What did you see tonight?

[Mr Spock]

3 minutes ago, John said:

The Hell H crater chain

Never got to look at that. 5hrs of observing isn't enough time to get everything!

[Epick Crom]

56 minutes ago, Kon said:

Star testing my 200P after my first ever collimation. Everything looked good. Then a look at the moon. Wow super sharp! The craters were showing nice features and the shadows were nicely distinguished. I think my collimation went well. This is an unprocessed image through the eyepiece.

 

Well done with the collimation Kostas. Collimation sure is a dark art that I found intimidating at first but once you become more familiar with it it becomes easier. Looks like you nailed it!

[Saganite]

A short but enjoyable session tonight, mostly Lunar again ,  with my Vixen  ED 103, and it was pretty steady at 105x .  The transparency has not been good this evening and I have just come in because it has become quite misty, almost a light fog, such that I can barely make out the Hunters belt !

That is four outings in eight days.  What is going on !

 

[Kon]

6 minutes ago, Epick Crom said:

Well done with the collimation Kostas. Collimation sure is a dark art that I found intimidating at first but once you become more familiar with it it becomes easier. Looks like you nailed it!

I found it quite scary but in the end i decided to start messing with the secondary and get a feeling what moves. Quite happy to have gone through the process; the real test is if I can still see the faint fuzzies 😀

[Epick Crom]

7 minutes ago, Kon said:

I found it quite scary but in the end i decided to start messing with the secondary and get a feeling what moves. Quite happy to have gone through the process; the real test is if I can still see the faint fuzzies 😀

Dont worry mate you will now see them better than before!

[John]

Just finished a good session with Zeta Cancri / Tegmine. A challenging but rewarding triple star with a 100mm aperture.

The seeing seems to have become highly variable though - fine for a few seconds then all blurry then fine again. Don't know whats going on up there

 

Edited January 12, 2022 by John

[Davesellars]

Just come in from a decent although mixed (sometimes frustrating) session starting at 8pm using 3 scopes in the end.  Managed to fit a lot in though almost 6 hours plus 1 hour from 5pm to 6pm for Jupiter before it got too low.  Will write up a report tomorrow properly!

[Voyager 3]

6 hours ago, John said:

Just finished a good session with Zeta Cancri / Tegmine. A challenging but rewarding triple star with a 100mm aperture.

The seeing seems to have become highly variable though - fine for a few seconds then all blurry then fine again. Don't know whats going on up there

 

Were you able to split the tougher AB pair John ? This pair is riiiiight at the Dawes limit for a 4" scope but is relatively bright with only a little ∆mag . Perfect choice for your 4" refractor . 

[Nik271]

Transparency was very good last night but seeing went downhill after 9pm, I had the big Mak out looking first at the Moon, then planning for some close doubles, but gave up. At one point I had trouble splitting even Rigel which was dancing all over the place. So I took my 20x80 bins and had a pleasant half an hour scan of the low southern clusters. M41 looked very good, normally I don't get to see it well because of the low altitude and city glow. M47 was sparkling, flanked by two red giants and I could even spot nearby M46 and NGC 2423. I read that M46 has a planetary nebula, that is a nice project with the telescope for another day.

Edited January 12, 2022 by Nik271
typos

[John]

3 hours ago, Voyager 3 said:

Were you able to split the tougher AB pair John ? This pair is riiiiight at the Dawes limit for a 4" scope but is relatively bright with only a little ∆mag . Perfect choice for your 4" refractor . 

During the moments of best seeing, I did see a split at 257x.

 

[ScouseSpaceCadet]

Despite my glee after reading the forecast and the 'glassy' dusk skies, humidity last night was high, so I stayed with lunar observing for an hour or so until fatigue won and an unusually early bedtime called.. ☹️

 

High power observing using the 102 f7 at that alt on the AZ5 becomes vibe-o-rama vision... 5 seconds to settle down with each touch. 🙄

 

Edited January 12, 2022 by ScouseSpaceCadet

[Mr Spock]

1 hour ago, ScouseSpaceCadet said:

High power observing using the 102 f7 at that alt on the AZ5 is becomes vibe-o-rama vision... 5 seconds to settle down with each touch.

Rock solid on an EQ5  And no touching required 

[ScouseSpaceCadet]

30 minutes ago, Mr Spock said:

Rock solid on an EQ5  And no touching required 

Same on my Celestron AVX but last night I couldn't be bothered setting up. 🙄 I'm considering replacing the now sold Mak 102 with a Mak 127 to go on my AZ5 and AZGTi. Both those mounts suit shorter scopes.

[JDF]

3 hours ago, ScouseSpaceCadet said:

Same on my Celestron AVX but last night I couldn't be bothered setting up. 🙄 I'm considering replacing the now sold Mak 102 with a Mak 127 to go on my AZ5 and AZGTi. Both those mounts suit shorter scopes.

I upgraded the tripod to the 1.75 steel for the AZ5 and mak 127, it's rock solid even when manually tracking at 150x.

[ScouseSpaceCadet]

24 minutes ago, JDF said:

I upgraded the tripod to the 1.75 steel for the AZ5 and mak 127, it's rock solid even when manually tracking at 150x.

Thanks. I have the steel tripod. Using a longer telescope however with this type of mount increases the wobbles.

[JDF]

56 minutes ago, ScouseSpaceCadet said:

Thanks. I have the steel tripod. Using a longer telescope however with this type of mount increases the wobbles.

Ah right, I didn't know this, useful for future plans. Thanks

[Davesellars]

All setup - it's completely clear but the transparency is absolutely terrible at the moment (even worse than last night).  Waiting until a bit later hopefully it will improve like it did considerably last night after 10 / 11 pm...

[Mr Spock]

Just snacking - waiting for the moon to come into my arc.

[JDF]

Lunar viewing just finished for tonight ,plato craterlets, alpine valley and a good few more off the list! Seeing was fantastic tonight with beautiful resolution at 214x  which hasn't been the case lately.

[John]

120mm refractor out tonight. Moon looks very nice again though thin high cloud is scrubbing a little off the ultimate sharpness I feel. Unless that clears later it won't be much of a deep sky night here. Binary stars should be OK though.

The Hadley Rille looked sharp earlier at 257x and 300x. Catena Davy showed slightly more craters than the 100mm managed last night. Such an interesting feature 

Edited January 12, 2022 by John

[Muc]

Managed 250x myself on the moon tonight with 120 achro. First time this was really do-able for me. Just had to get used to some floaters. Corpenicus, the line of craters west of Plato, Promontorium Laplace casting shadows into Sinus Iridum and the massively bright rim of crater T. Mayer A. Absolutely beautiful night out

[Mr Spock]

Just had the 102mm on the moon. Doing a bit of 'browsing'. Seeing is wobbly, with moments of clarity and moment of fuzzyness. Settled on Copernicus for a while. Best view coming with my Barlow combination and 9mm ortho - x292. It was still decent with the 7mm - x375. I didn't think small scopes could handle that kind of magnification, but they can 

Usual problem with my retinopathy floaters, but I have to put up with that 

[Pete Presland]

1 hour ago, John said:

120mm refractor out tonight. Moon looks very nice again though thin high cloud is scrubbing a little off the ultimate sharpness I feel. Unless that clears later it won't be much of a deep sky night here. Binary stars should be OK though.

The Hadley Rille looked sharp earlier at 257x and 300x. Catena Davy showed slightly more craters than the 100mm managed last night. Such an interesting feature 

I remember the 1st time i saw this, i couldn't believe what i was seeing. Such an interesting feature to observe/image

[Kon]

Moon is looking great tonight, very sharp despite the thin haze. My eye was drawn in Euklides and in particular the Montes Riphaeus. Bullialdus was showing nice details with its central peak. 

[Mr Spock]

I'm going back out in a few moments. I'll give that crater chain a peruse 😜