What did you see tonight?

[Stu1smartcookie]

I hope this evening will provide a clear patch of sky ..it rained and rained and rained last night and indeed has been cloudy for over a week . Well done to all those who had the chance to use their scopes .

[Mr Spock]

We had some clear sky last night, but, accompanied by 50 mph winds. I'm not going out in that. Lovely clear sky this morning and the wind has dropped. Should be a sunny day for once.

[GrumpiusMaximus]

3 hours ago, Mr Spock said:

We had some clear sky last night, but, accompanied by 50 mph winds. I'm not going out in that. Lovely clear sky this morning and the wind has dropped. Should be a sunny day for once.

I do occasionally think that the Oxford English Dictionary's definition of 'optimism' should simply read:

"See also: 'Astronomy - United Kingdom'".

Edited December 26, 2023 by GrumpiusMaximus

[GrumpiusMaximus]

Decided to use the moderate cloud layer as an impromptu Moon filter this evening.  Not a bad view with my 70mm ED and a 20mm William Optics 'Swan' eypiece through a 2x Barlow.  Until the sky Gods detected my presence and rolled in even more clouds out of spite.

Edited December 26, 2023 by GrumpiusMaximus

[bosun21]

I have had a solid curtain of thick clouds here for the past 2 weeks. Beginning to wonder whether spending over £1.5k on my new scope was a waste of time 🤔.

[Littleguy80]

1 hour ago, bosun21 said:

I have had a solid curtain of thick clouds here for the past 2 weeks. Beginning to wonder whether spending over £1.5k on my new scope was a waste of time 🤔.

Nope. Clear skies will arrive sooner or later, they always do, and then you’ll love it without thinking about how much you paid for it.
If there’s one thing I’ve noticed, it’s very rare to question the astro equipment you have on a clear night other than to ask…do I have enough?!? It’s only when it’s cloudy and we’re feeling a bit grumpy that we consider selling stuff. The other possible exception is planning to sell something to buy an even bigger or better something else such as telescope and eyepiece upgrades. 
Just keeping checking the skies, not the weather forecast, and soon it’ll come good!

[bosun21]

2 minutes ago, Littleguy80 said:

Nope. Clear skies will arrive sooner or later, they always do, and then you’ll love it without thinking about how much you paid for it.
If there’s one thing I’ve noticed, it’s very rare to question the astro equipment you have on a clear night other than to ask…do I have enough?!? It’s only when it’s cloudy and we’re feeling a bit grumpy that we consider selling stuff. The other possible exception is planning to sell something to buy an even bigger or better something else such as telescope and eyepiece upgrades. 
Just keeping checking the skies, not the weather forecast, and soon it’ll come good!

Thanks. I have no intention of selling the scope or any other astro gear, it's just that I haven't even had a look through it yet. One thing I have most definitely learned over the years is patience, and lots of it. When clear skies do arrive we'll all wonder what the fuss was about.

[Ags]

Had a long look at Jupiter tonight. The moons were clustered close to the planet, making a pretty sight. Seeing was rubbish though, and colors were washed out by a thick haze. I tried out sharpCap live paletary stacking, but I think I prefer watching the unstacked video. I had a go at imaging the planet but this wasn't the night for it.

[SwiMatt]

I really wanted to go out early this morning but I was deterred by the full moon. I decided to do no lunar sessions until I get a filter, it hurts my eyes too much.

But I had a good look at the winter constellations with the naked eye, I was pleasantly surprised to find Gemini and Auriga high in the sky so early in the evening already! The sky changes fast when you can only see it once or twice a month

[Mr Spock]

20mm of rain in the last six hours... New sump is about a third full so patio not flooded. 

This thread is rapidly turning into the 'What clouds did you see tonight?' thread 

[Stu]

54 minutes ago, Mr Spock said:

20mm of rain in the last six hours... New sump is about a third full so patio not flooded. 

This thread is rapidly turning into the 'What clouds did you see tonight?' thread 

Awful isn’t it! Was really hoping to get some observing in while on leave, but it’s blowing a gale here and raining. Grrrr!

[John]

I can't be the only UK based observer who has been wondering lately what the point of a fleet of nice scopes and a couple of cases of good eyepieces is, given the weather that we have had over the past few months 😬

I guess I'm starting to wonder if these conditions will become more "the norm" here 🤔

[Stu]

Just now, John said:

I can't be the only UK based observer who has been wondering lately what the point of a fleet of nice scopes and a couple of cases of good eyepieces is, given the weather that we have had over the past few months 😬

I guess I'm starting to wonder if these conditions will become more "the norm" here 🤔

You certainly are not John. Lovely kit, but no chance to use it. The used market seems slow aswell, probably as a result. I suspect this is the new norm unfortunately ☹️

[Zermelo]

1 minute ago, John said:

what the point of a fleet of nice scopes and a couple of cases of good eyepieces is,

Indeed. £10 Plossl and Ethos perform quite similarly on a cloud bank. One of nature's levellers 😊

 

[Nik271]

4 hours ago, SwiMatt said:

I really wanted to go out early this morning but I was deterred by the full moon. I decided to do no lunar sessions until I get a filter, it hurts my eyes too much.

If you have sunglasses in the absence of filters they work on the moon too :-)

 

[Nik271]

I'm supposed to get some clear sky tonight between 9pm and midnight. But... the wind will be gusting at 40mph and the moon will be up. Still bettr than the current rain, fingers crossed.

Edited December 27, 2023 by Nik271

[GrumpiusMaximus]

21 minutes ago, John said:

I can't be the only UK based observer who has been wondering lately what the point of a fleet of nice scopes and a couple of cases of good eyepieces is, given the weather that we have had over the past few months 😬

I guess I'm starting to wonder if these conditions will become more "the norm" here 🤔

I will take the full blame here.  I got given my C5 at the tail end of 2021 and ever since then, the winters have been absolutely shocking.  I'm so sorry to the whole UK-based community for my transgression.

[SwiMatt]

20 minutes ago, Nik271 said:

If you have sunglasses in the absence of filters they work on the moon too :-)

 

Yeah but I learned recently that with the eyepieces I currently owe I prefer to take off my normal glasses to observe... not gonna add sun glasses to the mix 🤣

[John]

39 minutes ago, Zermelo said:

Indeed. £10 Plossl and Ethos perform quite similarly on a cloud bank. One of nature's levellers 😊

 

Likewise Takahashi and Tasco 😁

I don't get any pleasure from the ownership of quality stuff unless it's used frequently 🤔

[JeremyS]

1 hour ago, John said:

Likewise Takahashi and Tasco 😁

I don't get any pleasure from the ownership of quality stuff unless it's used frequently 🤔

Fortunately in our cloudy island, I get pleasure from both 😀

[Naughty Neal]

My f11 frac stays tucked away in  the warm with the wind and cloud about.

[Nigella Bryant]

When it's cloudy I tinker with the scopes and do the processing of the image's taken during the brief clear period we've gotten these past few months. My solar observations are well down from 10days a month during the autumn/winter to only one or two days. Never known anything like it. I hope it's just a blip and not the accumulated effects of global warming on observing here in the UK in the autumn/winter, ie, wetter autumn/winter, hotter spring and summer as a forecast of possibilities of global warming here in the UK. 

[Mr H in Yorkshire]

@Nigella Bryant I have a neighbour who is a meteorologist (good enough to be a Beta station for the Met Office) and I was talking to him about this dreadful spell of weather. Here in Yorkshire has been awful since summer. He still says that over a 10/20 year period spells such as this are nothing out of the ordinary, although his monthly summaries almost always have an 'exceeds the (whatever value) since records began' entry! I have a photo taken at Christmas last year of our grandchildren - all up a massive tree in bright sunshine and a brilliant clear blue sky, as it was most of that week. Contrast that with the howling gale and incessant rain of this year.

[Nik271]

The met office forecast was correct! The dismal weather cleared, not perfectly but good enough for a quick planetary session with my Svbony 102 ED refractor. I expected that the seeing will be iffy and indeed it was, I could not go over x120 on Jupiter. All four of the satellites were visible and Jupiter was showing the two main equatorial belts and the  much finer south tropical belt and zone. I swund onto the Moon (of course!) and was rewarded with a good view over the western limb, with Gauss and Mare Smythi (I think) showng nicely.

The final highlight was the double star Gamma Ceti, I suspected the seeing will not support high mags and I was right, however for double stars sometimes I have found that pushing the magnification to the max and waiting for a lucky moment of settled air  can yield a momentary successful split. This was indeed the case this time: I suspected a spilt with my 4mm Nirvana (x178) and so I tried my recent buy, a 3mm LER EP from FLO giving a very ambitious x228 with this scope. The primary was dancing about, however northwest of it there was a recurring tiny dim speck. I esimated the PA at 310 and back in the house checking with stelledopie puts it pretty close at 298 degrees 🙂 Well done for my entry level ED scope, the separation is currently under 2'' and the magnitude difference is 2.5. Incidentally I learned the Arabic name of Gamma Ceti: Kaffaljidhma.  Fancy that!

Wishing you all some clear skies at last!

Edited December 27, 2023 by Nik271

[Bivanus]

First light on the 102mm TS for the Nag T6 13/7/5mm I've bought in Canada and also the UFF 30mm.
Seeing like I haven't had in a long time, after the hot day the night came cold and I suspect that the moisture in the atmosphere condensed or something. The wind is also blowing lightly, hardly moving the branches of the trees; you only feel it on your face and on your back if you don't put on some leggings.
The full moon - both bad and good, it looks great on any EP, I started from 30mm to 3.5mm (7mm with Barlow), the first few minutes without a filter but then I put it because my eyes really hurt. I think the most beautiful sight was delivered by the 5mm Nag, clear details of the craters with well-represented shadows and penumbras, combined with a feeling of 3D floating that was missing at 4mm and 3.5mm
Jupiter - exceptional! I clearly saw 4 lines with the difference in shade between them. First time I saw that one of the two equatorial bands is thicker and has undulations – with 3.5mm
Orion - the constellation could be seen superbly with the naked eye, the shoulders, the belt, the hips and – rare event for city viewing, the sword - visible with the naked eye. I was talking to a friend that I'm sorry not having on hand the  photo part yet (been away quite long , packed everything so the missus does not trip on them, so tonight visual only)
I found the nebula very easily with the 30mm UFF – still slightly shocked at what a light gatherer this EP is!  (Also this is where the bad comes in with the full Moon...) I continued with the 13 mm Nag, beautiful framing and the Trapezium was already visible. I continued down with 9/7/5/4, 7mm needle gave nice results; clear separation of the stars from the Trapezium and a very small nebulosity but more like a thin mist, again the Moon did not help.
The Pleiades - a small but helpful cloud obscured the moon for a few minutes, not completely, but I found the alignment with Stelarium on my mobile and the UFF did its job again.
Monoceros - I followed a more experienced colleague advice for targets ,  and it was good advice indeed , simply let the APM amaze me. Notable for me, I found Beta Monocerotis and...I saw two stars instead of three, that's all it could do , but one of them looks elongated , a bit of a dot & dash situation  I didn't manage to solve them with the 5mm Nag but by now I’m already frozen.
I used the 102mm TS APO telescope on the manual AZ6 mount with the counterweight mounted, and for all targets I started from 30mm to 4mm , on the Moon and Jupiter also using 3.5mm made with Barlow from 7mm.