What did you see tonight?

[Franklin]

I set the 115 up at around 5.00, Saturn was ok in the dusk sky. Hour later gave Moon and Jupiter a go and the seeing was pants, put the HR's away and the 115 and took the 81 out for a couple of hours. 6mm SLV for 104x was max mag but the Moon was looking good around Aristarchus and Herodotus, Schroters Valley shadows just showing around the cobra head. Central peaks of Gassendi in nice shadow and Schiller looking very narrow. Jupiter was showing it's belts but I needed to put the neodymium in to get a hint of the GRS. Be back out around midnight to bag some doubles in and around the Hunter.

[IB20]

A moon night tonight with the 200P. Seeing not fantastic but serviceable. Near the Northern limb craters Herschel, Robinson and South really standing out. South appears with a really eye catching uneven surface effect. Craters Anaximander and Carpenter are completely in shadow making a boot shape. There’s also a floating shelf from a craters edge appearing entirely detached which may be Desargues? Correction, I think this is Pythagoras!

It’s nice to have a lunar session once in a while. Large swathes of cloud keep coming over though which is getting my goat!

Edited November 24, 2023 by IB20

[John]

The clouds are staying away and the seeing seems to be really pretty good here now 🙂

With supper out of the way I can concentrate on the moon and Jupiter for a while 👍

I seem to be under a more benign part of the jetstream tonight. 

Edited November 24, 2023 by John

[Telescope40]

Hello all.  Just come in after about a 2 hour session.  The chosen footwear not cutting it. 

Firstly caught the ISS in my Canon IS 10 x 30's and could swear I could see another object in the field of view, much fainter, keeping pace with the ISS. Maybe a reflection from the binos. Odd but hey !!

Tak 128 had 30 mins cool time.  Moved onto Saturn and Jupiter. Have to say it's a rather steady night unlike other recent posts. Sorry chaps !!   Jupiter is magic. Rather large dark mark in the SEB on the meridian these last 20 mins or so. Pity no GRS or transit action. 

Moon - using my Duplex Moon Atlas - nice views of Vallis Schroteri. The illuminated side wall of Aristarchus giving up detail.  First time for me noting Rupes Toscanelli  and the peak of Mons Herodotus shining nicely on the terminator.   

Nice session.  Maybe another go tomorrow looking a the forecast. If it don't pan out, you can all blame me. 

John 

[IB20]

Seems to be a dark knot in the NEB. I thought it was the GRS at first then remembered I was using a reflector. 🙃

[Mr Spock]

Seeing still no good but not quite as bad as earlier. I settled on x185 even though it was perhaps a touch too much.

Jupiter showing some belt detail - numerous 'knot' type features (not sure what the correct description is.

Moon was reasonable. I started off with Aristarchus which was showing inner details with three bright hills to the NW. Spent a while on Gassendi picking up M, N and P, with some rilles. Schiller is well lit and Schickard emerging from shadow is interesting.

Way too cold though. Even with gloves my fingers are frozen. I'll have to get the big, thick, waterproof gloves out; can't really handle eyepieces or focuser well with those though.

[IB20]

37 minutes ago, Franklin said:

 Schroters Valley shadows just showing around the cobra head.

I didn’t know this was a thing until your post, thanks. The shadows are a little too elongated to show it as some images do but it’s a great feature.
 

Edited November 24, 2023 by IB20

[Franklin]

GRS transits again at 2.30am.

[Mr Spock]

5 minutes ago, Franklin said:

GRS transits again at 2.30am.

I will be fast asleep when that happens 

[John]

Sorry for those for whom the seeing is poor tonight but it's first class here.

On the moon I've had glimpses of the Doppelmayer Rilles in the Mare Humorum which are normally quite a challenge in the 120mm aperture. The concentric ring crater Hesiodus A is showing well in the Mare Nubium. These are very sharp at 300x tonight. 

The floor of Gassendi is a riot of rilles, peaks and rough terrain. So much to see.  

[Stu]

47 minutes ago, Telescope40 said:

Rather large dark mark in the SEB on the meridian these last 20 mins or so

36 minutes ago, IB20 said:

Seems to be a dark knot in the NEB

Seeing has improved here. Not amazing, but better than earlier. Jupiter is showing some nice detail; reference the above quotes, I see a dark knot at the top edge of the NEB but haven’t noticed one on the SEB. There seem to be a couple of nice festoons hanging off the NEB and plenty of other subtle variation in the belts.

The Moon had also settled down a bit. Surprisingly I was seeing four Plato Craterlets, possibly more, not something I was expecting in these conditions. The feature @IB20 mentioned, the kind of ‘shelf’ sticking out into the blackness was very striking.

Finally, I took @Johns lead and tracked down Uranus. This was far from trivial as I could hardly see any stars even in the finder. Add to that using an EQ mount and that made things more tricky for me, I prefer star hopping with an AltAz mount.

I managed to see enough stars to get me there in the finder and sure enough, there it was in the binoviewers. It was a definite disk, essentially grey to my eyes but perhaps with a hint of pale green but very subtle if at all.

Nice little session, may pop out again later, not sure.

 

[Telescope40]

5 minutes ago, Stu said:

the

Stu. Getting Equatorial belts upside down. 
I’ll put it down to being giddy with the view. 
 

John 

[Stu]

7 minutes ago, Telescope40 said:

Stu. Getting Equatorial belts upside down. 
I’ll put it down to being giddy with the view. 
 

John 

Tee hee, happens to the best of us 🤣

[Stu]

55 minutes ago, Mr Spock said:

Jupiter showing some belt detail - numerous 'knot' type features (not sure what the correct description is.

Round dark features on the belts I used to know as barges, but this didn’t necessarily look like one of those. Interested to know others thoughts on this feature.

[John]

13 minutes ago, Stu said:

Round dark features on the belts I used to know as barges, but this didn’t necessarily look like one of those. Interested to know others thoughts on this feature.

I've noticed a couple of features within the structure of the NEB that looked a bit like twists in the belt. That is not a scientific explanation of course but that is what they put me in mind of. I saw a pale elongated feature that ran diagonally across the NEB a few nights back. I described it as a "pale slash" then but that does not seem to be on show tonight. I did notice a couple of festoons coming from the S edge of the NEB.

There is a lot going on in and around the NEB that is for sure !

I'm just going to find Uranus myself now to complete my gas giant "set" this evening 🙂

 

Edited November 24, 2023 by John

[Zermelo]

Well, I didn't research that very well: the moon was actually high up and dominant. But the goto was working well, with a small but consistent error, so I could pretty much guess where the fainter targets were, even if they weren't visible in the 9x50.

The seeing did vary a bit, but overall it was mediocre. I did split quite a few doubles, including some wider-but-faint first timers: HD17007, 30 Arietis, HD15695, 66 Ceti, HD15994, HD17332 and HD6651. The tightest I managed were 42 Ceti at 1.6" and Epsilon Arietis at 1.3", though only very occasionally in a boiling murk.

Jupiter was similar to last night, not taking a lot of magnification, but showing some detail in the equatorial belts. Uranus was its usual pale green self (I've never seen it otherwise). And the moon - it just fitted into my Svbony 9-27mm zoom at its widest, nice and sharp to the edge, though with a thin, yellow caste on the limb. Tycho was bright and prominent, this close to full. But high magnification showed some softness to the detail.

Later on in the session there seemed to be some high mistiness across most of the sky, and the moon's effect was magnified. A bank of cloud blew in from the North East, and my ungloved hand was seizing up, so time to come in.

Edited November 24, 2023 by Zermelo

[IB20]

Uranus in all its glory 😅, no sign in any Uranian moons though.

I did stumble across a very cool double in HD20682 and a false Uranus in XX Arietis too.

 

Edited November 24, 2023 by IB20

[John]

15 minutes ago, Zermelo said:

... I did split quite a few doubles, including some wider-but-faint first timers: HD17007, 30 Arietis, HD15695, 66 Ceti, HD15994, HD17332 and HD6651. The tightest I managed were 42 Ceti at 1.6" and Epsilon Arietis at 1.3", though only very occasionally in a boiling murk...

Many thanks for reminding me of Epsilon Arietis, close to Uranus. A lovely tight pair of stars that I have not observed for a long time. My seeing seems to be still good with this pair cleanly split from 225x upwards.

Thanks again 👍

[lunator]

2 minutes ago, John said:

Many thanks for reminding me of Epsilon Arietis, close to Uranus. A lovely tight pair of stars that I have not observed for a long time. My seeing seems to be still good with this pair cleanly split from 225x upwards.

Thanks again 👍

Hi John 

One of my favourite doubles. It's on the front of my book :).

It is closing now. I calculated a minimum orbital period of 600 years but the current estimate is around 1200 years. One curious point is as far as I am aware Herschel never noted this pair. He may have missed it in his observing programme but a 5th star in a well placed constellation would be a target to observe I think. My preference is the pair were too close for Him to resolve around the 1780s.

Cheers

Ian

 

[IB20]

Have finished the night on M42 and one of my favourite doubles in Rigel. The seeing is even more pap lower down but Rigel is still such an easy split despite Rigel A being a big roiling mess. It will soon be Sirius season 🤩, can’t wait to blast another 30 odd observing hours trying to spot the pup. 😅

[Froeng]

Just came in from a frosty evening. Winter is coming!

Jupiter was quite good tonight. Unfortunately a third of it was behind the roof of the house! However, it still took 500x 😮 in the C8 with bino. A bit mushy but that was the optics - not the air!

A dark feature in one of the equatorial belts was transitting around 10pm…

 

[John]

Just finished my session with a lovely view of the Trapezium stars including E & F. The nebula is rather washed out by moonlight but the stars of Theta 1 Orionis (to give it the full title) were very crisp with the 2 fainter components being visible with direct observation.

Brrr - it is cold though. Winter observing is here, but hopefully with the promise of some more clear nights 😃

Edited November 25, 2023 by John

[Nigella Bryant]

Just back in from a great session on Jupiter with brief views of Uranus and the moon. Seeing was really good so took the opportunity of imaging Jupiter.  There was several festoons emanating from the north equatorial belt into the equatorial zone and a really dark knot within the North equatorial belt. So much so I first thought I was observing a transit of Io but it wasn't. There was also an interesting large oval on the top of the south equatorial belt. Seeing deteriorated around 11pm but got two hours of observations. Really chuffed with the tracking of the Eq8 R Pro at f25. 

The mobile phone shots of the screen do not give justice to the intricate details seen this evening. 

[Andy ES]

Tonight I showed my brother in law the Moon and Jupiter.

This is for someone who NEVER EVER looks up at the sky.

He couldn’t believe he could see a planet with his own eyes.

Wonderful to show this to a new astronomer.

Upshot was he said I know you have got a telescope.

When can I come and look through it?

Fantastic. (He will also make a great body guard when I’m out in the field) 😂

 

[RobertI]

Just had a brief session - full thermals were needed to battle the cold, but it was worth the effort as I didn’t feel chilly at all. The main purpose of the session was to work out what to take to tomorrow’s outreach session, with likely 40-50 people in attendance. Decided that the 102ED with binoviewers would work well with Luna, Jupiter and Saturn. That setup will give high powered views of 170x  if the seeing allows, but also giving a low power 57x view which will frame the moon completely - when the moon is full this low power view is breathtaking through binoviewers and I am hoping to hear plenty of “Wows”! The seeing tonight was pants unfortunately. 

Edited November 25, 2023 by RobertI