What did you see tonight?

[Knighty2112]

5 minutes ago, josefk said:

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

Been half Scottish (my father came from the Isle of Lewis) I am always conflicted when I watch England play Scotland (in either rugby or football). My girlfriend was a little confused yesterday when one minute I was cheering for Scotland, then the next for England. Happy that Scotland won in the end (at least my Scottish half was!)! 🤣🤣🤣🤣

[josefk]

Sounds win/win to me @Knighty2112 The best of both. Scotland merited the win TBH so fair play. 

[engstrom]

Last night could have been first light with my sw 80ed/ds were I not recovering from a flippin’ migraine and it dropping down to 1 degree. Gah!

I need a decent patch of clear skies to:

practice PA - I’m convinced my latitude scale on my heq 5 pro is slightly off. I used a phone inclinometer to measure the angle of the scope and it reckons it’s about 2 deg out which I think tallies up with my own observations.

setup my astroberry (repurposed my octaprint unit temporarily) - done it indoors but now need to do it live.

figure out platesolving - see above. In theory I know the procedure but need to try it live.

Test out guiding - bought a asi120mm but not had a chance to try it out live.

Test out the asi585 - nothing like finding the best balance of settings in a live situation before plunging into an imaging session 🙂

test imaging session - just to see if all the above pieces hang together.

 

Once I’m happy with the above I then need to shift all my gear up to the proper viewing site away from the house so I can get more than 30% of the sky in view lol. We’ve got a long narrow garden, the end of which gives some lovely coverage of the sky but lugging all the gear down there (not to mention sorting power and t’Internet) just to get an hour of trying to make things work and then lugging it back seems counterproductive at the moment.

 

And then…I need to balance the performance of the above setup against the Indigo D1/A1 suite that’s Mac native to see which one I prefer and will use going forward (Gah! I hate that phrase).

Here’s hoping March is a little clearer. 😂

[JeremyS]

Apart from general haziness, the Scots seem to be celebrating their 6 nations victory this evening 

(the “star” is Jupiter)

Edited February 25 by JeremyS

[John]

A quick session after supper tonight with the ED120.

Notables so far are the Eskimo Nebula (NGC 2392) in Gemini with it's central star, The Beehive (M44) and Golden Eye (M67) Clusters in Cancer and my first look for many months at the alluring but challenging triple star Tegmine (Zeta Cancri). The close pair of Tegmine needed some pursuasion (ie: 250x - 300x) to prize apart - according to the Stella Doppie database the separation is 1.098 arc seconds.

Interestingly, the Nagler 2-4mm zoom made that close split a little easier than the Svbony 3-8mm zoom tonight. First time that I've seen a noticeable difference between these high power zooms.

Edited February 26 by John

[engstrom]

Finally! A couple of hours of clear(ish) sky and I’m so pleased with myself. Finally got a decent polar alignment (after a false start - 2 star align said RA was >45 degrees off. I guess starting from the Home position is pretty important after all 😂). Second go at 2star was quick and dirty but the handset said it was successful so  I hooked up the asi585 with ASIStudio and imaged random patches of sky. They aligned and stacked ok so I’m pretty happy my PA wasn’t massively off. Plus my home-printed Bahtinov mask seems to have worked too!

The clouds started rolling in so I was chucking the scope into the clear patches when I could, feeling very pleased with myself. I can’t wait until the next clear night. Hopefully I’ll put my Astroberry through it paces and maybe try some guiding and plate solving.

[Epick Crom]

A nice clear night here in Perth last night. On my hitlist:

Jupiter with Io's shadow sitting right on the South Equatorial Belt!

NGC 2301 open cluster in Monoceros. Fantastic shape

Uranus with asteroid 21 Lutetia sitting near by

Open cluster NGC 2244 and the Rosette Nebula. This was the clearest view of the Rosette I've seen so far in my observing career. The nebulosity was obvious

I also observed two new to me objects, NGC 1966, an emission nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud and Collinder 110, an open cluster in Monoceros.

A fun, relaxing and soul enriching session!

 

Clear Skies

Joe

[rojay]

A short, but welcome, session for me this evening. Tried a few eyepieces on the Orion nebula; I ended up liking the view through the 15mm BST Starguider the most. Also clusters M41 and NGC2362  (for the first time, I think). Then cloud stopped play before I had chance to see anything else. Still, better than nothing 🙂

[Mr_Cat]

Eighth night in a row..
Had a band rehearsal tonight so decided to get set up first, aligned and leave it tracking something as last thursday when I left it tracking it just stopped - I figured a couple of hours would be a good test.
So, onto jupiter about 1845. The mount is definitely working properly with the handset as it slewed jupiter into the eyepiece requiring only a minor correction to centre it.
Back out at 2030 on a break and jupiter was still in the middle of the eyepiece. Result.. Slewed across to the moon and left it tracking that as one of the band had said they liked the moon photos I'd done so thought I'd let them have a real look.
2115 - rehearsal done and suggested looking at the moon to John (the drummer) he thought it was a good idea nd when he was loading out he popped onto the terrace and took a look - I was using a zoom eyepiece so I'd filled the FOV with moon - he liked it so then slewed to M43 so he could see a nebula..
He headed off so I went through my list
M31 - miss, behind the house
pleiades - lovely. spent about ten mins at varying magnification.
M43 - I could just look at that all night tbh...
Called it at that to give everything time to dry out before capping stuff as it was pretty damp tonight.
Really pleased with the progress over the week - I had thought the mount would have been simple but it wasn't - but it was nice to have worked through all the issues and come out this side with it working perfectly when one night I was almost throwing it away !
 

[Ratlet]

Managed to get out for a cheeky half hour with the 10" dob and the 102/F7.  Very impressed with the new scope.  It's a different beast to the newtonians.  The view is definitely better than my old 130pds, but the dob is definitely able to show more detail.  Kind of delighted that it confirms that I can in fact collimate a scope.

I am now slightly regretting selling my slow mo extension cables lol.

Jupiter was an interesting study.  The view was pleasant in both but the frac had better contrast and the planet actually looked round in it if that makes sense.

I'd also swear that there was a bulge pretty much dead centre on the SEB on Jupiter around 1930.  Pretty much dead centre

Couldn't find my 32mm plossl so didn't have a chance to try truly wide field views (which is why I wanted it) but I did hand hold my 30mm superview of the end of the focuser and actually got focus with a 2" air gap (sldo not recommend) whilst looking at Orion and I was very happy with the result.

Hopefully get out again later for some more.  

Edited February 27 by Ratlet

[bosun21]

21 hours ago, Mr_Cat said:

Eighth night in a row..

Where do you live? The moon?

[Mr_Cat]

1 hour ago, bosun21 said:

Where do you live? The moon?

Could have been nine but went to the theatre with my Mrs tonight..

Clear skies again tonight even though I got a parcel from FLO. It seems the box did not contain clouds..

Edited February 27 by Mr_Cat

[petevasey]

11 minutes ago, Mr_Cat said:

Could have been nine but went to the theatre with my Mrs tonight..

Clear skies again tonight even though I got a parcel from FLO. It seems the box did not contain clouds..

Actually nothing to do with tonight although I can see a few stars and a bright Moon in between the clouds.  But perhaps you can give me a heads up.  My Solarview50 is with Solarscope in Ballasalla at the moment.  So if you've had lots of clear nights, did have you had some good clear sunny days as well?  If so I'll not feel guilty giving Helmut a nudge to see how he's getting on with the resetting 👹

Cheers,  Peter

[Mr_Cat]

9 hours ago, petevasey said:

Actually nothing to do with tonight although I can see a few stars and a bright Moon in between the clouds.  But perhaps you can give me a heads up.  My Solarview50 is with Solarscope in Ballasalla at the moment.  So if you've had lots of clear nights, did have you had some good clear sunny days as well?  If so I'll not feel guilty giving Helmut a nudge to see how he's getting on with the resetting 👹

Cheers,  Peter

Yep, the days have been fairly clear. We've had a few cloudy mornings but generally it's been pretty dry and bright . Woke up to rain yesterday and today but it cleared yesterday and it is meant to do the same today. It;'s been dry enough that I've dragged the motorbike out of the garage twice...
 

[petevasey]

1 hour ago, Mr_Cat said:

Yep, the days have been fairly clear. We've had a few cloudy mornings but generally it's been pretty dry and bright . Woke up to rain yesterday and today but it cleared yesterday and it is meant to do the same today. It;'s been dry enough that I've dragged the motorbike out of the garage twice...
 

Many thanks

Cheers, Peter

[Ratlet]

Out again with the 102/F7.  Only a very quick session on Jupiter.  The AZ5 is at it's limits with the scope, but is acceptable with the 8mm BST for 90x and the vibrations calm down quickly.  Manual tracking with it though is less fun than with the Newt because I sold of the slow mo extensions.  Scope didn't have enough cooldown time so the view wouldn't take much more.  Still it was a nice view.  I've left the scope up the shed for the time being to cool in the hope that I'll get out again later on and get to try it on the GEM28.

You might be thinking that this wasn't too great of a session, however I was joined by the 5 year old who was thoroughly whelmed by the view but managed to count Jupiter's moons and describe some cloud bands.

To top it off I spotted that Starsense rolled out an Android update which "Solved issue for Pixel 6, Pixel 6 Pro, Pixel 7, Pixel 7 Pro, Pixel 8, and Pixel 8 Pro where the device was unable to identify the telescope location".  To put it mildly, this is what I imagined it would be like when I got it.  My old Honor 20 was pretty ropey and would take ages to identify its location and would frequently get lost.  Not so with with the Pixel 6 post update, quick to find the target and remained pretty darn close whilst slewing about.  Now to make a screen for it to cut down the brightness and we'll be cooking on gas.

I would have tested it earlier but a design flaw in the starsense dock I made meant it wouldn't fit the finder shoe!  I updated the design and printed a new one and it fits like a finger up an ar...glove.

[mcrowle]

Only a brief session - my first of February (good job it's a leap year  ).

Viewed Comet 12P Pons-Brooks via good intervals between shower clouds, easily in 7 x 50 binocs, from a local footpath (as I cannot reach its location from my telescopic observing location).

Regards, Mike.

[John]

Lightweight 70mm setup this evening because of the uncertain conditions. 

In between the clouds the scope showed some nice views of various targets in and around Orion, Gemini, Cancer, Leo and Ursa Major.

In particular I was pleased with a nice display of the 3 stars of Beta Mon at 105x, M81 and M82 showing clearly at a paltry 14x, Rigel's companion at 100x and I even managed a glimpse of NGC 2903 in Leo so that is around 30 million light years away. 

The 70mm F/6 ED objective seems well figured. Although the Pup stayed in it's kennel (quelle surprise !) Sirius showed some nice diffraction rings and a clear airy disk rather than the blaze of light that you sometimes get.

Looking forward to taking this setup away to dark skies later in the year 🙂

Edited February 29 by John

[lunator]

Got out last night for a quick session using my ultralight grab and go. 15*70 Binos on a monopod. 

There was some cloud about but in clear patches the transparency was excellent. I wanted to look a some southern targets.

M42, M48, M47, M46, IC418, Colinder 121

I was very pleased to spot IC418.

As a final target I had a look at Eta Cass and might have seen it elongated.

Cheers

Ian

 

[Xilman]

Horizontal drizzle last night.

More of the same this lunchtime.

[Ratlet]

All the chat of camera holders in the other thread had me wanting to take mine out.

Had to 3D print a spacer so my 130mm solar filter would fit, but took the 102/f7 ed out to try on the sun.  Very sharp views.  I say more detail was apparent than with the 130pds.  Just a quick look whilst I was supposed to be at the dentist (oops).  Image using pixel 6 and Morpheus 17.5mm

 

[jjohnson3803]

Neighbors had more outdoor lights than usual blazing last night, so I went out between astro and nautical twilight this morning.  Decided to compare my binos.  I'm trying to decide if I want to order a pair of 8x56s.  Popped around Lyra, Cygnus, and Aquila for a bit.

Navy surplus 7x50s.  Lenses probably aren't in the greatest shape given that they're 80 years old, but I do think these have the nicest view and feel to them.  Mag is maybe a little low and they're what I'd consider medium weight.  Relatively easy to handhold.

Aculon 10x50s.  Meh.  These just don't excite me.  Lightweight, but a bit more difficult to hold steady at 10X.  I might donate these - I'm not sure it's worth the hassle to sell them.

Giant View IF 15x70s.  Starfields and random clusters are gorgeous in these, but they're too heavy to handhold for long.  Since I've decided to forego binos on tripods, etc., I'll give these a try with a mini tripod on my chest as written in the bino forum, but they might have to go as well.

Finished up with my AT50 RACI at 17X on my new AZ Pronto - Deneb, region around Sadr, and then down the swan's spine a bit.

Not much identified in the way of targets, but I think it was time well spent comparing binos.

 

 

 

[F15Rules]

On 25/02/2024 at 18:43, JeremyS said:

Apart from general haziness, the Scots seem to be celebrating their 6 nations victory this evening 

(the “star” is Jupiter)

Glad you got a handle on what it was Jeremy! 🙃😊

Dave

[mikeDnight]

Had a short session playing with my 72mm SW ED with a 20mm Ultrascopic eyepiece, observing from my open back door. I swept over my neighbours roof in search of Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks, and a few minutes in, I swept over the region of sky where the comet was. A little earlier I swept over the Andromeda Galaxy, and when I caught the comet I felt it was of a similar brightness and so possibly a naked eye object given a dark enough sky. As is my habit, I made a quick sketch of the star field, and roof line. I didnt have a lot of time to study the comet as it sank below the roof line shortly after finding it. So the sketch and star placements are just roughly executed.

Comet 12P /Pons-Brooks

[John]

46 minutes ago, mikeDnight said:

.... So the sketch and star placements are just roughly executed......

 

Your rough ones are around 10x better than my finished works Mike 👍