What did you see tonight?

[scotty1]

21.30 had clear skies so picked up the Aurora just outside town. Clouded up by 22.30, by then the Aurora level had dropped to weak.

15 seconds ISO 3200

[bosun21]

It’s still drying at the moment and I was considering applying araldite epoxy around the break to try and strengthen the join. I’ve also ordered some of the glue recommended by @StevieDvd. 🤞🤞.

[Naughty Neal]

Sprinlkle some bi carb of soda on the super glue before it sets and then if needed add a bit more  superglue, It makes a super welded joint which when  properly set one can use a nail file to file down.  For a darker finish use graphite instead of bi carb .  

Practice on any bit of non imprtant broken  plastic to try it out first.

[IB20]

I’m currently in a bortle 5 location (my home skies are 6) and i’m very surprised with the increase in naked eye stars I could see last night. A very faint Milky Way band was even showing near Deneb; it’s really got me thinking I should make an effort to get to darker skies. I should just grab my 15x bins and get in the car! Living in Leics it wouldn’t be hard to get to a better conditions.

[Mr Spock]

I have the new 8" out. Unfortunately it was in the house, so, I'm anticipating a long cool down. It's split the double-double at x126 even though it's fuzzy from lack of cool down. I can see the star in between at mag 12.3 which is not bad given my LP.

It does need the coma corrector with all eyepieces. Even at x68 and 1.2° there are huge 'gulls' without 

[Saganite]

After last nights deluge the sky was clear at 5 am this morning and Orion looked beautiful so a trip down the garden had to be done.  Well rewarded with clean split of Rigel and a solid E star with glimpses of the F star.  The seeing was good after a thorough washing of the atmosphere, and Jupiter , for the second time in just over a week, revealed four bands with excellent colour, the two equatorial being sharp with fine detail at circa 140x.   I am not really a 'morning ' person and the sight of five moons attending Jupiter threw me  until the focuser revealed that the culprit was a star, 43 Ari,  so Stellarium says.  As is usual I spent a long time on the Jovian disc and so it was getting light by the time I moved to Venus.  A lovely sharp crescent in the dawn sky, probably the best I have seen for a long time, was  a grand finale to brief but fine session.

Edited September 21, 2023 by Saganite

[Nyctimene]

Was out with the 18" f/4.5 Obsession last evening under sub-average skies (NELM 4.8; SQM-L 20.68). Started with M 27, that gave a good view already with the 24/82°, but way better at 164x (12.5 Docter) with the OIII. Beautifully shaped rugby-ball, gleaming bright, with a slightly brighter S part and some embedded stars (viewed without filter). gc M 71 close by presented as a compact, but readily resolvable cluster in a slightly triangular shape. gc 6934 in Del appeared similar, but with more and fainter stars. A longer starhop led me to the small, but rather bright (10.4 mag) planetary 6891. A small disc with a faint greenish hue, with high surface brightness. The central region appeared a bit brighter, and the central star (12.4) was flashing up with AV at mag 400x (10 mmf Ortho+2x Barlow). Saturn was disappointing deep in the horizon murk, the Cassini just visible in the ansae. Finished after 1.5 hours at 22.20 CEST. A lot of disturbing road traffic - farmers using the favourable weather for harvesting corn, until almost midnight.

Thanks for reading

Stephan

 

[johnturley]

On 11/09/2023 at 15:56, badhex said:

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!

I used to find Enceladus fairly easily with a 10in Newtonian in the 1970’s, but now struggle with a 14in Newtonian. I put this down to  combination of increasing light pollution, and my deteriorating eyesight. In addition Saturn was higher in the sky for most of the 1970’s.

Likewise I have never been able to spot Neptune’s Triton visually, although some people (no doubt with darker skies, and better eyesight) state that they have been able to spot it through a 6in telescope.

John

 

[badhex]

3 hours ago, johnturley said:

I used to find Enceladus fairly easily with a 10in Newtonian in the 1970’s, but now struggle with a 14in Newtonian. I put this down to  combination of increasing light pollution, and my deteriorating eyesight. In addition Saturn was higher in the sky for most of the 1970’s.

Likewise I have never been able to spot Neptune’s Triton visually, although some people (no doubt with darker skies, and better eyesight) state that they have been able to spot it through a 6in telescope.

John

 

Cheers! I'm hoping to try again with a bit more aperture, but might start small and see where I get to. I have a 4" doublet, 4" Mak and failing that, a 6" achro waiting in the wings but since I'm now back at home in Bortle 7, LP might be the issue!

[IB20]

Just a quick naked eye gaze around Perseus and Cassiopeia in my last night of darker skies. Melotte 20 and the double cluster appearing as noticeable fuzzy patches amongst hundreds of stars. Turned to Andromeda and followed the trail of stars up from Mirach and with a little averted vision could make out the bright core and extended fuzz of M31. Being able to see an object outside our galaxy naked eye gives me goosebumps. Regretting the decision to not bring my binoculars! 

[Ouroboros]

You know those nights when it’s cloudy but there are dark patches with stars between them?  Well, it’s like that here in Cornwall tonight. What with that and intermittent rain it’s not worth getting the scope out. So, I’ve just come in from a stroll round the garden with the bins trying to spot a few old favourites. Ursa Major and Minor, Hercules and the M13 cluster, Vega in Lyra, Altair, the coat hanger cluster, Saturn, Aquarius.  I think I could just see M31 with averted vision. Very clear through bins though. The Triangulum Galaxy (bins), Cassiopeia, Caroline’s Rose Cluster (bins),  the double cluster in Perseus.  Jupiter and it’s four brightest moons  was visible for a moment before disappearing behind cloud. 

[Franklin]

Just had 3 hours of clear skies sat in the garden with the new ED70SS, visiting some old friends once again and it's great to see the winter skies rising in the SE. Hints of nebulosity around Merope and Alcyone in M45 with the SSW14 for 28x. Caught the back end of the Io shadow transit and Jove revealing plenty of detail (for 70mm) equatorial and temperate belts displayed well using the SSW3.5 for 114x and HR2.4 for 166x. Too late for Saturn as it was sinking in the west. Left the scope out to view Venus a little nearer dawn, after coffee and vanilla slice.......mmm!

 

Edited September 22, 2023 by Franklin

[Saganite]

The APM ED 152 tonight with just a couple of zooms, the 7.7/15.4 APM and the Svbony 3/8.  Albireo was excellent as always and the Double Double split text book fashion at 92x, so I had to have a crack at Zeta Herculis and that split nicely at 300x .

Very pleased with that and the forecast shows clear until dawn, but I doubt I will get that far tonight....🙂

[Saganite]

Easy split of 52 Cygni, but Lambda Cygni just refused to be split, very close but the seeing seems to have worsened a little in the last half hour, so that one will have to be revisited.  Not sure what separation is but certainly less than 1.3"

 

[John]

2 hours ago, Saganite said:

Easy split of 52 Cygni, but Lambda Cygni just refused to be split, very close but the seeing seems to have worsened a little in the last half hour, so that one will have to be revisited.  Not sure what separation is but certainly less than 1.3"

 

According to Stella Doppie it's .9 of an arc second Steve plus quite a difference in brightness. A tough one !

 

Edited September 22, 2023 by John

[RobertI]

Just had a nice couple of hours. Transparent skies so I took the C8 out to see how it would cope with the Crescent nebula. With a 0.63 reducer, OIII/UHC filters and a 32mm Plossl I got as large an exit pupil as possible. A disappointing view initially, so after fiddling with different eyepieces I concluded the 17.5mm Morpheus actually gave the clearest view, but as with previous sessions, the best I could manage was getting a clear curve in the top half, but not the whole length of the Crescent. I have concluded my skies are just too bright for anything better than this. I swung round to M27 and what a contrast after the murky Cresent, the Dumbell being bright, vivid and rather spectacular. 🙂

[John]

I managed a quick first light with a Skywatcher 200mm dob that I've recently acquired (today in fact). Much cloud cover restricted observing options but I was pleased with the views of M57 and Saturn plus moons.

The scope was pretty much straight out of the box but delivered surprisingly nice views. It's been a long time since I had one of these but I can see why they are so popular 🙂

 

[Saganite]

On 23/09/2023 at 00:37, John said:

According to Stella Doppie it's .9 of an arc second Steve plus quite a difference in brightness. A tough one !

 

Thanks John.  That is a tough one and though my scope has a resolving limit  of .76, the seeing was not good enough  to be able to do it.  By 11.40 the sky had clouded over so I packed away  but resolved to rise at 4.45am to catch the GRS transit.  I awoke at 4.30 but whilst having a few more minutes and wrestling with the decision, I drifted off....so, another time.....

Edited September 26, 2023 by Saganite

[PeterC65]

Managed a coupe of hours with the 72mm refractor last night. A widefield visual session to try out the new StellaLyra UFF 30mm and WiFi / SkySafari control of the mount. I took in the usual widefield objects, M31, M45, Cr39, Kemple's Cascade, the Coathanger, Haydes, plus some star fields. The UFF 30mm is a revelation, dead flat right to the edge. Someone mentioned recently that these eyepieces just ping the whole field of view in to focus all at once, and that is what I experienced. Much better than the Baader Hyperion Aspheric 36mm (which I used briefly just for comparison). The jury is still out on WiFi / SkySafari mount control. It was all a bit of a faff and I missed the hand controller, but I will persevere.

 

[Mr Spock]

Yup, I like my 30mm UFF too. The other night I put an OIII on it and went searching for the Veil with the 8" at x29. Despite the LP here I caught a glimpse of the witch's broom - most unexpected.

[JeremyS]

9 hours ago, John said:

I managed a quick first light with a Skywatcher 200mm dob that I've recently acquired (today in fact). Much cloud cover restricted observing options but I was pleased with the views of M57 and Saturn plus moons.

The scope was pretty much straight out of the box but delivered surprisingly nice views. It's been a long time since I had one of these but I can see why they are so popular 🙂

 

I thought you wouldn’t be without a Dob for long, John. Which did you go for?

[Mr Spock]

11 hours ago, Saganite said:

but Lambda Cygni just refused to be split,

I use the 12" on this one  It's one of those oddly difficult ones that should be in range of smaller scopes but isn't. WDS lists it as 4.73, 6.26, 1.0" - SD at same mags but 0.9".

[John]

7 hours ago, JeremyS said:

I thought you wouldn’t be without a Dob for long, John. Which did you go for?

I found an practically unused Skywatcher 200P "Classic" (a lockdown purchase I reckon) for a snip so could not resist. It will be a good, robust, alternative to my fracs and a good outreach scope as well. Hoping to do quite a bit of the latter with Bristol AS this Autumn. Had fun last night using my Ethos eyepieces in a scope that cost a fraction of the price of each of the eyepieces !

I have stuck a 9x50 RACI finder that I already had on it to replace the straight though stock one one plus some collimation tweaking but otherwise it's as it came out of the box. The scope still has that "new scope" smell about it 🙂 

 

 

[JeremyS]

1 hour ago, John said:

I found an practically unused Skywatcher 200P "Classic" (a lockdown purchase I reckon) for a snip so could not resist. It will be a good, robust, alternative to my fracs and a good outreach scope as well. Hoping to do quite a bit of the latter with Bristol AS this Autumn. Had fun last night using my Ethos eyepieces in a scope that cost a fraction of the price of each of the eyepieces !

I have stuck a 9x50 RACI finder that I already had on it to replace the straight though stock one one plus some collimation tweaking but otherwise it's as it came out of the box. The scope still has that "new scope" smell about it 🙂 

 

 

I know that smell, John. Excellent!👍🏻

[scotty1]

 03.10 BST  Pixel 4a Astro mode

 

Edited September 25, 2023 by scotty1