What did you see tonight?

[John]

I'm on holiday on Jersey currently but I have a small (70mm) scope with me and tonight is nice and clear without the thin high cloud layer that has been present over the past few nights.

I didn't think the supernova SN 2023xif would be visible in such a small aperture but the transparency is very good here and I was very pleasantly surprised to get a nice view of both the Pinwheel Galaxy, Messier 101 and SN 2023xif shining faintly from it's outer regions. I reckon the SN is around magnitude 11 tonight. I can see stars down to around mag 11.8 or so with this little scope. I'm using a 20mm SWA eyepiece so 21x magnification.

By far the smallest aperture scope that I've seen a supernova with - previously my ED120 held that distinction. 

Very pleased to get this SN just in case it starts to fade before I get back home to my larger scopes 🙂

Also lots of nice views of the Moon, Venus and doubles plus globulars and some of the brighter galaxies (including M 101 of course). 

Nice little holiday session 😁

 

[Epick Crom]

I had a pleasing observing session last night with my 10 inch dob, although the transparency wasn't the best.

Observed Venus first, possible faint shady markings near the terminator? Almost exactly half phase.

Mars tiny at 4.8" but maybe a vague dark spot seen?

Waxing crescent moon lovely, Pyrenees Mts nice at high power, looked 3D!

Vathorz Prior and HD 85233, two double stars in the same field of view in Carina.

M68 at the zenith, globular cluster in Hydra.

M3 globular in Canes Venatici nice, but try as I may not even one galaxy seen in that constellation.

Mel 111, brought out my 10x50mm binos for this one. Nice sprawling cluster in Canes Venatici.

Clear Skies!

Joe

[Ratlet]

Finally got out for the first time in months under darkish skies.  Astronomical dark is long gone and we only have 1 hour or so of nautical dark and that'll be gone soon.

Tried my contact lenses, but found they made things much worse so took one of them out.  Observed M3 through dusk to nautical twilight.  I would probably describe the change like losing aperture.

I tried out my dual band sv220 filter on m57.  Holy moly was that a good idea.  It went from being a faint gray blur against lightish sky to being an intensely light gray blur against an almost jet black sky.  Knocks the seven shades out of my svbony UHC which did basically nothing.  Looking forward to trying it out on other targets when they eventually surface in dark skies.

EDIT:  forgot to mention that I wore my fisherman's vest.  This is great.  Loads of pockets so I can just pop whatever eyepieces/filters I'm using in there.  

Edited May 25, 2023 by Ratlet

[Zermelo]

 A double first for me tonight, using the Mak 127.

After reading recent discussion about 3C 273, I decided to give it a shot.  It wasn't difficult matching the nearby star patterns with Sky Safari, including Zaniah, and from there to find HD 108959.  There was a very faint (visible with averted vision) "star" in approximately the right place and, after about twenty minutes of checking, I convinced myself that it was indeed the quasar - my first.  2 billion light years, apparently.

I also made a successful attempt at the supernova in M101, again my first one.  This also took quite a long time to confirm, but actually was readily visible, even with direct vision (M101 itself was a barely perceptible smudge).  I see that others are saying it's about +11 at the moment.  This one is a mere 23 million light years away.

Well done, little Mak.

[josefk]

8 hours ago, John said:

I'm on holiday on Jersey currently but I have a small (70mm) scope with me and tonight is nice and clear without the thin high cloud layer that has been present over the past few nights.

I didn't think the supernova SN 2023xif would be visible in such a small aperture but the transparency is very good here and I was very pleasantly surprised to get a nice view of both the Pinwheel Galaxy, Messier 101 and SN 2023xif shining faintly from it's outer regions. I reckon the SN is around magnitude 11 tonight. I can see stars down to around mag 11.8 or so with this little scope. I'm using a 20mm SWA eyepiece so 21x magnification.

By far the smallest aperture scope that I've seen a supernova with - previously my ED120 held that distinction. 

Very pleased to get this SN just in case it starts to fade before I get back home to my larger scopes 🙂

Also lots of nice views of the Moon, Venus and doubles plus globulars and some of the brighter galaxies (including M 101 of course). 

Nice little holiday session 😁

 

Great stuff - i love observing on holiday with a little scope! The very definition of relaxing.

[josefk]

Shame it was a week day night last night - seeing and transparency looked terrific even in the evening twilight. The moon and venus both looked fantastic in my little GnG. Sketch here FWIW: https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/410111-joes-luna-scribbles/#comment-4382657

 

[bosun21]

6 hours ago, Ratlet said:

Knocks the seven shades out of my svbony UHC which did basically nothing.

That’s why I sold mine and bought Astronomik UHC & OIII filters. It’s like chalk and cheese.

[Ratlet]

1 hour ago, bosun21 said:

That’s why I sold mine and bought Astronomik UHC & OIII filters. It’s like chalk and cheese.

Think I'll save up for a better UHC filter.  Quite happy with the initial result of the dual band as a 'might as well use it' OIII filter in the mean time.  Well, I say mean time.  I suspect last night was the last observing I'll be doing till the end of July.  Not enough dark and what there is is too late in the day.

[John]

Got SN 2023xif again with the 70mm here on Jersey. Brighter, higher moon plus more blustery wind made it a little trickier and I needed a little more magnification to tease the SN out but it was definite and probably about the same brightness as it was last night, give or take.

Iota Leonis and Izar were also split at 131x with the 70mm scope showing decent optics I think. 

[Ratlet]

Just the moon.  Took the MSM Accuview phone holder out for a spin and ended up video calling my sister and giving her a tour of the moon.  Got some great videos out of it.  Seeing was really good, with a slow ripple just washing over everything.  Managed to crank the SV315 zoom up to 3mm in the 130PDS for x215 power. 

[Zermelo]

The moon in Leo is getting more dominant now, so this evening I stuck to doubles over on the other side of the sky - in Serpens, Ophiuchus, Hercules - 15 of them. The seeing was reasonable to good, transparency decent, and no appearance of the low cloud that was forecast.

The best was probably HD 133408 in Virgo, wide at 10.1" and both components below +7, but with a subtle orangey-blue contrast.

[Mr Spock]

Nothing but cloud again here 😡

[Froeng]

Had a casual tour of some brighter targets last night. Light pollution and the moon did not help with the fuzzies…

In no particular order: the Moon, Venus, M13, M92, Mizar, zeta Her, NGC 6543, M57, M27, Eps Lyr, and my all-time favourite NGC 7008 (can’t wait to look at this under a darker sky again).

Call me old-fashioned but I really like the view through the tunnels of the 1.25” 45mm Vixen Plössls (about 35deg afov) in the Binoviewer. Makes things look like abstract paintings…!

All viewed in the C8

[Mr Spock]

Clear at last. Moon looks fab tonight. The Hyginus rille system is well presented. The region around Hyginus W looks like a huge scar - amazing.

[Carpy]

Had my first ever look at Albireo tonight, incredible looking double star

[Paz]

I had a great session this evening with the ED102R on an EQ5, spurred on by some recent comments / advice on SGL about Venus I got out early and tried to find the planet up high in broad daylight well before it is visible naked eye. I tried sweeping up and down the Dec axis and moving along in RA a little each time but had no luck either in the eyepiece or in a 6x30 finder. After a quarter of an hour of quite hard work I was still looking. Then I had a rest and a think and I downloaded an inclinometer and a compass into my phone and used those to get my scope pointed roughly in the right place and started sweeping around again. After a few minutes I caught a reflection in the finder scope but on looking at it I realised it was an out of focus and astigmatic Venus (astigmatic as I wasn't wearing my glasses). The time was 18:45 and Venus was still 51 degrees high and completely invisible naked eye. After a bit more sweeping this time at the eyepiece I found it and got my finder exactly aligned and the RA axis tracking. I was at this point observing cyclops for simplicity and through a Herschel wedge for dimming which is a very recent development I have been trying with success.

The view looked really good - no atmospheric dispersion visible, great seeing as it was so high up, and contrast aided by the lighter sky background. I ended up increasing the magnification and there seemed to be no end to what was possible and I maxed out with a 2.5mm SLV for 286x. I got carried away and added a 2.5x power mate for 714x and a crazy-tiny FOV, and failed to find Venus at all with this! It was so good I was prepared to accept the faffing necessary to switch around to binoviewers and ended up with 10mm SLVs and a 2.6x gpc as far forward as I could get it for about 3.4x magnification giving me 243x. This was great - I think the best view of Venus I have had. I got my observing hood on and settled down for an hour of concentrated effort and then did a sketch of the super-faint differences in albedo I could see plus a very slight ding in the terminator. As Venus got lower some atmospheric dispersion starter to appear but very slight and on the limits of what I could detect. After all this effort I needed a rest and so moved on to the moon, Venus was still invisible naked eye at this point.

The moon was a bit too faint for me with the Hershel wedge but a much easier target to observe/enjoy than Venus. Still good clean views and interestingly my attention was drawn away from the terminator deeper into the lit side of the moon as a result of the dimming of the Herschel wedge, without it I would be picking observing features closer to the terminator. One lunar feature that was much better with the wedge was where the sun shines low across the top of a crater and lights up the rim of the lip of the far side of the crater from the sun - crater lips in these positions are often washed out as they are so bright. Not so with the Hershel wedge, I could see terraces and wall features in these positions that I could not see normally. However I then swapped to a prism diagonal for more brightness and had a very good time still at 243x getting more great views, still in broad daylight and with good seeing.

I had to give up at 9pm, I don't usually do such long sessions and decided to quit while I was ahead. My approach to Venus is never going to be the same again - in future if it is at all visible naked eye it's too late to observe it, and if I can see any atmospheric dispersion it's also too late to observe it. I will be giving it more attention, trying to catch it even earlier/higher, and trying with both a C8 and ED102R.

[Mr Spock]

Great report. You should put that in it's own report - it's worth it.

[Mr Spock]

Single shot with the D500 and Tak.

[Stu]

Excellent report @Paz. Agreed, well worth a separate post.

Glad you are finding the wedge to be a good option. Don’t forget to put those filters back before using it on the Sun again!

I managed to find Venus at 18.24 which is the earliest I’ve found it this time round. Similar experience to you using the FC100DC, great views with it up so high.

[Sunshine]

28 minutes ago, Carpy said:

Had my first ever look at Albireo tonight, incredible looking double star

Albireo is enough to make anyone a lover of double stars, it is just sublime.

[Astro_Dad]

Lovely to be back out observing tonight after a nearly six months break with my second first light with a Celestron SS 10” Dob. As reported on a different thread circumstances have essentially resulted in a several month hiatus from the practical aspects of astronomy but good to be back to a purely observational, immersive approach, no AP or similar “distractions “ Tonight was a reorientation of sorts  to check all OK. StarSense alignment completed using the stock 25mm Plossl but quickly switched to the ES 24/68 and Morpheus 12.5/76 for excellent views of some well worn targets - the lunar terminator, Venus, M13 and M81 the main highlights. Partly to check the SS push to was working properly after initial alignment and partly  to simply get my eye back in. Fantastic to view a globular again in moderately clear skies !

[Ags]

Whilst packing up tonight I saw a very bright whitish green streak shoot past, low down to the south east, going in a north east direction. It seemed composed of more than one point of light, but if it was a plane it would have had to be flying very low and totally silent. It was bright enough to light up the garden, and although it was faster than a plane it could have been a bit slower that the average shooting star. Did anyone else in the Amsterdam area see this presumed fireball at around 03:05 AM Netherlands time?

[Mr Spock]

Snap of Ursa Major 

[josefk]

My first all nighter of the year last night. Damn cold for late May. I started on Venus in the lovely evening light and finished on Saturn well after dawn and after a smorgasbord of clusters, doubles, and PNe. Saturn!!!  I only swung down to it for larks after my last double and it was remarkable. The shadow of the planet across its rings was striking at first glance while the body of the planet looked like a weakly belted washed out Jupiter with a rust coloured belt above the rings. Picture perfect in a blue sky. I’m chuffed to bits. 

The long version over here now after a nap and a few coffees 😴https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/410225-a-spring-catch-up-venus-luna-sn-2023ixf-familiar-pne-and-fabulous-seeing/#comment-4383394

 

Edited May 27, 2023 by josefk

[Mr Spock]

3am when I got in. Unfortunately it was starting to get light 😡