What did you see tonight?

[Mr Spock]

3 minutes ago, Ags said:

I believe it was Rima Ariadaeus - a quite massive structure!

Yes, it's very impressive tonight. The illumination makes it look huge!

I think my TOE 3.3mm has found a new home. Fabulous sharpness at x461. Earlier I was picking up 8 craterlets on the floor of Catharina P. Sadly none now as the seeing has deteriorated over the last 20 minutes or so.
A new one for me tonight - The Diamondback Rille. I can trace it from the double crater next to Maskelyne X up to Maskelyne G. I had a look for the Sidewinder Rille below that but it proved elusive. Perhaps with better seeing it might reveal itself.

[Epick Crom]

Last night I had 1hr clear from clouds at sunset, enough time to give my just purchased 9mm APM XWA eyepiece first light.

 Just WOW! Incredibly sharp, well corrected, great colour rendition, comfortable to use and of course the gigantic 100° field. This was my first time looking through a 100° eyepiece and I can say emphatically that I love the experience. It really is like you are floating in space!

Now my wallet will cry as I just have to get more 100° eyepieces in the future 😄

[Ags]

38 minutes ago, Mr Spock said:

Yes, it's very impressive tonight. The illumination makes it look huge!

 

In my 90 mm frac it looks rather delicate, the Apollo view is surprising. I am afraid the Moon is giving me aperture fever, I want to get a little closer... 

[Mr Spock]

1 minute ago, Ags said:

I am afraid the Moon is giving me aperture fever, I want to get a little closer...

The moon is a very alluring beast and demands a close inspection. Once you can get a sharp view past x400 you can stick to one small area all night because there's so much to see.

[PeterStudz]

Had a little late afternoon/early evening session here in Southampton. Clouds, at times around 50/50, coming and going so far from ideal. 

Started off with the sun in white light, then onto Venus, followed by the moon. All in daylight. At the moment Venus has practically the same phase as the moon. Seeing surprising good. I could get Venus up to 300x in my 200p Dob and it still looked reasonably sharp. The moon also looking good despite the lack of contrast in daylight.

Had a break to go and get fish & chips. Hopefully out later if it’s still clear. Although I have to get up early so can’t spend too long. 

[Mr Spock]

CO and BBC say 60% cloud - I see clear blue wall to wall! I put the big lad out half an hour ago.
Just getting a coffee and a bite to eat before starting. I couldn't resist a peek though. Wow! The rilles in Arzachel at x217 are razor sharp, as are the two small craterlets. I can't wait to get some magnification on it.

[Froeng]

The moon does look good tonight!

[PeterStudz]

Yes, the moon is looking brilliant. 

I also had a little look at Mars. It’s obviously very small but there’s an unmistakable little dot of an ice cap at the North Pole. Can just make out some albedo features to the south and around the North Pole but that ice cap glows. Looks very different to the North Polar Hood. 

Edited April 28, 2023 by PeterStudz

[Mr Spock]

Bah! Seeing here is really poor. Very shaky with the briefest of calm moments. Like Valis Alpes; one moment, at x461 the whole lot is a mess, then suddenly it snaps into focus for a second and I can see the rille.

Very frustrating!

[JeremyS]

38 minutes ago, Froeng said:

The moon does look good tonight!

Watch out! There’s some ne’er-do-well in a hoodie eyeing up your scope 😳

🤣

[Froeng]

38 minutes ago, PeterStudz said:

Yes, the moon is looking brilliant. 

I also had a little look at Mars. It’s obviously very small but there’s an unmistakable little dot of an ice cap at the North Pole. Can just make out some albedo features to the south and around the North Pole but that ice cap glows. Looks very different to the North Polar Hood. 

I agree, I can also see a tiny polar cap and a dark feature just to the South of it. I am looking at Mars at 335x and it is quite steady, but soooo small!

[Froeng]

16 minutes ago, Froeng said:

I agree, I can also see a tiny polar cap and a dark feature just to the South of it. I am looking at Mars at 335x and it is quite steady, but soooo small!

Now looking at Mars with 500x in the C8. It is remarkably steady. Although the C8 is clearly out of its depth at this magnification. Polar cap visible and dark markings on the surface. Any Mewlons around tonight? Should be quite the spectacle…

[John]

Nice lunar views here tonight.

Interesting comparing the TOE 4mm, Nagler 2-4mm zoom, 4mm HD ortho and 3.5mm XW in my 100mm frac. No overall winner tonight but their presentation of the finer lunar features is subtly different. 

I was quite pleased, given the lunar illumination tonight, to catch some of the tiny craters that make up the Catena Davy crater chain. Fascinating to consider how such features might have been formed.

I can tell my other half that I have seen Susan with my scope tonight - that should be fun 😁

 

 

[John]

Just made my first split of Zeta Herculis this season now that it's risen above the conifers. Quite tight with 100mm aperture at 225x and 257x. Like seeing an old friend 🙂

 

[cajen2]

Quite a lot of cloud here so I contented myself with practising with the new scope and mount and giving first light to my two new EPs: the Baader Hyperion Mk IV zoom and the Morpheus 17.5mm.

The zoom is superb: very smooth action and sharp, clear views - better than a lot of fixed EPs I've tried! The only downside was the small FOV at 24mm, but the Baader isn't alone in that. It was great to be able to zoom in and out on areas of the Moon and the Beehive Cluster, where I often wish a fixed EP was a slightly smaller or larger image.

The new Morpheus is just brilliant. Baader really outdid itself with this one. Once I have enough clear sky, I'm going to do a comparison between it at 1.25" and my Long Perng (StellaLyra) 2" 80° 20mm. Should be interesting.

Edited April 29, 2023 by cajen2

[Stu]

10 hours ago, John said:

Nice lunar views here tonight.

Interesting comparing the TOE 4mm, Nagler 2-4mm zoom, 4mm HD ortho and 3.5mm XW in my 100mm frac. No overall winner tonight but their presentation of the finer lunar features is subtly different. 

I was quite pleased, given the lunar illumination tonight, to catch some of the tiny craters that make up the Catena Davy crater chain. Fascinating to consider how such features might have been formed.

I can tell my other half that I have seen Susan with my scope tonight - that should be fun 😁

 

 

Nice one John. I saw two nice crater chains last night and am trying to work out if this was one of them! 🤪. More checking needed.

[Mr Spock]

10 hours ago, John said:

Interesting comparing the TOE 4mm, Nagler 2-4mm zoom, 4mm HD ortho and 3.5mm XW in my 100mm frac. No overall winner tonight but their presentation of the finer lunar features is subtly different. 

Interesting - I did the same with the 12" and the 4mm Circle-T, 4mm Nirvana and 4mm TOE. They were all equally sharp and contrasty, but for some reason I preferred the view through the TOE - difficult to pin that down. The ortho had tight eye relief and the Nirvana was the easiest to look though with that huge 82° fov. I could be happy with any of them really.

[StarDuke82]

Did some Lunar observations as the moon was to enticing and I had just gotten my ND and Moon and Skyglow filters in. 

[John]

22 hours ago, John said:

Nice lunar views here tonight.

Interesting comparing the TOE 4mm, Nagler 2-4mm zoom, 4mm HD ortho and 3.5mm XW in my 100mm frac. No overall winner tonight but their presentation of the finer lunar features is subtly different. 

I was quite pleased, given the lunar illumination tonight, to catch some of the tiny craters that make up the Catena Davy crater chain. Fascinating to consider how such features might have been formed.

I can tell my other half that I have seen Susan with my scope tonight - that should be fun 😁

 

 

Slightly better illumination of this area tonight plus an additional 20mm of aperture so the Catena Davy is showing some of Susan's friends as well. Thinnish cloud filtering things now and then and more cloud on it's way so I'm making the best of it while I can tonight 🙂

 

[Ags]

I decided the Svbony 3-8 zoom wasn't getting me close enough to the Moon so tonight it had the frontpiece on my Revelation 2x barlow screwed on, making it something like a 2-5 zoom. With improved eye relief! I did not expect the view to hold up, as my 102 mm Maks (Celestron and SkyWatcher variants) both started to show empty magnification above about 150x - as if a mathematical smoothing function had been applied to the eyepiece view. To my surprise the Long Perng 90 was still sharp at 200-250x. I think it could go higher. I did not 'discover' any new features tonight, but Copernicus was spectacular, and many minor craters were visible in Clavius. The region around Plato was very crisp and the mountain ranges were sharp. My aperture fever has dropped a couple of degrees.

[Captain Scarlet]

Just in from what I expected to be a failed session. I’d checked the jetstream forecast and it looked as bad as it could be. Gratifyingly, seeing was quite good, better for various doubles to the east than for the Moon to the west. Good enough for zeta herculis to be an easy split at first glance through my 140. But not good enough for Plato to give up more than one craterlet.

It just qualifies for a separate report tomorrow.

Magnus

[Zermelo]

The forecasts are all over the shop for this evening, but the sky is mostly clear at the moment and the Mak is cooling.

[Stu]

Just had a quick look at the moon with the 8” f8. Plato Craterlets looking very good, like proper craters not just white marks. Will try again in a bit once the scope is cooled and it’s a bit darker to see how many I can get. The main four were clear, including separating the two close together.

[Ags]

The sky here tonight was a mix of clear patches and hurrying clumps of dense cloud, which typically forbodes poorer seeing.

I upgraded from my Long Perng 90 to my C6 tonight, seeing how far I could push it with the 3-8 zoom. I focused on Gassendi, trying to make out the rilles. I was mostly unsuccessful, although I glimpsed the rille leading back to Gassendi A, and the ridge just before the southern end was easy. 

8 mm was very sharp, so despite the wobbly seeing 180x was good. 7 mm (214x) was also good. 

As for 6, 5 and 4 mm, they all gave useful but progressively softer views, so magnifications in the range of 250x to 360x are viable. I flipped back and forth between these three settings with no clear winner. 

I think the real winner would have been the eyepiece I didn't use tonight, the ES 6.7 mm.

I did give the 3 mm setting a try, but that was way too much, for both the telescope and my eye!

Edited May 1, 2023 by Ags

[Paz]

I had a go at the moon this evening and for a while the seeing was not bad. 

Schiller was good in the south, T and G being well lit. J Herschel in the north was good, and I noticed a rille between Sharp and Sharp A near Sinus Iridum, which I have looked up but haven't found a name for yet.