What did you see tonight?

[JeremyS]

Nice catch @John 👍🏻

[lunator]

John good catch. 👍 

I had a quick check of R Vir, not a significant change from last night.

l was pleased and surprised to spot M51 and M101 in the 15x70's

Cheers

Ian

[John]

I've moved onto Hercules now and it's 3 globular clusters. The very famous Messier 13, the nearly as well known Messier 92 and the more obscure NGC 6229. The latter globular cluster is 4 times further away than M13 and M92 and correspondingly fainter. I posted a little report on this interesting object back in 2021:

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/378625-hercules-3rd-globular-ngc-6229/

 

Edited May 4 by John

[scotty1]

Apologies for going off topic 

Some high cloud around , took a couple of photos from the garden with phone. 

Sometimes the picture has a lens effect artifact that shows up and messes up the exposure bloating the center. 

Anyone else have this with the pixel phones? 

example below

 

Here is another photo below taken about 23.20 with the phone that came out ok with some in phone processing. 

The Plough and Arcturus 

Short time lapse with satellite flare  

 

 

Edited May 4 by scotty1

[PeterStudz]

2 hours ago, John said:

I've moved onto Hercules now and it's 3 globular clusters. The very famous Messier 13, the nearly as well known Messier 92 and the more obscure NGC 6229. The latter globular cluster is 4 times further away than M13 and M92 and correspondingly fainter. I posted a little report on this interesting object back in 2021:

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/378625-hercules-3rd-globular-ngc-6229/

 

Thanks for the heads up on NGC 6229. Manage to see it (amongst other target) after reading your above post. Off to bed, I’m tired!

[GordonD]

On 03/05/2024 at 11:16, Mr Spock said:

Forgot about this. iPhone snap through the FC100 and 3.5mm LVW.

That snap is showing great contrast - very nice.

[Mr Spock]

1 hour ago, GordonD said:

That snap is showing great contrast - very nice.

One of the benefits of using a good apo 

[Stu1smartcookie]

Put the c8 out on the nexstar mount , perfectly clear ... went indoors and waited patiently for darkness ... went outside to view.... lots of cloud ... more than annoyed zzzz

[lunator]

There were a few clouds about this evening after work but I did grab the Binos for a quick look. 

R virginis is continuing to increase in brightness. 

I also managed to get a glimpse of M63. After another look at M51.

I wasn't successful with M108.

Cheers

Ian

[Captain Scarlet]

I was out last night just with 10x50s as it was unexpectedly clear, when an Aurora red alert came through on the phone. This time I couldn’t see it naked eye, there was too much low-down haze, but a 10s phone shot shows definite colour

[Captain Scarlet]

Looking clear for tonight. 12” out to acclimatise and looking good for a session with him first time in months.

 

[Epick Crom]

I brought out my 10 inch dob to enjoy a clear night of observations last night. Despite it being a "dark night" ie no moon, my backyard sky was awash with light pollution. The brightest it's been in a while for some reason 😭

Despite this I pushed on with my planned session in Virgo and saw three new to me galaxies, NGC 4261, NGC 4526 and NGC 4442. I also enjoyed quite a good view of M 104 the Sombrero Hat Galaxy.

The highlight of the night was observing comet C/2023 Tsuchinshan ATLAS for the first time. It appeared as a faint blur, but seen nonetheless. A nice but cold and light polluted session!

[Mr Spock]

Stars on view here, but there's a 'milky' film over the sky. Not good for observing.

[DirkSteele]

The forecast for last nights Baker Street Irregular Astronomers star party in Regent’s Park promised clear skies and they delivered. One attendee came along with a Night Vision device (purchased from SGLs very own @GavStar) and he let me use for the back end of the meeting when it was getting dark (we had done some solar in the earlier part of the evening).

Using a manual mount, under London light pollution and a darkening but not completely dark for most of the session sky, it made my life quite a bit easier! Can see why some have got in to it. Rather surprised some attendees by how quick I can star hop as well. Who needs GoTo? 😉

Very quickly had a queue behind my scope.

Started with M3

Moved on to M13

NGC 457 (the ET cluster) in Cassiopeia

M103

The Double Cluster

Tried for M57, but was a bit low in the muck and the low power EP was making it distinctly stellar in appearance so even though I know it was there as was in the right spot, not a definitive spot

Didn’t just use enhancement though, revisited 457 and the DC with a regular eyepiece before grabbing M44 and M35 which were harder than they should be but was looking back across the Hub building and staff has turned on some lights to clean up.

Had a quick peak at Albireo to finish.

Here is my APM LZOS with the NV device.

 

[paulastro]

Last night I used the 125ED StellaMira for two hours from 11.05pm.  I had intended to use my BaaderAspheric 36mm and 30mm Celestron Ultima Edge Flat Field to sweep along the Milky Way.  However, poor transparency due to thin cloud/ haze prompted a change of mind. So out came the SVBony 3-8mm zoom.

I've had some wonderful Lunar views with the zoom and the 125ED on one occassion, but no opportunity weather wise for much else since buying the zoom.  

I only ended up observing a few more objects as it happened because I was so impressed by the views with the zoom I had, it was difficult to drag myself away from one to the next - M57, M81,M82, M3, M13, the double double, Albireo and M92.  Despite the conditions I could usefully use the full range of mag's of the zoom  ×122 to x325 depending on changes in the seeing and transparency.  Despite having seen all of these objects countless of times over the years, to use such powers on deep sky rather than, usually, lower powers  was something I haven't tended to do.

The images throughout the range in better moments gave very fine star images (sharp and  no unwanted colours, great contrast, sharp to the edge of the field and no ghosting or flaring that I could see.  I must admit for a rather mediocre night for most of the time I was amazed how good the images are.  Quite outstanding.  A wonderful session.

 I intend to write reviews for both the 125ED and the 3-8 zoom, but if anyone is thinking of buying the zoom just buy it. At almost any price it would be good value, at the £129  or so  it cost me through Amazon its a gift in my view.  

Perhaps people might hesitate to buy any scope so quickly, but I bought mine at a saving  of over £400  on one returned to FLO.  I looked on FLO's 'offers' section earlier and they have another for the same price I paid!

 

 

 

 

[paulastro]

On 06/05/2024 at 21:27, Captain Scarlet said:

Looking clear for tonight. 12” out to acclimatise and looking good for a session with him first time in months.

 

Like the view.

[John]

Got Comet C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS with the 102mm Vixen tonight. It's been very hazy up until about half an hour ago so this was a quick foray with the 4 inch scope. 

The comet is estimated at magnitude 10.1 this evening, which seems accurate. A bit of a challenge with the skies tonight. I needed 83x (Ethos 8mm) to see it clearly one the end of a short line of magnitude 8 and 9 stars, in Virgo.

This chart from theskylive website:

Could this be a naked eye comet later in the year ? - we will see 🙂

[scotty1]

Arcturus through some trees in town. 

I did get asked what I was doing,  when laying on my side on the pavement trying to see the phone screen at 00.30am 

 

Edited May 9 by scotty1

[Epick Crom]

21 hours ago, scotty1 said:

Arcturus through some trees in town. 

I did get asked what I was doing,  when laying on my side on the pavement trying to see the phone screen at 00.30am 

 

The things we do for Astronomy eyy?!

😅

[Mr Spock]

Same as the other night here. Bright stars only due to a thin layer of high cloud. No point in getting a scope out.

[John]

Better night than last night here. A good one in fact 🙂

I stuck with the 70mm refractor that I used during daylight to look at that monster sunspot and had some fun looking at double stars, a couple of planetary nebula plus (just !) comet C2023 A3.

Rather a warm night as well. 

 

[cajen2]

1 hour ago, Mr Spock said:

Same as the other night here. Bright stars only due to a thin layer of high cloud. No point in getting a scope out.

Had the same problem so just happily messed about seeing which of my EPs would split Castor for me. My 9mm Morpheus (79x) was enough to show a double lump, the 8mm Delos not much different and the 6.5 Morph showed a clear split at 110x. The 4.5mil Morph was a great view (159x).

The Beehive Cluster in Cancer was less than spectacular due to the conditions.

Hardly anything else worth looking at with the high haze so came in. Nice to get out, though, and even better wearing a T-shirt!

Edited May 10 by cajen2

[lunator]

I'm in Bortle 3 skies at the mo. I only have my ST80 on a photo tripod. I have been following the immense sunspot group over the last few days. Last night was clear-ish to start with a lot of contrails tat created thin high cloud. Started with the very thin cresent Moon. Using the 12mm Pentax gave me x33. I need to look up the craters I could see. I then had a look at STF1825 in Bootes it took the 5mm ortho to split at x100.

After 10pm the sky began to clear so I thought I would see how an 80mm scope in bortle 3 compares to other scopes I have used in Bortlle 4/5. Using well known Messier objects. 

M51 was fairly obvious, found quite easily, slight brighter in the 20mm SWAN eyepiece tan I can see it in my 15x70 at home (B4). 

M109 proved difficult. I managed it in the 12mm but to get a clear sighting I had to move Phecda out of the field of view. 

I went back to something easier and tried for M65/66. These were visible in the 20mm SWAN and I could glimpse NGC3628.

My final challenge was M64. It proved trickier than I thought but the conditions were deteriorating due to mist. I got a reasonable view at x33. 

My final target was R Vir. It's brightness does appear to have changed much but it was trickier using the scope rather than the Binos and the mist may have been a factor.

I called it a night as everything was getting very wet and the mist was getting thicker.

Cheers

Ian

[bosun21]

This was my first light for my 180 Maksutov and also first use in the field for my AZ-EQ6 mount. I made sure that it was cooled properly as I needed to check the collimation accurately before covering the scope with Reflectix insulation. I set up the mounts home position and balanced properly with scope and its accessories etc about 5pm to give it plenty of time for acclimation. Aligned my RDF which I swapped over to from the RACI. Polar alignment is a lot easier with a 90° adapter fitted. Once I did the customary 3 star alignment I went straight to Arcturus to check collimation. It was ever so slightly out, but not enough to really notice with the views visually. But now that I knew about it i had to sort it. I used a reticle eyepiece to ensure that the star was centered each time before adjusting the collimation. Several adjustments later and the magnification increased to 432x I was happy with it so locked it down. Final check and all was well. The transparency was good and the seeing pretty mediocre. I tried to capture a hand held photo with my phone but Arcturus had slightly moved off centre or it's the angle I'm holding the phone.

I then was amazed at the resolution and detail that I could see on M13. The stars were easily resolved and could even start to make out the propeller. I then shifted to M3 next door for an equally impressive view however I immediately returned to M13 to soak up the view. Next was M57 which I'm glad to say was centered in the eyepiece. The go to was extremely accurate and everything was held solid. The mount is heavy but it's a price I'm more than willing to pay for NO vibrations. CA and vibration are my nemesis. M57 was well defined in the eyepiece although I do like to use a UHC filter on it which I forgot to include in my gear. I then had a look at Albireo to get a look at the colour differential which was lovely. Up to M51, M63, M81 & 82. The galaxies although dim were easily seen in the eyepiece. M103 in Cassiopeia next followed by a return to Hercules and M92. Finished the night off with a final look at M13. I am pleased with both the 180's performance and the overall solidity and accuracy of the AZ-EQ6 mount. I bought the 180 mainly for lunar, planets and double stars but it's also pretty capable on some of the brighter DSO's like clusters and PN's. It's now 1am and time to put the kettle on.

 

[JeremyS]

Great report @bosun21. Looks like you have a winner there 👍🏻