What did you see tonight?

[Naughty Neal]

I have full on cloud cover, well almost it is 99%.

[Stu]

Just in to warm up a bit, lovely views of the Moon and Jupiter tonight in the 4”. I’ve been using, dare I say, @Zermelo’s SvBony 3-8mm zoom 😜. What a cracking eyepiece it is! Will post up separately, but suffice to say it held its own against all comers, possibly more than held it’s own! My order is in, so Paul can have his back very soon 😁

[JeremyS]

2 minutes ago, Stu said:

Just in to warm up a bit, lovely views of the Moon and Jupiter tonight in the 4”. I’ve been using, dare I say, @Zermelo’s SvBony 3-8mm zoom 😜. What a cracking eyepiece it is! Will post up separately, but suffice to say it held its own against all comers, possibly more than held it’s own!

 Impressive, Stu? Have you had a chance to compare at 3mm? Eg with your NZ 3-6? I had the impression it might lose a little at that end. But I have been amazed at what Ive experienced so far

[Stu]

25 minutes ago, JeremyS said:

 Impressive, Stu? Have you had a chance to compare at 3mm? Eg with your NZ 3-6? I had the impression it might lose a little at that end. But I have been amazed at what Ive experienced so far

I tried it at 5mm vs BGO, XW and Nag Zoom, and at 3mm on the Moon vs Vixen 3.4 HR. Putting it simply, I couldn’t see anywhere it was lacking against the others! The seeing was good, but not quite there to allow really close comparison at highest powers but if anything I may have preferred it to the Nag Zoom, and tied or very close with the others. It’s always hard to know what is a difference and what is just small changes in seeing. Mostly it was the seeing.

[Captain Scarlet]

53 minutes ago, Captain Scarlet said:

It seems that Ganymede will reappear from shadow more than a full disc diameter NW from the planet around 2155 or so. I’ll be out for that.

Hmm. I can see Ganymede 15 minutes before it said it should appear. SS was wrong

[Astro_Dad]

Perfect night for astronomy here in the Yorkshire Dales. Kids asleep so an opportunity to take the SS Dob out. No StarSense required, just a very simple manual hunt for well known easy targets. The moon, Jupiter, M42, M45 etc. freezing but worth it. Love the tech in all of these new imaging and AI equipped ‘scopes but for me nothing beats a “real” view through my own eyes - albeit these days a little more infrequent than I’d like. Absolutely freezing of course and warming back up inside now! 

[John]

I'm more inside than outside just now even though there is a superb 130mm refractor all cooled down outside. Although the sky is still clear and the seeing is decent, an annoying blustery wind has sprung up lowering the temps further and seemingly buffeting the scope just when I have a critical high power target in the eyepiece that could do with still-ish conditions to make the best of 🤨

It's still been a good session though, despite that 🙂

 

Edited January 17 by John

[Mr Spock]

OK, it's done. This is probably my first and last drawing, and most likely as bad as artwork and accuracy gets. Stuff kept moving around plus my fingers don't work so well in -4.0° 🥶

I might call it a night. I'm absolutely frozen stiff.

[John]

4 minutes ago, Mr Spock said:

OK, it's done. This is probably my first and last drawing, and most likely as bad as artwork and accuracy gets. Stuff kept moving around plus my fingers don't work so well in -4.0° 🥶

I might call it a night. I'm absolutely frozen stiff.

Very good indeed I think Michael 👍

Loads of detail - excellent !

[Ags]

Superb sketch.

 

[Nigella Bryant]

Just in from a two hour session on Jupiter. Some nice detail coming through tonight. Oval disturbance in the NEB with a few festoons encroaching into the equatorial zone. Equatorial band evident. SEB broken by the GRS preceeding the spot with several wakes proceeding the GRS and several disturbances behind it in the SEB. STb darker just preceeding the GRS and continuing below and behind. Several small ovals evident in the southern polar region. 

I'm hoping the imaging session will confirm once processed.

Image from Skysafari

Edited January 18 by Nigella Bryant
Pic of dome tonight added

[Froeng]

21 minutes ago, Mr Spock said:

OK, it's done. This is probably my first and last drawing, and most likely as bad as artwork and accuracy gets. Stuff kept moving around plus my fingers don't work so well in -4.0° 🥶

I might call it a night. I'm absolutely frozen stiff.

Excellent sketch!

[Paz]

I went out earlier for a short session. I only had half an hour from getting started to being packed up but managed it by going cyclops instead of binoviewing and skytee 2 instead of EQ5, and going straight out with an 8mm Delos in the focuser and not taking any other eyepieces out.

The moon was the plan, and I concentrated on the central peaks and terraced walls of Theophilus. Very nice views 

I had a quick look at Jupiter and was excited to see a shadow transit, so I stuck with thatband dudntbgovback to the moon. I had not realised beforehand that one was happening.

A good session and I would not have been able to set up and take down my 3" or 4" refractors any quicker than the 5".

[Mr Spock]

That really is it. It's been a great night again with the moon and Jupiter. Clear again tomorrow, so hopefully not quite so cold. -5.6° at the moment and hypothermia is probably setting in. My feet feel like icicles 

[Naughty Neal]

Michael your sketch is good and Nigella's posting of Jupiter helps to put your sketch in to perspective , it really is a good sketch.

[Captain Scarlet]

That’s me done. After dinner Jupiter momentarily showing the best detail I’ve seen yet, but only for short moments, then all suddenly became and stayed mush. Lots of time spent on Sirius too, but seeing stayed bad. Moon behind some branches. Tomorrow clear again, an unprecedented three consecutive nights beckons!

[John]

I've bought the scope in now as well. Still very clear and sparkly out there but too cold to be enjoyable now.

My last target was Sirius but it was too sparkly so I knew from almost first glance that the Pup was going to stay hidden behind its glare tonight.

It was great to give the big refractor a proper go at Jupiter earlier though. With the rotten weather that preceded this colder stuff, the big frac has been bypassed in favour of the grab and go rigs. 

Edited January 17 by John

[Mr Spock]

Seeing was ok tonight but not as good as a couple of nights ago. Jupiter's NPR was distinctly mottled in appearance then, whereas tonight it was much smoother. Still a good show though.

[John]

2 minutes ago, Mr Spock said:

Seeing was ok tonight but not as good as a couple of nights ago. Jupiter's NPR was distinctly mottled in appearance then, whereas tonight it was much smoother. Still a good show though.

I agree. That mottling of the NPR is a sign of really good seeing as well as really good optics. The latter we can do something about, the former, we live in hope of !

 

[Mr Spock]

4 minutes ago, John said:

I agree. That mottling of the NPR is a sign of really good seeing as well as really good optics. The latter we can do something about, the former, we live in hope of !

I knew I'd got a good one with the 12" just after I bought it. I was using a Barlowed ortho on the moon at x450 and it was razor sharp. Sadly seeing which permits that sort of detail is too infrequent 

[cajen2]

Just come in for a warm after an hour's session. Similar targets to everyone else: the Moon, Jupiter, M42, etc. I'm trying different EPs and Barlows in combination to push my Starfield 102 to its limits.

I don't know if anyone else finds this, but my new Delos 8mm, fine EP though it is, is much more difficult to get eye position on than my Morpheus range. This seems to get worse if I try to Barlow it.

I had an idea and tried my Morpheus 6.5mm with my Baader 2.25x Barlow on Jupiter. I thought it would be far too much at 247x but the Starfield came up trumps and gave me excellent views, despite the seeing, which was average at best.

This is the first time I've been able to compare the SF with the 8" dob I had last winter on my favourite doubles in Orion, so I tried it on Alnitak, which is usually slightly challenging. Through the SF, it was a doddle to split, so happy bunny! 👍

Edited January 18 by cajen2

[fwm891]

Just warmed up and a quick process of IC434 old Horsie...

[globular]

15 minutes ago, cajen2 said:

my new Delos 8mm, fine EP though it is, is much more difficult to get eye position on than my Morpheus range.

As it's a new EP to you, are you aware the housing moves up and down so you can find the right eye placement? 
They can be locked in place once you find your best position.  Maybe yours are locked in the wrong spot?

Something like this...

[Ed in UK]

10 hours ago, Captain Scarlet said:

Hmm. I can see Ganymede 15 minutes before it said it should appear. SS was wrong

I watched Ganymede go into eclipse last night, according to SS it should have gone around 8pm, it finally disappeared for me at 8:15pm.

[Orange Smartie]

I had another quick session last night, focussing principally on Gemini, which was nicely positioned.

Planetary nebulae - first up was NGC 2371/2372, which appeared to me as an off-circular fuzzy disc, with little in the way of detail. Then NGC 2392 ("eskimo" nebula), appearing as a nicely diffuse disc with a brighter central region.

Clusters - M35 and the dimmer NGC 2158.

Multiple stars - 55-delta geminorum (Wasat) - looking a bit like Polaris with a bright primary and very faint secondary. 66-alpha (Castor).

Then to Orion to take a quick look at the Trapezium. I could only clearly discern 5 of the 6 again.

Others - quick look at Jupiter and and swing over to Uranus again, since I now know how to find it!

 

That added up to about an hour, so not a marathon session, but already this year I'm doing better than last year, where I only managed a total of 2 proper sessions over the whole year. I think my collimation is ok, but perhaps the seeing wasn't great as the doubles were tricky to split properly.