What did you see tonight?

[andrew63]

Lovely Aurora glow here. Hopefully someone has captured some Perseids amongst it. 

[Ibbo!]

from my all sky

 

 

[Sunshine]

The moon! beautiful half moon in decent seeng conditions. My neighbor orderd chinese, when the delivery driver arrived he couldn’t resist asking what I was looking at to which I replied he should have a look and see. He took me up on it and ended up spending a half hour asking questions about the moon, cosmology in general, possibilities of life beyond earth, quantum physics, the expanding universe and I can’t recall what else, this conversation was worth me taking the scope out for.

Edited August 12 by Sunshine

[magnahrl]

Darkness back at last here at 57N. Set up my old deforked 1973 C8 on my Vixen GP EQ mount sitting on Celestron CG5 tripod with 2" steelegs. Rock steady stuff....for a C8. Viewed from my rather lightpolluted balcony. Wonderful night, 17C. Pretty good seeing, 7/10P maybe? First goal was to check collimation. Good, nothing changed since early May. So first a try on some of my dear latesummer friends; 72 Peg, 36And and 10 Ari. I could not quite seperate 72 but I had "touching or kissing" ( Haas describtion in her  book "Double Stars For Small Telescopes" ) observation at 444X and 500X. W-E Very beutiful! Those stars look somewhat white-orange to me I think it,s quite good for an untouched 50+ years SCT to have the capability to actually resolve an 0,55" double star. Yes I have fully resolved it several times.

Next was 36 And. If 72 Peg can be a bit hmm stubborn, 36 is easy. At 250X it was what I call wideopen..Stelle Doppie  gives 1,3" on this one. Can it be correct? I find it a lot easier.

So the last Late Summernight Friend for now...10 Aries. B is a beutiful little tine dot just outside the diffraction ring. Extremly beutiful this night at 250X and 333X. But you really must have good seeing!!!

At last of course Saturn. Rather high (?) in the sky. Hmm 20 degrees. But it was such a moment to meet another friend this night. My wife (another friend!) came and had a look and said something like..."looks like someone has put a needle through the planet"! But for sure it was beutiful though I could not see much. Other than that "needle". No deails on the planet, no Cass div, no shadows, no nothing. Still as a whole it was a marvelous sight!

So at last after 3 months of bright nights I am up and running again. Feels so good. Yeas it`s fantastic observing our nearest star but nothing beats observing those more distant stars further away when the night is dark

Next night I will give the Perseids a chanse and the next clear night after that I will really start testing my CC8, bought used last april.  Wish me Good Luck, please.

Thanks for reading🙂

Clear Skies!

Magnus A.

 

[Stu]

15 hours ago, scotty1 said:

During 25 mins of gazing I saw two  Perseids. 

At 04.00 the camera caught this one I didn't see it, as was looking south. 

 

This might be Mercury 

Nice shots, you’ve caught the Pleiades well. I’m afraid it’s not Mercury though, wrong position and too high; it was below the horizon at that time.

[Stu]

I had a lie out on the hammock watching for Perseids. Not a single one, unfortunately in about 30 mins.

I had the 15x50IS binos with me, fitted with a UHC and OIII filter, so I tried for the NAN, successfully. It was clearly there, quite obvious though the shape wasn’t as clear as through a scope. I thought I worked out where the Gulf of Mexico area was but not certain.

I then tried the Veil. I got 52 Cygni in view, but couldn’t see any sign of the Western Veil. Panning a little showed me the dim crescent of the Eastern Veil which got clearer over time. I also thought I could see where Pickering's Triangle runs across the whole complex but I thought this was dimmer than the Western Veil so not sure. I kept picking something up though in the same place.

[rojay]

Last night was my first "proper" session for a long time. Highlight was the Omega nebula,  which I think is a first for me. And it's nice to be able to observe in shorts and T shirt!

[Zermelo]

Last night was looking to be a good one, according to the websites - warm, some clear sky, Perseids, and possibility of aurora. There was a 10-15mph breeze forecast by several sources, but I've been out many times in similar conditions.

Instead, we had a local hurricane down here - furniture and plant pots thrown about, general mayhem lasting for the whole evening. One of the less successful episodes for the forecasters.

[Adreneline]

This was one of several I managed over the course of the night - once the clouds had cleared.

Auroral glow at the bottom and one nice Perseid in the middle:

Taken with a ASI290MM and ZWO 2.5mm lens.

Also managed to catch a 2 hour Timelapse, half of which was shows the aurora, using my Canon G5X - stunning colours. I'll share once I've off-loaded it from the camera.

Adrian

[PeterStudz]

1 hour ago, Stu said:

I had a lie out on the hammock watching for Perseids. Not a single one, unfortunately in about 30 mins.

I had the 15x50IS binos with me, fitted with a UHC and OIII filter, so I tried for the NAN, successfully. It was clearly there, quite obvious though the shape wasn’t as clear as through a scope. I though I worked out where the Gulf of Mexico area was but not certain.

I then tried the Veil. I got 52 Cygni in view, but couldn’t see any sign of the Western Veil. Panning a little showed me the dim crescent of the Eastern Veil which got clearer over time. I also thought I could see where Pickering's Triangle runs across the whole complex but I thought this was dimmer than the Western Veil so not sure. I kept picking something up though in the same place.

Camped out in the garden with my daughter looking for Perseids. Didn’t see many, the most was 4 in about 1.5 hours, one of which was quite bright. Although I’m in Bortle 7 which doesn’t make it easy. Faint diffuse aurora too even though my view to the north is blocked - see rather basic handheld smartphone image. Progressively clouded over during the night which ended things early. And actually had drizzle at around 4am. But one of the warmest nights I’ve had from our house. 

I keep forgetting to try your UHC & OIII trick. Although my binoculars don’t have filter threads. 
 

 

[happy-kat]

That's a great shot and I see you're pretty far south too, what time did you catch that please?

[Stu]

1 hour ago, Adreneline said:

This was one of several I managed over the course of the night - once the clouds had cleared.

Auroral glow at the bottom and one nice Perseid in the middle:

Taken with a ASI290MM and ZWO 2.5mm lens.

Also managed to catch a 2 hour Timelapse, half of which was shows the aurora, using my Canon G5X - stunning colours. I'll share once I've off-loaded it from the camera.

Adrian

Great shot!! 👍

[PeterStudz]

1 hour ago, happy-kat said:

That's a great shot and I see you're pretty far south too, what time did you catch that please?

Not sure if you mean me as “great shot” could well apply to someone else’s post! 

But just in case my smartphone image was taken in Southampton at 1:25am. 

[Paul M]

I was hoping for a night of Perseids in my Allsky Camera, I don't think I picked up a single one. The clouds didn't help. There are two short bright trails but I think one, possibly both are satellite flares, and are not on Perseid radial paths.

As widely observed, the highlight was the aurora. It started soon after dusk and ebbed and flowed for some time. Even reaching the zenith.

If it hadn't been for those pesky clouds...

 

 

 

[Adreneline]

1 hour ago, Stu said:

Great shot!! 👍

Thanks Stu. Sadly the Timelapse had one of its "lapses" at the time the above meteor appeared - wouldn't you know it!

In the space of 3+ hours I recorded about a dozen meteors ranging from two very bright to the rest being fairly dismal - the Bortle 3/4 skies here help a lot - the aurora less so.

The 2 hour/19 second TL is not really worth posting as you can't identify any meteors 😩

Adrian

[Paul M]

2 hours ago, Adreneline said:

Auroral glow at the bottom and one nice Perseid in the middle:

It is a great shot, but is it a Perseid?

I know fish-eye distortion can confuse things but it doesn't seem to go back to the radiant? Maybe 45 deg off?

 

[Sunshine]

47 minutes ago, Paul M said:

I was hoping for a night of Perseids in my Allsky Camera, I don't think I picked up a single one. The clouds didn't help. There are two short bright trails but I think one, possibly both are satellite flares, and are not on Perseid radial paths.

As widely observed, the highlight was the aurora. It started soon after dusk and ebbed and flowed for some time. Even reaching the zenith.

If it hadn't been for those pesky clouds...

 

 

 

Oooh! The flashes of aurora were cool, hot pink!.

[Adreneline]

1 hour ago, Paul M said:

It is a great shot, but is it a Perseid?

Well I hoped it might be but I am no expert so I am happy to be told otherwise.

[Paul M]

6 minutes ago, Adreneline said:

Well I hoped it might be but I am no expert so I am happy to be told otherwise.

Well, a nice meteor is a nice meteor, whatever the origin.

It's just that Persieds have more street cred than a sporadic...😅

[Nyctimene]

Counted 21 Perseids between 00h30min and 02h10min CEST, looking southward from the reclining chair in my backyard. Most of them typical Perseids - bright (often around 0 mag), and fast. Four fainter Capricornids, from the western part of the constellation. By far the most spectacular meteor was right at the beginning - a very bright (Venus!) fireball, appearing very close to the horizon somewhere ESE, and moving slowly parallel to the horizon for three seconds almost to S, leaving a 40°(!!) bright tail for three more seconds. No sounds. The brightest meteor I've seen for several decades. No clue of the origin  - an Anthelion meteor? Or an early Taurid? Anyway, a very motivating start.

Stephan

[mcrowle]

Marginal conditions here in Cornwall last night, with much clear sky but slow-moving cloud patches, average transparency, wind gusts around 30mph and the threat of showers. Still, it’s a clear night, kind of 😄.

I opted to keep an eye out for Perseids while doing some wide field imaging with a camera piggybacked on a stubby C8 to minimise wind effects. However, my garden limits how much sky is visible, so only a handful of meteors were seen from there.

When I saw the aurora alert at about 1am I headed out to a spot a few hundred yards from home with a more open view, and in particular a view North. From here I saw many more Perseids, and the aurora was just visible as a faint glow, with no colour or structure. A friend and colleague in West Cornwall has said he could see aurora pillars, though he was at a darker location.

I returned home around 2am, by when the cloud was increasing. Finally, at 02:30 I had to rush to pack up my ‘scope, mount and camera under a heavy shower!

Regards, Mike.

Edited August 12 by mcrowle
Added pic

[Adreneline]

12 hours ago, Adreneline said:

Also managed to catch a 2 hour Timelapse, half of which was shows the aurora, using my Canon G5X

Out of 241 frames from the Timelapse just five revealed meteors:

 

[SwiMatt]

I got my first night session of the season with a glorious split of Izar (Epsilon Bootis) in the twilight. An observation that I wanted to bag since I got my telescope a year ago, I finally managed! 🥳

[lunator]

Only popped out briefly tonight but did see one Perseid.

Quite fast and bright with a yellow tinge.

Cheers

Ian

[westmarch]

Aurora visible NNW in Galloway., now.