What did you see tonight?

[Mr Spock]

I've brought the scope in. There's nothing you can do when it's this bad.

[The60mmKid]

FOA-60Q (aka Honey Badger) doesn't seem to be bothered by bad seeing. I aimed it at Saturn, not expecting much given its current location. Conjuring the bizarre magic that it contains in its lenses, FOA-60Q delivered a sharp, sublimely contrasty view in which I could make out atmospheric detail and the Cassini division.

Satisfying.

[Littleguy80]

After finishing up my domestic chores sometime after midnight, I decided to drag the Tak out for a quick look at Jupiter and Saturn. Seeing was a little iffy but the pattern of Jupiter’s moons made interesting viewing. Saturn looked fab and I spotted at least 3 moons. The Milky Way was reasonably clear overhead. Switched up to the 30mm UFF and observed M45. The trio of M31, M32 and M110 was really quite special. After that, I thought why not the Blue Snowball. In went the Docter and the blue fuzz ball looked wonderful. Swung around to the colourful Albireo. M27 was bright and distinct. Bigger than I was expecting with a green tint to my eye. Down to M71 and then over to M57. Finally a little hunt in Delphinus for the lovely little globular cluster NGC 6934. I could have gone on for hours more but work in the morning was starting to weigh on my mind. Just a brilliant unplanned session. Really reignited my love of observing after a quiet spell. It was everything I love about summer observing. Mild temperatures, observing in a t-shirt/shorts, Milky Way overhead. Lots of fun bright targets, nothing too serious, just very relaxed. 

Edited August 21, 2023 by Littleguy80

[Stu]

5 hours ago, Littleguy80 said:

After finishing up my domestic chores sometime after midnight, I decided to drag the Tak out for a quick look at Jupiter and Saturn. Seeing was a little iffy but the pattern of Jupiter’s moons made interesting viewing. Saturn looked fab and I spotted at least 3 moons. The Milky Way was reasonably clear overhead. Switched up to the 30mm UFF and observed M45. The trio of M31, M32 and M110 was really quite special. After that, I thought why not the Blue Snowball. In went the Docter and the blue fuzz ball looked wonderful. Swung around to the colourful Albireo. M27 was bright and distinct. Bigger than I was expecting with a green tint to my eye. Down to M71 and then over to M57. Finally a little hunt in Delphinus for the lovely little globular cluster NGC 6934. I could have gone on for hours more but work in the morning was starting to weigh on my mind. Just a brilliant unplanned session. Really reignited my love of observing after a quiet spell. It was everything I love about summer observing. Mild temperatures, observing in a t-shirt/shorts, Milky Way overhead. Lots of fun bright targets, nothing too serious, just very relaxed. 

Nothing better! Nice report Neil 👍

[Stu]

For me, just a quickish binocular look at the Moon. Screen shots from the NASA app here for reference, I assume it was the crater Janssen which was prominent on the terminator in the South, and Scott was visible as a tiny point of light separated from the end of the terminator. Earthshine was just starting to be visible the last time I looked when it was quite low down. Nice.

[Stu1smartcookie]

Similar to the above posts ... i put the 127Mak out to cool with plenty of time.. but , even on Saturn i wasn't impressed last night . Its so annoying that we wait so long for clear skies only to be thwarted by poor "seeing" . 

Still we can't change that ( only moan about it ) ... hopefully tonight will be a different story 

 

[Nyctimene]

Was out this morning with the 8" f/4 Hofheim traveldob from 00h50m to 02h10m CEST.  Sub-average conditions (NELM 4.9; summer haze and upcoming clouds).Had a short look at Saturn, but went rapidly to some targets low in the south, before they disappeared behind the barn.  gc M2 showed with mag 133x some stars in the outer regions, but remained a bit flaw. A star hop of about ten minutes, starting from Delta Aquarii, led me to the large planetary NGC 7293, the famous Helix nebula. The disc was invisible without filters, the trusty Thousand Oaks O III revealed it readily, showing the central hole, some embedded stars and a slightly brighter N segment. The "coil" structure, easy in better nights, could not be made out. Best views were with the 12.5 mmf/82° Docter, giving 64x mag. Upcoming clouds in the S prompted me to the N skies and the never disappointing M 81/82 duo. Some dark band structures in M 82 could be made out, as well as the 10 mag galaxy 3077, visible easily with direct vision. Coddington's nebula close by remained invisible, as expected. A very warm late summer night, around 20° C, fortunately without mosquitos.

Thanks for reading

Stephan

[Ratlet]

Had the opposite of most last night, apps said no (so did the met) but I had a feeling it would be clear so launched the 10" Dob out to cool.  Fitted it with AstroEssentials dew shield and the Starsense unit in a 3D printed holder (I'm redesigning it because the non chamfered edges are actually quite sharp and unpleasant to hold).  The balance of the dob was awful as I didn't have time/inclination to adjust the position of the Dob on the alt axis and I didn't have enough weight in the magnet to sort it that way so I just tightened the clutches right up.  Will get it today.

I'm in Angus so just to the North of the Awful seeing that plagued most.  Transparency and seeing were both good and once it got dark I could pick out all the stars of Ursa Major.  Yet again I had no clear plan and mostly just played with the Starsense app to see what I could see.

It was a good night, but mostly testing and going for a 360 degree sweep of the sky (I had 4 hours sleep the night before and had to get the kids off to school solo today).  I hit the usual suspects (M13, M92, M57, M27) but was unable to see anything conclusive in the Veil Nebula or the Crescent nebula.  I did see M29 and M56 which were both firsts.  The Cats Eye Nebula was next and was very bright in its central region.  Double Cluster and Andromeda were next and both were excellent.  I feel that tehre is better colour with the Dob than the 130PDS, but perhaps I'm just more sensitive as I could easily see different star colours in the Double Cluster where as before I never really noticed it.

I looked at a few more things but my brain was rapidly turning to mince and I was in danger of falling asleep behind the wheel.  Saturn remained stubbornly behind my house (even when it is above the house it is so low it skirts the roof) so I called it a night.

The Starsense performed very well.  It still struggles sometimes with finding it's location when low down which I suspect is because of the old phone I'm using (Honor 20).  I'll try installing the software on the pixel 6 and see how that performs.  The issue can largely be resolved though by just moving up until it gets a lock on something and then dipping down.  I'm looking forward to the hopeful role out of just being able to use the Starsense in SkySafari as that will male my life a bit easier as I've got reticules setup and I can configure some lists.  I think my next project is going to do some double stars and see how that goes.

[bosun21]

45 minutes ago, Ratlet said:

Had the opposite of most last night, apps said no (so did the met) but I had a feeling it would be clear so launched the 10" Dob out to cool.  Fitted it with AstroEssentials dew shield and the Starsense unit in a 3D printed holder (I'm redesigning it because the non chamfered edges are actually quite sharp and unpleasant to hold).  The balance of the dob was awful as I didn't have time/inclination to adjust the position of the Dob on the alt axis and I didn't have enough weight in the magnet to sort it that way so I just tightened the clutches right up.  Will get it today.

I'm in Angus so just to the North of the Awful seeing that plagued most.  Transparency and seeing were both good and once it got dark I could pick out all the stars of Ursa Major.  Yet again I had no clear plan and mostly just played with the Starsense app to see what I could see.

It was a good night, but mostly testing and going for a 360 degree sweep of the sky (I had 4 hours sleep the night before and had to get the kids off to school solo today).  I hit the usual suspects (M13, M92, M57, M27) but was unable to see anything conclusive in the Veil Nebula or the Crescent nebula.  I did see M29 and M56 which were both firsts.  The Cats Eye Nebula was next and was very bright in its central region.  Double Cluster and Andromeda were next and both were excellent.  I feel that tehre is better colour with the Dob than the 130PDS, but perhaps I'm just more sensitive as I could easily see different star colours in the Double Cluster where as before I never really noticed it.

I looked at a few more things but my brain was rapidly turning to mince and I was in danger of falling asleep behind the wheel.  Saturn remained stubbornly behind my house (even when it is above the house it is so low it skirts the roof) so I called it a night.

The Starsense performed very well.  It still struggles sometimes with finding it's location when low down which I suspect is because of the old phone I'm using (Honor 20).  I'll try installing the software on the pixel 6 and see how that performs.  The issue can largely be resolved though by just moving up until it gets a lock on something and then dipping down.  I'm looking forward to the hopeful role out of just being able to use the Starsense in SkySafari as that will male my life a bit easier as I've got reticules setup and I can configure some lists.  I think my next project is going to do some double stars and see how that goes.

Why didn't you use the proper Starsense unit that came with the LT80? I bought two of the magnets from Amazon (incase that's the magnet you are referring to). This balances everything on my 12", that's the Starsense unit, phone, RACI and heavy 30mm eyepiece.

[Ratlet]

Just now, bosun21 said:

Why didn't you use the proper Starsense unit that came with the LT80? I bought two of the magnets from Amazon (incase that's the magnet you are referring to). This balances everything on my 12", that's the Starsense unit, phone, RACI and heavy 30mm eyepiece.

I used the actual Starsense unit, it's the holder that I've 3D printed.  I don't want to remove the holder itself from the LT80 so I've just downloaded one of these as it costs about 80p to 3D print (this design works but is a bit rough and the screw is on the wrong side).  The bulk of the balance issues are coming from the dew shield and the single magnet I've got doesn't have the weight to offset it.  Just need to adjust where the tube is balanced to account for the shield and it'll be singing a dream.

[JeremyS]

11 hours ago, The60mmKid said:

FOA-60Q (aka Honey Badger) 

oK, I’ll bite. Why? 🤔

[The60mmKid]

1 hour ago, JeremyS said:

oK, I’ll bite. Why? 🤔

I'm so glad you asked.

Here's a honey badger humbling some lions. Here's a honey badger showing a snake who's boss. And here's a honey badger going about its day whilst skewered with porcupine quills. The honey badger just doesn't care.

FOA-60Q doesn't care, either. On a few occasions, I've been out observing with others when the seeing conditions have been too unfavorable for their larger scopes to perform. Meanwhile, FOA-60Q is doing what it does: providing vivid, razor-sharp views that regularly exceed 200x and even 300x. As long as there's space between the clouds, FOA-60Q just does it, and it's almost bizarre how well it does it.

[SwiMatt]

I had such a good night, so pardon me if I get a bit poetic in this thread

The heat last night was unbearable. Between midnight and about 4.30am I managed to catch some sleep, but impossible to fall back asleep after waking up. Well... I got out in the backyard with my 10x50 and started gazing. For someone used to checking the stars before bedtime, the sky I found was baffling and almost disorienting. From my perspective, in a small Swiss village surrounded by mountains, Cygnus was setting West instead of being high up, while the bow of Orion announced the apparition of the constellation in the sky a couple of months earlier than expected.

For context, I am an astronomy noob normally living in a country with lots of light pollution. Currently, I'm on holidays in the South of Switzerland were I was born, under Bortle 4 skies. So the first thing that hit me was being able to see the Pleiades, M45, by the naked eye. That alone was worth being awake so early. In binoculars the Seven Sisters are magnificent - I dare anyone to say they are not a sight to behold. Just below them, the Hyades seem less clearly connected among them, but look rather like some loose sheeps under the vigilant eye of their shepherd, Aldebaran.

I started checking other objects I had on my list: Mu Cephei showed an orange tint, rather than red, and I lost interest quickly. Nu Draconis, situated just above a mountain crest, proved difficult to split, but the dragon's eyes rarely disappoint... The double cluster in Perseus appeared as a faint extended cloud, beautiful but less showy than I expected. And I was finally sure when I sighted M39 on the tail of Cygnus, after a couple of tries recently where I only (maybe) glimpsed it. It was wonderful, showing 7 stars with direct vision and 3-4 more with averted vision. It's truly a beautiful cluster and I find myself surprised that more people aren't talking about it.

However, the big piece of the night, for me, was M31, the closest galaxy to our own, the Andromeda galaxy - and my first galaxy, since in the 4 months since I started this hobby I was never in a condition to see it. Once I found it, it was impossible to lose sight of it. It appeared to me like a floating fuzzy cloud, with a luminous center, spreading out. That thing is a whole other "us". I cannot even fathom this thought. In a way, it's almost eerie, and it seems to promise you the uttering of weird secrets about the universe. It doesn't even seem to find place in our firmament, as the binoculars are filled with it and only it.

After all this, I had the chance of seeing Jupiter. I expected something small and inconclusive, a bit like Venus or Mars (the only other planets I had experience with), but I was so wrong. First, in 10x50 Jupiter looks obviousltly like a disc, not just a dot. Second... what are those little dots surrounding the disc? 1, 2,... are they 4? I'm not quite sure that I spotted them all, but Stellarium confirmed that the Galilean satellites were all visible at the time of my observation. 

I hoped to wait out Orion to spot M42 and M43, but unfortunately the Sun was close by... the double cluster wasn't so visible anymore, and M39 didn't seem to feel good either, so pale... M31 resisted high in the sky, but it was time for me to get back in. I kissed good bye to the Pleiades, as I tried to imagine what our ancestors in the Stone Age thought as they gazed at the sky.

EDIT: I almost forgot, I also saw some shooting stars from the Perseids: one early on in my session, another crossed my field of view while I was looking at Jupiter.

Edited August 25, 2023 by SwiMatt

[josefk]

Nice write up @SwiMatt sounds like you had fun and I personally love a bit of poetic description first thing in the morning 👍  

[Epick Crom]

17 hours ago, SwiMatt said:

I had such a good night, so pardon me if I get a bit poetic in this thread

The heat last night was unbearable. Between midnight and about 4.30am I managed to catch some sleep, but impossible to fall back asleep after waking up. Well... I got out in the backyard with my 10x50 and started gazing. For someone used to checking the stars before bedtime, the sky I found was baffling and almost disorienting. From my perspective, in a small Swiss village surrounded by clouds, Cygnus was setting West instead of being high up, while the bow of Orion announced the apparition of the constellation in the sky a couple of months earlier than expected.

For context, I am an astronomy noob normally living in a country with lots of light pollution. Currently, I'm on holidays in the South of Switzerland were I was born, under Bortle 4 skies. So the first thing that hit me was being able to see the Pleiades, M45, by the naked eye. That alone was worth being awake so early. In binoculars the Seven Sisters are magnificent - I dare anyone to say they are not a sight to behold. Just below them, the Hyades seem less clearly connected among them, but look rather like some loose sheeps under the vigilant eye of their shepherd, Aldebaran.

I started checking other objects I had on my list: Mu Cephei showed an orange tint, rather than red, and I lost interest quickly. Nu Draconis, situated just above a mountain crest, proved difficult to split, but the dragon's eyes rarely disappoint... The double cluster in Perseus appeared as a faint extended cloud, beautiful but less showy than I expected. And I was finally sure when I sighted M39 on the tail of Cygnus, after a couple of tries recently where I only (maybe) glimpsed it. It was wonderful, showing 7 stars with direct vision and 3-4 more with averted vision. It's truly a beautiful cluster and I find myself surprised that more people aren't talking about it.

However, the big piece of the night, for me, was M31, the closest galaxy to our own, the Andromeda galaxy - and my first galaxy, since in the 4 months since I started this hobby I was never in a condition to see it. Once I found it, it was impossible to lose sight of it. It appeared to me like a floating fuzzy cloud, with a luminous center, spreading out. That thing is a whole other "us". I cannot even fathom this thought. In a way, it's almost eerie, and it seems to promise you the uttering of weird secrets about the universe. It doesn't even seem to find place in our firmament, as the binoculars are filled with it and only it.

After all this, I had the chance of seeing Jupiter. I expected something small and inconclusive, a bit like Venus or Mars (the only other planets I had experience with), but I was so wrong. First, in 10x50 Jupiter looks obviousltly like a disc, not just a dot. Second... what are those little dots surrounding the disc? 1, 2,... are they 4? I'm not quite sure that I spotted them all, but Stellarium confirmed that the Galilean satellites were all visible at the time of my observation. 

I hoped to wait out Orion to spot M42 and M43, but unfortunately the Sun was close by... the double cluster wasn't so visible anymore, and M39 didn't seem to feel good either, so pale... M31 resisted high in the sky, but it was time for me to get back in. I kissed good bye to the Pleiades, as I tried to imagine what our ancestors in the Stone Age thought as they gazed at the sky.

EDIT: I almost forgot, I also saw some shooting stars from the Perseids: one early on in my session, another crossed my field of view while I was looking at Jupiter.

Fantastic report SwiMatt, I'm glad you are discovering the magic that is visual observing! 

Clear Skies

Joe

[Epick Crom]

The early evening sky was clear with a steady atmosphere so I decided to go crazy on the waxing crescent moon and unleash my 2.3mm eyepiece combined with my X2 shorty barlow on it using my 10 inch dob!

This combination resulted in 1,044x magnification. Strewth, the image held up! The craters Aristoteles and Eudoxus looked amazingly large at this power, with an unnamed mountain near Eudoxus casting a prominent shadow. I saw a shadow half way all along the Alpine Valley, that's the first time I have ever seen that. The lunar features take on a new identity under very high magnification!

[The60mmKid]

5 minutes ago, Epick Crom said:

The early evening sky was clear with a steady atmosphere so I decided to go crazy on the waxing crescent moon and unleash my 2.3mm eyepiece combined with my X2 shorty barlow on it using my 10 inch dob!

This combination resulted in 1,044x magnification. Strewth, the image held up! The craters Aristoteles and Eudoxus looked amazingly large at this power, with an unnamed mountain near Eudoxus casting a prominent shadow. I saw a shadow half way all along the Alpine Valley, that's the first time I have ever seen that. The lunar features take on a new identity under very high magnification!

That sounds amazing! Good to have those high-power oculars in hand when the seeing allows for such things!

[Mr Spock]

Very clear at the moment. Moon looks lovely but too low for me to get a scope on it. I'll be putting the 4" out in a while to do a few doubles.

[Stu]

On 23/08/2023 at 07:48, SwiMatt said:

I had such a good night, so pardon me if I get a bit poetic in this thread

The heat last night was unbearable. Between midnight and about 4.30am I managed to catch some sleep, but impossible to fall back asleep after waking up. Well... I got out in the backyard with my 10x50 and started gazing. For someone used to checking the stars before bedtime, the sky I found was baffling and almost disorienting. From my perspective, in a small Swiss village surrounded by clouds, Cygnus was setting West instead of being high up, while the bow of Orion announced the apparition of the constellation in the sky a couple of months earlier than expected.

For context, I am an astronomy noob normally living in a country with lots of light pollution. Currently, I'm on holidays in the South of Switzerland were I was born, under Bortle 4 skies. So the first thing that hit me was being able to see the Pleiades, M45, by the naked eye. That alone was worth being awake so early. In binoculars the Seven Sisters are magnificent - I dare anyone to say they are not a sight to behold. Just below them, the Hyades seem less clearly connected among them, but look rather like some loose sheeps under the vigilant eye of their shepherd, Aldebaran.

I started checking other objects I had on my list: Mu Cephei showed an orange tint, rather than red, and I lost interest quickly. Nu Draconis, situated just above a mountain crest, proved difficult to split, but the dragon's eyes rarely disappoint... The double cluster in Perseus appeared as a faint extended cloud, beautiful but less showy than I expected. And I was finally sure when I sighted M39 on the tail of Cygnus, after a couple of tries recently where I only (maybe) glimpsed it. It was wonderful, showing 7 stars with direct vision and 3-4 more with averted vision. It's truly a beautiful cluster and I find myself surprised that more people aren't talking about it.

However, the big piece of the night, for me, was M31, the closest galaxy to our own, the Andromeda galaxy - and my first galaxy, since in the 4 months since I started this hobby I was never in a condition to see it. Once I found it, it was impossible to lose sight of it. It appeared to me like a floating fuzzy cloud, with a luminous center, spreading out. That thing is a whole other "us". I cannot even fathom this thought. In a way, it's almost eerie, and it seems to promise you the uttering of weird secrets about the universe. It doesn't even seem to find place in our firmament, as the binoculars are filled with it and only it.

After all this, I had the chance of seeing Jupiter. I expected something small and inconclusive, a bit like Venus or Mars (the only other planets I had experience with), but I was so wrong. First, in 10x50 Jupiter looks obviousltly like a disc, not just a dot. Second... what are those little dots surrounding the disc? 1, 2,... are they 4? I'm not quite sure that I spotted them all, but Stellarium confirmed that the Galilean satellites were all visible at the time of my observation. 

I hoped to wait out Orion to spot M42 and M43, but unfortunately the Sun was close by... the double cluster wasn't so visible anymore, and M39 didn't seem to feel good either, so pale... M31 resisted high in the sky, but it was time for me to get back in. I kissed good bye to the Pleiades, as I tried to imagine what our ancestors in the Stone Age thought as they gazed at the sky.

EDIT: I almost forgot, I also saw some shooting stars from the Perseids: one early on in my session, another crossed my field of view while I was looking at Jupiter.

Please feel free to start a thread in the observing section to post this report in. I hate to see these longer reports buried in this thread so they don’t get the attention they deserve.

[John]

Little and Large: 70mm F/6 ED doublet + Nagler 31mm + Lumicon O-III filter = 6 degrees of true field and great views of the Veil Nebula. E & W segments plus Pickerings Wisp framed by masses of dark star-studded sky. 

So much for O-III filters not being useful in small aperture scopes 😁

 

 

[John]

Further to the above post, observing with such a wide true field of view is a very interesting experience and not just for the Veil Nebula. Star patterns and asterisms show up all over the place that I had not noticed before. The area around the double cluster in Perseus for example is full of star chains and groupings that I had just over looked, or rather, looked right though, in the past. Seeing favourites such as M27, M31 and the M81/82 galaxy pair in the context of relatively large expanses of sky is really quite exciting despite the small scale of the DSO's themselves. 

Excellent fun - I shall do this again 🙂

 

[Stu]

4 hours ago, John said:

The area around the double cluster in Perseus for example is full of star chains and groupings

There are some nice ones around there, agreed John, particularly looping up to Stock 2 I recall.

Did you try for the NAN whilst you were at the Veil? Looks great in these small scopes/wide fields too. Totally agree about OIIIs being very useful in small scopes, people are missing out on a lot if they stick to an 8” minimum 👍

[badhex]

On 23/08/2023 at 05:48, SwiMatt said:

I had such a good night, so pardon me if I get a bit poetic in this thread

The heat last night was unbearable. Between midnight and about 4.30am I managed to catch some sleep, but impossible to fall back asleep after waking up. Well... I got out in the backyard with my 10x50 and started gazing. For someone used to checking the stars before bedtime, the sky I found was baffling and almost disorienting. From my perspective, in a small Swiss village surrounded by clouds, Cygnus was setting West instead of being high up, while the bow of Orion announced the apparition of the constellation in the sky a couple of months earlier than expected.

For context, I am an astronomy noob normally living in a country with lots of light pollution. Currently, I'm on holidays in the South of Switzerland were I was born, under Bortle 4 skies. So the first thing that hit me was being able to see the Pleiades, M45, by the naked eye. That alone was worth being awake so early. In binoculars the Seven Sisters are magnificent - I dare anyone to say they are not a sight to behold. Just below them, the Hyades seem less clearly connected among them, but look rather like some loose sheeps under the vigilant eye of their shepherd, Aldebaran.

I started checking other objects I had on my list: Mu Cephei showed an orange tint, rather than red, and I lost interest quickly. Nu Draconis, situated just above a mountain crest, proved difficult to split, but the dragon's eyes rarely disappoint... The double cluster in Perseus appeared as a faint extended cloud, beautiful but less showy than I expected. And I was finally sure when I sighted M39 on the tail of Cygnus, after a couple of tries recently where I only (maybe) glimpsed it. It was wonderful, showing 7 stars with direct vision and 3-4 more with averted vision. It's truly a beautiful cluster and I find myself surprised that more people aren't talking about it.

However, the big piece of the night, for me, was M31, the closest galaxy to our own, the Andromeda galaxy - and my first galaxy, since in the 4 months since I started this hobby I was never in a condition to see it. Once I found it, it was impossible to lose sight of it. It appeared to me like a floating fuzzy cloud, with a luminous center, spreading out. That thing is a whole other "us". I cannot even fathom this thought. In a way, it's almost eerie, and it seems to promise you the uttering of weird secrets about the universe. It doesn't even seem to find place in our firmament, as the binoculars are filled with it and only it.

After all this, I had the chance of seeing Jupiter. I expected something small and inconclusive, a bit like Venus or Mars (the only other planets I had experience with), but I was so wrong. First, in 10x50 Jupiter looks obviousltly like a disc, not just a dot. Second... what are those little dots surrounding the disc? 1, 2,... are they 4? I'm not quite sure that I spotted them all, but Stellarium confirmed that the Galilean satellites were all visible at the time of my observation. 

I hoped to wait out Orion to spot M42 and M43, but unfortunately the Sun was close by... the double cluster wasn't so visible anymore, and M39 didn't seem to feel good either, so pale... M31 resisted high in the sky, but it was time for me to get back in. I kissed good bye to the Pleiades, as I tried to imagine what our ancestors in the Stone Age thought as they gazed at the sky.

EDIT: I almost forgot, I also saw some shooting stars from the Perseids: one early on in my session, another crossed my field of view while I was looking at Jupiter.

Lovely write up, sounds like a great session! 

Further to what @Stu said, I also like to write up my sessions long form sometimes, so I'll usually write up a separate post and then post a short precis here with a link to the full post, which has worked pretty well! Please do keep posting your reports, a pleasure to read! 

 

[badhex]

7 hours ago, John said:

Further to the above post, observing with such a wide true field of view is a very interesting experience and not just for the Veil Nebula. Star patterns and asterisms show up all over the place that I had not noticed before. The area around the double cluster in Perseus for example is full of star chains and groupings that I had just over looked, or rather, looked right though, in the past. Seeing favourites such as M27, M31 and the M81/82 galaxy pair in the context of relatively large expanses of sky is really quite exciting despite the small scale of the DSO's themselves. 

Excellent fun - I shall do this again 🙂

 

I too really enjoy panning around starfields with my ZS73 and the Aero ED when in darker skies, just because so much is visible and I feel like you almost see more stuff this way (obviously you literally see more stars but I mean somehow you observe more, if that makes any sense). 

Also another vote for using Oiii and UHC filters in small aperture (and especially fast FL) scopes. I can't remember who convinced me a few years ago (maybe @jetstream and possibly also @Stu who is also bad for my wallet 😂) to get an Oiii - but I don't even own an 8" scope; I first observed the Veil with a 4" and it was breathtaking!

[Merak]

 I had a look at a few open clusters, M57 and a couple of galaxies because I was testing out Astrohopper to see how well it worked.

I had bought a smartphone tripod adaptor which, with the help of a washer fitted at the right angle on the photothread of the tube cradle.  It seemed to work quite well.

The skies weren't great(cloud etc) and it was a short session because I'd been up since 4am because of work.