this before but did not have it bookmarked. Depending what figures I input, I'm getting limiting mag of 12.7-12.9. Stellarium suggests that Enceladus is mag 11.73 so it should be possible if everything aligns nicely! I live in hope 🙂

[Captain Scarlet]

Just in (2am) after my first proper session in 2 months and my first with the 12” in 4 months! Though there was one a few weeks ago where I got it all out in the daylight evening and simply packed it away again once dark (clouds).

A really good session, incredible transparency, and a couple of new objects for me, the glob in Delphinus to name one.

Worthy of a full report which will follow tomorrow. And I’ve just got a “red alert” Aurora message, so I’m heading out again!

Cheers Magnus

Edit: and I saw the Aurora! Again, amazing.   Not as strong as April’s but unmistakable naked eye nonetheless. Vertical sheets of shimmering grey. I got some pics which I’ll retrieve from my dslr tomorrow also. What a night.

 

 

Edited September 13, 2023 by Captain Scarlet
Aurora pic

[Stu]

Wow @Captain Scarlet! Amazing!

For me I had an early leave, 4.30am to get to Dartford and once I got onto the A303 I started getting beautiful views of the crescent Moon and Venus. I thought Venus was a plane to start with as it was so bright! It kept me company for a while, and once I got onto Salisbury Plain I pulled over to have a quick gawp at Orion, the Hyades and Pleiades and Cassiopeia amongst others. It clouded over soon after but I was grateful for the views.

[RobertI]

On 11/09/2023 at 17:15, josefk said:

i pay way too much attention to these things - you could put your scope and sky in here to see if "you're on" or not  - https://www.cruxis.com/scope/limitingmagnitude.htm

I think this webpage may be incorrectly calculating the effect of the pupil diameter / age - according to it, the older I get the dimmer the stars I can see.  Can’t be right can it? Apart from that, it’s very useful. 🙂

[josefk]

You made me check the small print @RobertI “apparently” the explanation is you have to adjust NELM (down) at the same time otherwise the calculation assumes you are becoming superman as you age. 😁

that’s definitely a bug because I only ever input SQM and that’s objective rather than subjective so remains fixed as an input versus the age variable. 
 

[Epick Crom]

21 hours ago, Captain Scarlet said:

Just in (2am) after my first proper session in 2 months and my first with the 12” in 4 months! Though there was one a few weeks ago where I got it all out in the daylight evening and simply packed it away again once dark (clouds).

A really good session, incredible transparency, and a couple of new objects for me, the glob in Delphinus to name one.

Worthy of a full report which will follow tomorrow. And I’ve just got a “red alert” Aurora message, so I’m heading out again!

Cheers Magnus

Edit: and I saw the Aurora! Again, amazing.   Not as strong as April’s but unmistakable naked eye nonetheless. Vertical sheets of shimmering grey. I got some pics which I’ll retrieve from my dslr tomorrow also. What a night.

 

 

That's beautiful, thanks for posting @Captain Scarlet

[Zermelo]

I've just come in, as cloud is starting to appear.

The forecasts for the last three nights were far too pessimistic (apart from the BBC) so I set up anyway. It was a really excellent evening, transparency and seeing were both very good. The milky way was obvious and detailed, withe the great rift showing well.

In the Mak, a variety of targets looked excellent. Open cluster IC4756 filled the widest eyepieces with stars. The Wild Duck was also on good form, at low magnifications showing granularity more like a glob, and resolving at higher power. M92 was as good as ever, while NGC 6934 in Delphinus is one of the less impessive globs, just a faint patch. Planetary NGC 6572 was obvious, but without colour, and M27 was showing its apple core shape well. Doubles included HD 203358 and HR 7083, and iota Cassiopeiae was much better than it was last month - three components were showing very clearly, and the set was motionless and very beautiful. Saturn in a yellow filter showed the Cassini division and the barest hints of cloud banding, along with moons Titan and Rhea. Jupiter showed four bands, but went behind the encroaching cloud before I could get a decent look.

It was also the first outing for my 12.5mm Morpheus, and it did not disappoint. In particular, it gave very contrasty views and a dark background.  The second light for the SvBONY 9-27mm was also very successful - sharp, with decent contrast.

[Franklin]

Returned home late last night to a clear sky so I set up my new to me ED102S for a brief first light. Despite the low altitude Saturn was looking very good with the CD visible at the sides of the rings and a white belt on the planet. Jupiter was superb showing multiple belts with hints of festoons when the seeing permitted, eyepieces used were the SSW5mm and 3.5mm for mags of around 175x and x260 and I was pleased to see no CA or image breakdown even at these overly high powers for this scope. Other targets were, Perseus double-cluster which was stunning as always, M15 Globular in Pegasus could be resolved into individual stars with averted vision using the SSW5mm. Gamma Andromeda, lovely yellow/blue contrasting coloured showpiece double and M31 showing well with M110 a fuzzy blob to the side. A star-test on Deneb showed very similar mini-bullseyes either side of focus so I am well pleased with the scope so far. Only a quickie as I spent most of the evening driving but I'm impressed with this 20 year old scope and it's so light at only 4.5kg kitted out with a Baader 2" clicklock diagonal and 6x30 RACI.

 

[SuburbanMak]

First time out for a long time last night and enjoyed some at times great views of Saturn & Jupiter - the Tak 100 DC paired with Pentax 5mm delivering as good a view of Jupiter as I’ve ever had with lots of swirly texture in the equatorial bands at the best moments.   
 

Also spent some quality time with M31 & M45 in the Baader Hyperion 24mm.  
 

Lovely warm, dry session with a nice glass of red on the go  

[badhex]

Out again last night with the Enceladus challenge, but still no dice. I was able to easily spot Titan and Rhea, and the north equatorial belt was very clear during moments of still atmosphere, but Enceladus eluded me once again. It's possible that 73mm aperture / 112x is just not enough to spot such a tiny moon. That said, despite the lack of our own moon, the neighbours more than made up for it by having more lights than usual on. You couldn't make it up. 

Speaking of things you could not make up, one of said neighbours shares some of the garden area where I am staying, an elderly lady from the UK who popped over to where I was observing not long before I was packing up. She was very interested in my goings on, asking lots of question about astronomy and Saturn, and I gave her a quick look at Saturn while we chatted. She asked if I'd made any discoveries, which I'd said was quite rare for mere mortals apart from comets and we got on to the difference between comets and meteors; just as I looked up a saw the flash of a single, bright meteor almost exactly as I said the word (around 2015-2020 UTC), travelling from approximately aquarius or capricornus in the direction of scutum. Unfortunately she was not looking in the same direction, and hopefully she did not think I was fabricating it but it really was one of those weird moments. 

If anyone knows of a resource that records meteors I'd be interested if that one was tracked - it was very bright, but also short lived, possibly less than a second. 

[badhex]

Meteor update! Turns out someone else reported the same thing, so I didn't imagine it! 

https://ukmon.imo.net/imo_view/event/2023/5412

[ScouseSpaceCadet]

"What did you see tonight?"... A red light head torch reflected off the interior of a wet tent!

[Ratlet]

My rampant geekery collided and I missed the first few hours of darkness because I was running a d&d session.

Managed to get out about half ten.  I'm not convinced on the Starsense on the honor 20.  More often than not it fails to find stars and I don't think it's sky quality since I could naked eyeball Andromeda!  Will try and find my daughter's iPhone and try that.

Anyway, Andromeda got the 30mm launched at it in the Dob.  Made a point to look at M110 whilst I was there.  Got the owl cluster which looked suitably owly (hopefully it's not the cosmic owl).  Caroline's rose got the 30mm but didn't make much of it till I put the 17.5mm on it, when it definitely looked rose like.  Also used this on the blue snowball nebula and it definitely looked blue.

Jupiter remained behind the trees but broke out the X2 binoculars for a bit of a tour.  I'd love to get these fired up at a more southern latitude.  They're brilliant.  Great on the double cluster and give a good effort on Andromeda.  Best thing for these is m45 though as it looks like a mini big dipper.

Called it earlier than I would like as it was cold and I've sprained my wrist.  It hurts to do simple things like putting my hand in my pocket and adjusting the tension on the dob was agony.  I sprained it when I literally touched my mattress picking up my phone (somehow) and the wife has started calling me 'mattress toucher' which frankly sounds worse than my wrist hurts!

Edited September 16, 2023 by Ratlet

[Pixies]

Some aurora tonight.

 

[Ratlet]

Got the imaging rig out for the first decent session of the year.  Focus wasn't great, but good enough for fb on the veil and crescent with the 135mm.

Set up the 130pds for visual and set up in the west side of the garden for Jupiter and Saturn, both looking very good.  Sneak peak at pleiades to wrap up.

[Mr Spock]

Cloudy here (again).

[Stu1smartcookie]

My first clear night for the 250mm flextube dob that arrived from FLO on Friday . With the Adapted Starsense unit i had great success navigating the sky , although i was unable to see Saturn as cloud unexpectedly ( ie not forecast ) made an unwelcome appearance . A trip out for the Dwarf too , and the first time in EQ mode , which , i'm happy to report worked really well i.e. no field rotation . Took a rather noisy image of M31 , no dark frames . A short session in the end but enjoyable all the same . Happy just to get the opportunity . 

[bosun21]

Began to set up the Skytee II mount with the 150PL last night and the sky was partially clear at the time. I was transferring the Starsense unit over from the dobsonian and I stupidly managed to drop it onto a paving slab. The entire mirror section snapped off from the body amid a torrent of expletives! Whilst I was ranting inside about the Starsense the clouds rolled in fast putting a halt on the nights observing. The plastic has sheered off at obtuse angles making the superglue fix the only possible way to try and repair it. This morning I have done just that with a tube of loctite from the garage. It’s now been put aside to dry and hope for the best 

[Stu1smartcookie]

Sorry to read the above , Ian ... seems like you've "caught " the drop syndrome from me mate  

Hope your efforts to repair it are succesful .

Stu

 

[StevieDvd]

If the loctite repair does not hold try a proper glue such as this one.

I won't but another tube of loctite or gorilla superglue again.  With grand kids and the missus regularly giving me almost impossible breakages to repair the above glue (and a similar product) has been a godsend and actually worked where supermarket packaged glues fail.

I recently knocked a raspberry pi off a shelf and managed to snap the sdcard (it hit a concrete floor) - used this glue to stick it as I thought the main memory part may have been okay.  The glue did the job but the card was not recognised. As it was heading for the bin I decided to test the glued joint and was able to snap the card, but suprisingly in another place - the  glued join was still intact.