What did you see tonight?

[Mr_Cat]

Can I have a "what I saw this afternoon" ??

I was just fitting a finder scope to the 200  so popped the 150 on the mount  while everything cools down..

[John]

Played around in Orion and Gemini with the 100mm frac before supper. Finding out how well the Baader 2inch Click Lock diagonal would do on some tighter doubles and E & F Trapezium. Pretty well as it happens 🙂

[Mr_Cat]

6th night in a row, telescope out on terrace. Tonight's drills were to sort the issues with the new EQ6r mount. Last night it just stopped tracking...

No handset tonight. Straight into the pc and the synscan app.

Immediately hit problems on two star alignment.. it was so far off that when I centered it wouldn't accept it..

Reset time after time. After two hours I gave up and plugged the handset in...

Life got better from then.

Aligned using a zoom lens and started to have some fun. 

The mount was aligned perfectly and tracking nicely. Had ten mins on M 43 with a 2* Barlow and a 6.5 mm Morpheus eyepiece. It literally filled 2/3 of the fov.

First time I've ever managed to put that much magnification onto the nebula as before I had to spend so much time manually tracking..

Then onto Jupiter, a bit washed out with the light pollution but still nice to finally have tracking.

A quick wander round the  moon looking at today's landing area..

Some nice little extras while viewing.. two satellites passing while I was aligning but.... A meteor flashed past while I was on dialling in on Alioth... Lovely trail.. 

Never thought I'd be lucky enough to see that..

 

A very very good evening and hopefully the mount will continue to behave itself..

 

 

Edited February 24 by Mr_Cat
spelling mistook

[John]

Out with the 100mm refractor again. Hazy thin clouds everywhere apart from where the moon is, so that's what I'm looking at 🙂

Snap with elderly mobile phone looking down the throat of the 21mm Ethos eyepiece:

 

Edited February 23 by John

[Mr Spock]

The moon is out, so, I have the 4" Tasco out cooling.

[John]

Algeiba looks lovely tonight, bathed in moonlight. This was my first ever double star 40+ years ago (with a real Tasco) so I always have a look when I'm in the Leo area 🙂

 

[John]

22 minutes ago, John said:

Algeiba looks lovely tonight, bathed in moonlight. This was my first ever double star 40+ years ago (with a real Tasco) so I always have a look when I'm in the Leo area 🙂

 

Also, Iota Leonis (Tsze tseang) below the Lions' rear belly. Nice uneven pair with 2.2 arc seconds between them.

Edited February 24 by John

[Mr Spock]

Spent a while studying the shadings inside Aristarchus. Looks really good tonight.

Also had a look at Castor. Looked great at x296!

[Mr Spock]

Sun is looking good right now with a spectacular, huge sunspot.

I tried to get a snap but I'm struggling to focus the camera with the sun so bright - I can't see the screen!

Single shot with a Nikon D500 and the 120mm Helios achro with Baader Coolwedge II and x4 Powermate.

[Mr Spock]

It's not even close to the detail I'm seeing visually in steadier moments of seeing.

It's so distracting I hadn't realised looking at it just now I was outside in my t-shirt with no coat!

[PeterStudz]

5 minutes ago, Mr Spock said:

It's not even close to the detail I'm seeing visually in steadier moments of seeing.

It's so distracting I hadn't realised looking at it just now I was outside in my t-shirt with no coat!

It’s sadly been mostly cloudy here with some showers too.

However, I got a glimpse of it during a brief clear spell just with eclipse glasses which in itself was impressive.

But I wasn’t dressed as well as you - at the time I just had my dressing gown on. Well, plus silly glasses. I hope that the neighbours didn’t see! Hopefully it’ll clear-up later.

[Froeng]

3 hours ago, PeterStudz said:

It’s sadly been mostly cloudy here with some showers too.

However, I got a glimpse of it during a brief clear spell just with eclipse glasses which in itself was impressive.

But I wasn’t dressed as well as you - at the time I just had my dressing gown on. Well, plus silly glasses. I hope that the neighbours didn’t see! Hopefully it’ll clear-up later.

Sounds like you were in some silly 80s movie about the future…

[MalcolmM]

Is anyone observing Jupiter at the moment (19.15)? Is there a largish oval white spot in the North Equatorial Belt? I think I'm seeing one just west (refractor view) of the center point in the NEB. Never seen one before,  and hoping I am seeing one tonight 🙂

Malcolm 

[Saganite]

Hi Malcolm,

I am on Jupiter also, but the seeing is not very good so I cannot see a great deal of detail at the moment.

[John]

I'm pleased that somebody has some views 🙂

Rain here though ....... as if we did not have enough water about 🙄

[MalcolmM]

So frustrating. Popped in for a bite to eat. Back out and there's total cloud cover ☹️

Malcolm 

[MalcolmM]

This is what I was seeing. Tak 100DC and Pentax XW 5mm. Was comparing the Pentax with a 5mm Fujiyama ortho. Was very surprised that the Pentax was noticeably better. Finer detail visible and much better contrast. Normally I shy away from the XWs because of their size!

Malcolm 

[Greymouser]

Just ben out for a swift half hour, with my little grab and go:

Very light, no cool down needed, so out I went, even though there is high thin cloud. Still a decent, if short spell admiring the moon, never gets tiring. Dewed up by the end, but only had time for a quick session and it has been soooo long, since the last time out. Not the best view, nor particularly methodical, just wandering round looking. Shame this scope doesn't seem to like my Takahashi prism, perhaps the short focal length, but great in other scopes. All in all, it put a smile on my face and destresed a little.  

[IB20]

Out with the Tak 76Q for some full moon gazing. Amazing illumination of Neper on the Eastern limb, a jet black pool inside the crater’s walls with the exception of a central turret appearing through the darkness. A huge crater area to the north and south of Neper also catching the eye, which I think are Goddard and Haldane? Don’t think I’ve seen any of these three before.

Plenty of stabs at Sirius for the pup but no dice. Alnitak looking fabulous though. Mintaka and Sigma Orionis both showing their dim companions off. Nice little session. 🤗

[Mr_Cat]

I appear to have sorted the EQ6R, factory reset on the handset, three star alignment and finally slewed to Jupiter and for the first time it was actually in the FOV.. Chucked the camera on and it was absolutely rock solid in the middle of the frame.

Spent quite a while imaging Jupiter , taking significantly longer videos but after stacking I'm not as happy with it as I've been in the past so just figure the seeing from here tonight wasn't actually as good.. 

Back onto M43 again - I could just look at that all day tbh.  I'm not sure why - I'm just drawn to it.

I wanted to pop over to Pleiades but couldn't find it n the object list and was running out of time as I had a gig tonight... Just wiki'd it. M45 next time...

 

 

 

[Jim L]

Back at StarBase on the Gulf Cost of Texas just a few miles from the Mexican border, under a very bright full moon, good transparency but plenty of moisture and humidity, light cool winds, seeing about Pickering 6 rating, so fair to good.

Using my son’s Celestron 6SE SCT my wife, my son, and I were able to easily pick out the E star in the Trapezium of the Orion Nebula, and a bit later in the evening my wife and I were able to see both the E and F stars; in my case using a 25mm Celestron Plössl for a magnification around 60x. The Orion Nebula was bright and distinct, with arms extending in multiple directions and clearly delineated against the dark space background. Quite a contrast to the previous evening when the nebula was almost completely washed out in the background atmospheric water vapor. It’s amazing how much things can change in a single evening.

Jupiter was next, but seeing took a turn for the worse so the best views were found at magnifications of 100x or lower using a SV135 7-21mm zoom eyepiece. I could easily see the north and south equatorial belts, and the northern and southern temperate belts, but my less experienced son couldn’t quite make out either of the temperate belts. I guess there really  is something to experience verses vision, and patience verses haste. 

Almost directly above Jupiter was Uranus, and while I couldn’t find it due to the narrow field of view of the 6SE telescope and significant light pollution washing out many of my guide stars, my wife could. I’m a better star hopper than she is, but she’s far better at picking out distant dim planets using dead reckoning. Monica found Uranus almost immediately and it looked quite pretty as a tiny pale aqua blue disk at 60x through the 25mm Plössl. The three of us enjoyed Uranus for almost a half hour until my son turned in and Monica and I turned our attention to Auriga, which had moved off of it’s position very near the zenith to a place more manageable for my alt-Az mount. 

Messier 37 was first, an almost globular cluster looking and densely packed open cluster with a distinct red star in the center. Very beautiful even under the light of the full moon. The Pinwheel and Starfish clusters we similarly beautiful, but very different than M37, with brighter, fewer, and not as densely packed with stars as M37. 

We called it quits after the three open clusters in Auriga, but I’m satisfied that we had enjoyed a quite interesting, varied, and productive night of observing despite the full moon.

[bosun21]

Nice report Jim. It's great that you have your wife for company and even more so is the fact that she's an active participant. M42 is one of the most impressive targets to observe especially when in dark skies with no moon. Despite the moon washing the sky out you still managed the E and F stars at 60x. I have to crank the magnification way up when trying to coax them into view.  All in all you had a good night.

[josefk]

13 hours ago, MalcolmM said:

Is anyone observing Jupiter at the moment (19.15)? Is there a largish oval white spot in the North Equatorial Belt? I think I'm seeing one just west (refractor view) of the center point in the NEB. Never seen one before,  and hoping I am seeing one tonight 🙂

Malcolm 

I was out about then Malcolm. I’m afraid I didn’t see a white oval but did see a dark “swhirly” storm on the eastern half of the NEB. 

Edited February 25 by josefk

[josefk]

Short opportunistic GnG (85mm) session last night after watching Scotland retain the Calcutta Cup (boo) and before creeping cloud from the West (double boo). 

Jupiter looked great through binoviewers at ~x100. Big storm on the NEB with clear SEB, NEB, NTropZ, NTB and “grooved” NPR. 
 

Swapping out to mono at x169 I checked Sigma Orionis out because I really love this system and the faint companion this evening was as sharp and present as I’ve seen it I think. Guessing the seeing was particularly good I swung to Sirius and it was unbelievably steady and almost completely colour free. Steady white diffraction rings rather than colourful glitter ball scintillation.  I could kid my self I could see the pup but I knew where to look and I think I really was kidding myself so I won’t count it this time. I can confirm the field stop of a 4mm TOE is sharp and almost completely free of distracting internal reflections though (I watched Sirius passed the field stop quite a bit to see if the pup would show). 
 

Rigel was incredible. Pure white steady diffraction rings and an obvious companion and Alnitak was also incredibly aesthetic, the companion sitting on or just inside the first diffraction ring. 
 

Amazing how familiar sights can be so “newly” lovely under the right conditions. 

[Knighty2112]

First decent patch of clear skies this year (Saturday 24th) to enable me to get my HEQ5Pro mount set up, with my Celestron Omni 120mm ‘frac allowed me to do some doubles in Gemini which I’d selected during the constant cloud cover in the rest of February. Used my Celestron Duo 5mm EP to observe with, giving a 200x magnification. Skies were very steady with good seeing, but transparency wasn’t great, but good enough for the doubles  I planned on observing, none of which were tight, especially with the 5mm EP. Used Skysafari to get to my targets, which worked well mostly, and all doubles came into view well even at the magnification used. Nothing too challenging, but recon I could have seen some tighter doubles quite easily if I had the inclination. 

Saw Eskimo PN in Gemini well, but when I tried for M81 it was very faint. No sign of M82 at all. With the Moon and the transparency this was no real surprise.

A few open clusters were quickly viewed, but clouds eventually started coming in about an hour later, so packed up earlier than planned. Was good to get out to observe again even for a brief session after the cruddy perpetual cloud cover, which seemed to last for an eternity.

 

 

 

Edited February 25 by Knighty2112