What did you see tonight?

[John]

Another chance to spot a quasar with my 100mm refractor hopefully 🙂

There is a curious pleasure in seeing how deep and far you can see with a small scope 

[Stu]

54 minutes ago, John said:

Another chance to spot a quasar with my 100mm refractor hopefully 🙂

There is a curious pleasure in seeing how deep and far you can see with a small scope 

Which one are you aiming for John?

[John]

2 minutes ago, Stu said:

Which one are you aiming for John?

The brightest - 3C 273 in Virgo.

 

 

[Mr Spock]

Just been looking at Venus with the FC-100D and 4mm TOE. I've never been one for filters but the 80A really does help reveal the clouds. I might try and get a darker blue or violet to see what they do.

[John]

8 minutes ago, Mr Spock said:

Just been looking at Venus with the FC-100D and 4mm TOE. I've never been one for filters but the 80A really does help reveal the clouds. I might try and get a darker blue or violet to see what they do.

Nice 🙂

I've tried all sorts of filters with my 100mm - 130mm refractors and still not seen a hint of clouds, or at least anything that I would be certain of. Must be my eyes 🙄

[Mr Spock]

Cloud features are really subtle. It's one of those oddities as to why some people can see them and some can't 

[Stu]

38 minutes ago, John said:

Nice 🙂

I've tried all sorts of filters with my 100mm - 130mm refractors and still not seen a hint of clouds, or at least anything that I would be certain of. Must be my eyes 🙄

Same here John! 

[John]

16 minutes ago, Stu said:

Same here John! 

That is good to know - I was starting to think that it was only me !

I'm quite good at detecting faint targets but not so good at subtle contrasts I think. Why the heck I have 5 expensive refractors, goodness knows ! 😌

Edited May 13, 2023 by John

[John]

Well I got the quasar !

Quasar 3C 273 is the brightest visible I believe although still faint at magnitude 12.85 or thereabouts. Plenty enough challenge for my 100mm refractor this evening ! After quite a bit of searching (the quasar is in the "bowl" of Virgo) and allowing my eyes to get dark adapted, I managed to spot the quasar using 191x (Ethos 4.7mm). I used the Ethos to give me as wide a view as possible to show guide stars. Allowing for a bit of atmospheric extinction 3C 273 was probably around magnitude 13 - pretty much at the limit for a 100mm aperture under my skies which are probably around mag 5-ish NELM tonight. Quasar 3C 273 is also one of the closest quasars to us at around 2.4 billion light years. 

Nice to get this result 🙂

Here is a refractor-view close up chart with the guide stars that I could see marked with their magnitudes according to Stellarium:

Phew !!! - going to try some easier stuff now ! 

 

Edited May 13, 2023 by John

[Guest]

Its 10/10 clouds here at the moment but it kind of acts like it wants to break up.  I am not holding my breath 

[Mr Spock]

Clear, but very misty here. I can barely see mag 3 

My night of doubles squashed, I've had a tour of some of the brighter ones around. Starting with γ Vir, which is spectacular in the 3.3mm TOE. Two lovely clean disks. γ Leo is an old favourite. ι Leo is a good one - mag 4.1, 6.7 and 1.7" - an easy split for the 3.3mm TOE. I put the 2.5mm TOE in for a closer look and that made it look quite wide. The two 'zars' were equally as good - Mizar and Izar. 

[John]

Interesting "factoid" on the quasar 3C 273 from the ESA / Hubble website:

If it was located 30 light-years from our own planet — roughly seven times the distance between Earth and Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to us after the Sun — it would still appear as bright as the Sun in the sky.  

 

 

[cajen2]

5 minutes ago, John said:

Interesting "factoid" on the quasar 3C 273 from the ESA / Hubble website:

If it was located 30 light-years from our own planet — roughly seven times the distance between Earth and Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to us after the Sun — it would still appear as bright as the Sun in the sky.  

 

 

I think how bright it'd be would be the least of your problems!

[Franklin]

36 minutes ago, Mr Spock said:

Clear, but very misty here. I can barely see mag 3 

You're lucky then, I can see the Plough, Arcturus and Vega and that's about it..... pitiful, shame on you modern society!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Mr Spock]

All gone now. The mist has become so heavy the sky is blank.

[John]

2 minutes ago, Mr Spock said:

All gone now. The mist has become so heavy The sky is blank.

That is happening here now. It's an odd feeling to look at a sky where you can barely see any stars but just an hour or two ago you were looking out 1000's of light years 🙄

[Zermelo]

The seeing here was better than on Thursday, and I split a dozen doubles with the Mak.  Izar and Algieba were looking good. The tightest tonight was HR 3701 at 1.0" with a magnitude difference.

M5 and M13 were showing well, and the planetary NGC 6210 in Hercules was blueish.

I don't think the transparency was quite as good as Thursday, there seemed to be a little mist about.  So galaxies were not at their best, for example M65 and M66 were visible, but I couldn't see the hamburger.  By the time I packed up at 01:00, there was also some dew forming, which wasn't expected.  But a good evening.

[Epick Crom]

4 hours ago, Mr Spock said:

Cloud features are really subtle. It's one of those oddities as to why some people can see them and some can't 

G'Day Mr Spock!

I saw definite faint dark markings in the clouds of Venus near the terminator last year. No filters were used. I haven't been able to see any so far this year.

[Franklin]

6 minutes ago, Zermelo said:

there was also some dew forming

Dripping wet here. Got the scope in and left the heaters on for a while.

[Stu1smartcookie]

A shockingly cool day (+10 and cloudy ) was followed by thick cloud last night and looking at the weather (Sunday)it seems the cloud will persist all day , and into the evening . At least it’s going to be warmer today 😕  zzz 

[Stu]

8 hours ago, John said:

Well I got the quasar !

Quasar 3C 273 is the brightest visible I believe although still faint at magnitude 12.85 or thereabouts. Plenty enough challenge for my 100mm refractor this evening ! After quite a bit of searching (the quasar is in the "bowl" of Virgo) and allowing my eyes to get dark adapted, I managed to spot the quasar using 191x (Ethos 4.7mm). I used the Ethos to give me as wide a view as possible to show guide stars. Allowing for a bit of atmospheric extinction 3C 273 was probably around magnitude 13 - pretty much at the limit for a 100mm aperture under my skies which are probably around mag 5-ish NELM tonight. Quasar 3C 273 is also one of the closest quasars to us at around 2.4 billion light years. 

Nice to get this result 🙂

Here is a refractor-view close up chart with the guide stars that I could see marked with their magnitudes according to Stellarium:

Phew !!! - going to try some easier stuff now ! 

 

Nicely done John! Your transparency must have been a lot better than mine; I got the 128 in the right area but just couldn’t see faint enough to get close; was pretty milky up there unfortunately.

[Ags]

I photographed this after Eurovision.

The UK song is stuck in my head now.

[Stu1smartcookie]

3 hours ago, Ags said:

I photographed this after Eurovision.

The UK song is stuck in my head now.

To be honest most of us couldn’t hear it due to a sound error . 

[Paul M]

18 hours ago, John said:

Well I got the quasar !

Well done John.

I've been reading you quasar quest with interest. It's been a fascination of mine for as long as I've been interested in astronomy - some 48 years or more.

3C273 is way beyond my home sky for visual and maybe even beyond my observing skill, but it was one of my first targets when started imaging. It's not a difficult target for imagers, just very boring to most! Even so I was thrilled to capture it. I didn't get back to it this season, I got side tracked by a few ultra deep-sky targets.

One day though, I will capture the jet. Then maybe I can lay 3C273 to rest

[Paz]

I had a go at Venus with the C8 this evening, putting the scope out early to cool it properly, starting in broad daylight and packing up by 9.30pm which is nice and civilised.

I think I got the best views of Venus I've ever had! The scope was cool, the seeing was good. I was also experimenting with much more dimming than usual and this actually worked. I tried a nd0.9 which I usually do and this was good but a nd1.8 was even better.

I tried come colour filters stacked with the nd0.9 filter and these views were better than the colour filters alone,  but just the nd1.8 on its own was best.

This was all with a 10mm Delos so 203x and an exit pupil of 1mm.

The limb was crisp and clean, the terminator was softer, a gradient in albedo from limb to terminator was noticeable and the phase being over 50% was quite clear.

I think I might stick with this setup on Venus for this pass and see if I can get any more out of it.