What did you see tonight?

[Ouroboros]

Not sure if this counts but looked out the window in the wee small hours to be treated with lovely views of Venus, a crescent Moon  towards the east and Orion in all its magnitude towards the south.  Tempting though it was I slunk back to bed. 

[josefk]

4 hours ago, Ouroboros said:

Not sure if this counts but looked out the window in the wee small hours to be treated with lovely views of Venus, a crescent Moon  towards the east and Orion in all its magnitude towards the south.  Tempting though it was I slunk back to bed. 

i think anything and everything counts right now! 😂 

[Ratlet]

On 08/10/2023 at 22:12, Ags said:

Watched Io emerge from behind Jupiter.

I had some friends from work out the week before and saw it!  It was fantastic.  For something so simple, when you realise what it is (we had no idea) it blows your mind!

[Epick Crom]

My Vision King 5x25mm binoculars arrived yesterday ordered from eBay. Night sky was clear for first light!

True field of View is listed as 15° but my calculations suggest around 12°. I'm not complaining as this is twice the field of view of my Nikon 10x50's. Initial impressions? Very good for less than $90AUD, the field of view is nice and wide, not as bright or sharp as my Nikon of course but still very pleasing. I bought them for wide angle, low power views and this is what I got! I could fit the entire Corona Australis asterism in view, the entire Crux ( Southern Cross) with lots of room to spare and Alpha and Beta Centauri seen simultaneously. 

I'm very happy with this purchase, the water jar asterism in Aquarius looked awesome, these tiny low power binoculars really give you a unique view of the night sky! 

 

Clear Skies

Joe

[SwiMatt]

Had my first observation with my new red dot finder (upgrade from the flipped optical finder) and it was a banger. The title of my observation report says it all!

 

[Nigella Bryant]

I saw clouds and lot's of rain last night, lol 😆 

[Mr Spock]

Last night was the first clear night for weeks. I decided not to go out due to a crick in my neck which was an inconvenience. Good job - woke up at 3:30am with severe pain and had to get up 

If it's clear tonight I'll have to stay in again 😡😡😡

[josefk]

Incredible night last night. Only curtailed by very very cold extremities at 03:30 this morning.
 

The sky wouldn’t take high mags but I can assert that correcting one’s astigmatism with a Dioptrx on a 31NT5 mounted on f5.3 flat field scope then sweeping along the Milky Way while the moon is below the horizon is an awe inspiring thing.  Binocular views without the tripod limbo dance.
 

Managed to sketch 3 parts of the veil too (highly rationed red light moments)

[josefk]

20 minutes ago, Mr Spock said:

Last night was the first clear night for weeks. I decided not to go out due to a crick in my neck which was an inconvenience. Good job - woke up at 3:30am with severe pain and had to get up 

If it's clear tonight I'll have to stay in again 😡😡😡

Feel for you after such a long run of cloud. Never a break. 🥴

[John]

We had a "scope surgery" night at Bristol AS last night. The aim is to help folks thinking of getting a scope to decide what might suit them and also to assist folks who have recently bought scopes to get them set up right and to give some advice on getting the best from them. 

The skies had cleared by 8:00 pm so we got some scopes out into the car park to look at Jupiter and Saturn. First time observing these for some there, which was exciting 🙂

Our meeting place is in central Bristol and surrounded by bright lights so it was nice to actually be able to see something from that heavily light polluted location.

I'm helping at an outreach session at the observatory tonight and the forecast is not bad for that so more to come hopefully 🙂

[Saganite]

Had a couple of hours last night , reasonably good, but at a dark sky site tonight with the Bedford AS.  Always good to observe with kindred spirits, and it will be my first chance to try out a lovely 130mm Vixen reflector, recently acquired.

[ScouseSpaceCadet]

Just a list for now but on my return from a windy, cold and clear Kielder Forest I'll likely add a full observing report...

Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus, M13, M94, M92, M45, M42, M34, M31, M32, M110, M15, M36, M37, M38, M35, M27, M103, M81, M82, Double Cluster, NGC 751, Hyades, NGC 7789 and for the first time M33. There's more but the late night has wobbled my head!

All observed using the Stellamira 125ED mounted on a Celestron AVX. M33 was also observed with a Skywatcher 10" dob and Meade 12" SCT.

I also cruised the Milky Way with 10x50s and enjoyed a clutch of meteors. 👍

A brilliant night last night and hopefully the same tonight.

 

Edited October 14, 2023 by ScouseSpaceCadet

[bosun21]

2 hours ago, Mr Spock said:

Last night was the first clear night for weeks. I decided not to go out due to a crick in my neck which was an inconvenience. Good job - woke up at 3:30am with severe pain and had to get up 

If it's clear tonight I'll have to stay in again 😡😡😡

I myself had a badly pulled muscle in my neck which was very painful with movement. However it was raining heavy here up until 7.45pm and then the skies magically cleared. Despite being in pain I couldn’t resist getting my new 150 Maksutov its first light. This turned into a comedy of errors as I hastily assembled my set up. Polar aligning was agony using the polar scope and I settled on a rough alignment. Neither the 9x50 RACI or the telrad was aligned due to never being used caused me more headache and neck ache. My biggest boo boo was in my haste I had aligned my home position in DEC on the wrong mark I had placed on the mount. As I always start up from the home position that was the go to rendered useless. I only realised my error after I got back indoors after this disaster. By this time the Mak was well cooled so I manually found Jupiter which wasn’t that easy with a Maksutov and no finder. I found and centered it with the help from my 30mm UFF. I then aligned both finders on Jupiter whilst it was being tracked. Finally some eyepiece time. The rains had cleared the sky allowing decent transparency but the seeing itself was poor. The planet itself was looking good with the 30mm probably due to the 1800mm f/l of the scope. The bands were clearly visible along with the GRS despite a watery image. Three Jovian moons were almost in a straight line with Io behind the planetary disc. I then increased the magnification with a 17.5mm Morpheus and the planetary details were still clear. After a minute or two I started to see Io peeping out from the disc of Jupiter. I believe this was the first occultation of Io I’ve observed. I sat and observed Io emerge from behind the disc for a while. Despite having a standard dew shield fitted dew was starting to settle on the meniscus lens bringing the first light to an end. The RACI and telrad were already obscured by dew. I did check the collimation of the scope and found it to be bang on, on both sides of focus. My neck collided with the counterweight bar while picking up an eyepiece cap causing an outburst of profanities. All in all a night to forget apart from Jupiter and Io. This has reinforced my need for a small G&G for nights like this. It’s supposed to be clear tonight as well so I’ll be out there way before darkness descends. Sorry for the ramble gentlemen/women.

[IB20]

Was expecting a clear night so plonked the 200P out. The seeing is pretty turbulent and there are plenty of clouds about but getting some nice views of Saturn at 120x. Tethys and Rhea are in a close formation to the disc and Dione occasionally popping into view with averted vision. There’s a wonderful shadow casting onto the back of the ring system making it look like it stops short of Saturn, not sure I’ve ever seen the gap look so large before.

 

[MercianDabbler]

Away on the South coast of Devon for the week... lovely dark sky,  the main snag being that I was not able to bring a scope. I did manage to squeeze in the 10x50s so that had to suffice. Had a couple of hours out this evening. Was surprised to spot the teapot handle still up and from there M22 and M8. Had a few attempts at the North America Nebula which was inconveniently positioned right overhead and required leaning backwards on a field gate. Plenty of nebulosity. I think I could suspect the outline but no more than a suspicion. Managed the Jovian moons by propping the bins on another gate to get them still enough. Last night on arrival I could see M31 without the bins. Not quite so good early on tonight but by the end of the session I could see it. Had a go at M81 but the North aspect had some glow so a suspicion was the best I could manage.  M13 was an easy enough spot in the bins but I think really needed more magnification. Getting cold by now but decided to have a punt at M33. Much to my surprise I had it in under a minute...  a huge change from spending ages not spotting it on other occasions. Finished off with the Pleiades and indoors for beer and log fire. 

[saac]

Working on the observatory at the moment, relaying a new floor having recently moved my pier - so the my imagining rig is out of action at the moment.  Our sky though is lovely and clear and still so I took a quick trip to the dark side and availed myself of some time at the eyepiece.  Jupiter was the obvious target, looking splendid as always with the inner satellites on parade.  Kind of fun and unusual to be out in the observatory without it being freezing cold and dew dripping from the scope - no doubt we are only a few weeks aways from that  

Jim 

[Zermelo]

Just a couple of hours with the Mak tonight. It was noticeably colder than of late, but not uncomfortable so. Transparency was good, apart from the occasional cloud. With no moon, it was about as dark as it gets here. Seeing good/average.

I was still interested to see how my cheap Svbony 9-27mm zoom compared with its more expensive companions. It did well again. At 9mm, it showed the double Gamma2 Delphini crisply, though not quite as tight as the Morpheus 9mm. However, the yellow/blue contrast was noticeably more distinct in the Svbony, while scatter was the same in both. 

On the rather dim globular M72, I was surprised to find it, showing obviously (though faint) in the Svbony at 27mm, despite the background being light with the large exit pupil. The Morpheus at higher magnification did manage to show some granularity, which the Svbony at 9mm could not. The more accessible glob M15 showed some stars flicking in and out with both the Svbony and Morph 9mm. The view in the latter was better, though not dramatically so.

Saturn showed well in a Morpheus 6.5mm, with a clear northern belt, Cassini division just visible at the extremities, and satellites Titan and Rhea. The view in the Svbony at 9mm showed good contrast, and - surprise - Tethys was also visible with averted vision. It was also seen in the 9mm Morpheus, but there was little to choose between them.

Jupiter was a bit disappointing by comparison; NEB and SEB were obvious, and two further bands very faintly seen, but no real detail in any EP.

 

[John]

Nice and clear here and another outreach session at the Bristol AS observatory.

25 visitors were treated to some fine views with scopes from 4 to 12 inches in aperture.

My ED120 was doing very nicely on Saturn, Jupiter and Neptune. I think I glimpsed Triton but with folks waiting to have a look, it was not the time for prolonged study. I also showed people epsilon lyrae and the coathanger cluster. I had not observed the latter for sometime and had forgotten that it's quite a large target. I invited observers to view it with the optical finder first so they could see the form of the asterism against the background stars. The magnified view with the scope at 30x came as a bit of a surprise to some I think.

Next door to me was a nice Celestron C11 on a Losmandy G11 mount. Very impressive setup and it was interesting to compare the views of the planets and deep sky objects with those of my ED120 😁

One of the views that seemed to impress the visitors a lot was that of the double cluster in Perseus with my ED120 and the 31mm Nagler. Lots of ooohs and aaahs were forthcoming from the observers. 

Very enjoyable session 👍

Edited October 15, 2023 by John

[Captain Scarlet]

Just in from watching an Io shadow-transit through my Kowa 88mm spotting scope with Delos 3.5 inserted, giving me 146x. Amazing how that black spot just leaps out. Reasonable detail from Jupiter too.
A clear night, I really wanted to go to bed but managed to summon just enough willpower for 20 minutes or so.

Magnus

Edited October 14, 2023 by Captain Scarlet

[scarp15]

Having  patiently been waiting for a  view from my backyard,  also currently observing the Io shadow transit. A  crisp  profile through an 18.2mm DeLite, set up  with VX8L.

[SuburbanMak]

A lovely session tonight - Jupiter was very prominent and a suggested mount alignment target but once on it I noticed the Io shadow transit & stayed there for an hour or so.
 

Fab views with the Pentax 5mm 5-10 seconds at a time of steady seeing, allowing me to track the progress of a crisp full stop across a disc also showing good detail in multiple bands, especially in the Northern hemisphere. 

After that a highlights tour, with Pleiades and  M42 showing particularly well. A highlight though was picking up M1 from the garden, a testament to the  massive contrast delivered by the Tak FC 100, still figuring out just how stunning this ‘scope really is. 

 

Edited October 15, 2023 by SuburbanMak

[Ratlet]

Enjoying the reports.  Not been out this week despite clear skies.  Just come off night shift, the wee man is full of the cold and up half the night and I've been digging a trench for power out the summer house/warm room.  Did get an eyeball on jupiter whilst widening the path and putting bark down.  Going to get much better south and eastern horizons now that side of the garden is opened up so it'll be a big win all in all.

[PeterC65]

Had my first EAA session since early September last night.

I setup the Explorer 150 with the Uranus-C camera and the filter wheel, with the FMA135 and another Uranus-C camera riding piggyback. Too much weight for the mount really but it coped. It's very interesting to have both a narrow field and wide field view of an object. M31 was particularly interesting as I could see the whole vista (M31 / M32 / M110) with the FMA135 and the details of the dust lanes with the Explorer 150.

I'd switched the clear and UV / IR cut filters from Astronomik to Optolong with a view to swapping the Astronomik UHC filter for an Optolong L-eNhance. I wanted to check that the Optolong filters are parfocal which they are, so I'll be ordering an L-eNhance today. It meant that the focus was wrong for the remaining Astronomik UHC filter so I stayed away from nebulae, apart from M27 which looked great with just the visible light filter. Like M31, it was nice to be able to observe it in detail and with some surrounding context.

Mostly I concentrated on familiar objects like those above and M15 and M45, but new to me were NGC1491, the Silver Sliver Galaxy, which showed plenty of interesting detail, and IC342, quite a nice face on spiral galaxy rather like M33 but fainter.

There were some frustrations with the kit, the GOTO insisting on doing a pirouette before settling on M33 and needing a complete reboot, but otherwise a good session.

 

[Mr Spock]

Neck is still painful, but with help from paracetamol and ibuprofen I've managed a good solar session. On and off throughout the afternoon I've had some brilliant detail with the 120mm. Seeing has gotten better as the afternoon has gone on with sunspots looking sharp, faculae standing out and granulation obvious.

The sun is not far off going below the houses opposite so time to start preparing dinner I think. Hopefully get out later tonight for a few doubles.

[SwiMatt]

Amazing transparency tonight but little time, so I set up the Mak on my balcony facing West instead of going to my little spot. I got to show Albireo and M13 to my partner (who so far didn't like double stars - she had to admit Albireo is beautiful, she was hogging the eyepiece ). Then despite the cold I decided to make use of the table on my balcony and did my first astro-sketches, chosing M57 and M13! Super happy with those (I am posting the outcome in the Sketching forum).

Edited October 16, 2023 by SwiMatt