What did you see tonight?

[paulastro]

Got up at 3am this morning to take some pics of a few summer objects in the early morning sky with the Seestar S50.

It sort of reminded me of summer - except it was -1C and I was frozen!

 

 

[SwiMatt]

Damn, we had one good night in 6 weeks and we finally got another despite a few clouds. Went through the first 4 objects of the Stargazing Under Suburban Skies book. My favorites today were two doubles, Gamma Andromedae and Eta Cassopieiae. Full report here: 

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/419809-starting-an-observing-list/

[cloudsweeper]

Not been out for quite a while for a number of reasons, but thought I'd take advantage of the clear sky this evening at 7.00pm.

Quick easy session with the little ED80 Triplet on the AZ4.

M42 a bit faint at that time, but the Trapezium was lovely and sharp in that quality frac. at x27, x120, x160 (faint E star showed up), and x192 - still good and sharp.  30 minutes later the nebula was brighter and clearer.

Quick look at the Pleiades, then on to the magnificent Double Cluster by just aiming in the right area near Cassiopeia.  A fine sight at x20 / 4.10deg - myriad sharp specs of varying brightness, yet none too bright to become blurry.  Something you can just stare at and enjoy.  

Well, this all got me back in the mood.  Hopefully I'll do something more challenging with a bigger 'scope before long!

Doug.

[Zermelo]

We are temporarily staying in Ashburton, South Devon, and all that I could manage to bring was a pair of 10x50 binoculars. We walked to a pub for a meal tonight, and came back across the fields, with most of the streetlights hidden, and the sky was very impressive. Naked eye, I could just see the double cluster and the clusters in Auriga. These were decent in the bins, as were M42, M45 and M35. To my eye, the seeing looked quite good, so I hope some of you out there have more powerful kit out.

[Stu]

4 minutes ago, Zermelo said:

We are temporarily staying in Ashburton, South Devon, and all that I could manage to bring was a pair of 10x50 binoculars. We walked to a pub for a meal tonight, and came back across the fields, with most of the streetlights hidden, and the sky was very impressive. Naked eye, I could just see the double cluster and the clusters in Auriga. These were decent in the bins, as were M42, M45 and M35. To my eye, the seeing looked quite good, so I hope some of you out there have more powerful kit out.

Stayed in Ashburton a few times, very nice down there. A drive up onto the moor will likely blow your mind on a good night! 👍

[paulastro]

Went out earlier to catch Pons-Brooks and grabbed a pic at 8.09pm before it was lost to cloud.

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/416019-comet-12ppons-brooks/#comment-4466303

 

[Mr_Cat]

First light on the C925.

Not great seeing, cloud cover on Polaris led me to try to manually slew to Jupiter but issues with the finderscope meant I aimlessly drifted around in circles.. Might put an RDF on for now and then double shoe it with the finderscope.

Got aligned just as the cloud rolled in but had a bit of a manual wander round jumping from star to star and just enjoying being outside. 

And then the corrector plate dewed up - which I guess is why a dew shield came with the OTA

I have a dew heater controller on order

A good evening - I can't wait to get outside again.

 

 

[John]

17 minutes ago, paulastro said:

Went out earlier to catch Pons-Brooks and grabbed a pic at 8.09pm before it was lost to cloud.

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/416019-comet-12ppons-brooks/#comment-4466303

 

Me too, with binoculars in my case.

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/416019-comet-12ppons-brooks/?do=findComment&comment=4466248

It's still quite nice out there but I'm having an evening in the warm.

[lunator]

Had a short session with the Dob.

Nice view of Zeta Cnc, managed to see all 3 components. Followed by M48 a nice open cluster.

Finished off with a few doubles in Hydra. 

Cheers

Ian

[Saganite]

Another clear night, seeing pretty good , Pickering 6 to 7.   Earlier views of Jupiter at150x were very good in glimpses through cloud for maybe twenty minutes and then lost, but the sky has cleared now.  Again I have taken out just the Svbony 3-8 For the ED152 and it has given a beautiful triple split of Tegmine. Lovely sharp Airy discs with  intermittent  diffraction ring at 400x. The close double actually split nicely at 240x, a very clear  and sharp black line between them.

Edited March 7 by Saganite

[GasGiant]

currently 'seeing' NGC 281 come alive through the seestar ! 🙂 

[Saganite]

Totally unexpected session with varying cloud cover which, by 10.15pm,  was too much so after getting lovely splits of Rigel, Alnitak, Algieba, Almach as  well as Zeta Cancri, an early night, but great to be out with a scope for two consecutive nights.

Edited March 6 by Saganite

[Epick Crom]

After a long day at work I just had enough energy left to haul out the 10 inch dob and have a quick 1hr session targeting Orion and Cancer.

I was pleased to find open cluster NGC 2175 in Orion for the first time. It's a rather broad and scattered cluster. It's meant to have some nebulosity associated with it but I couldn't see it. A quick check up on Cancer revealed M44, M67, NGC 2775 and Tegmine.

I also tried for one of my nemesis objects, NGC 2419 the Intergalactic Wanderer/ Tramp 😂 in Lynx but no luck yet again. 

[cajen2]

25 minutes ago, Saganite said:

Totally unexpected session with varying cloud cover which, by 10.15pm was too much so after getting lovely splits of Rigel, Alnitak, Algieba, Almach as  well as Zeta Cancri, an early night, but great to be out with a scope for two consecutive nights.

Nothing earth-shattering for me: similar to Saganite with fewer targets. My whole view south is ruined by a street light a few yards from my garden, making Orion invisible at normal times until this time of year. Started with Jupiter but it had just started to be blocked by trees, so just used it to align the finder. So went over to M42, the Trap, etc. I can't get more than four stars in the Trap whatever the mag because of the verdammt street light but it's the first time I've been able to catch it properly since getting the Starfield 102. Then onto a couple of doubles: Mintaka and Alnitak. Easy split on both using my Morpheus 12.5mil for only 57x mag. I was gratified, as I'd got them many times before with my 8" dob and was worried that the drop in aperture would affect it. I needn't have concerned myself - didn't even need the big guns like the Svbony 3-8mm zoom. Had a glance at Sirius but it was doing its  usual disco ball impression. Bit of cloud started coming over so packed up and came into the warm! 

Edited March 5 by cajen2
Typo

[John]

1 hour ago, Epick Crom said:

......I also tried for one of my nemesis objects, NGC 2419 the Intergalactic Wanderer/ Tramp 😂 in Lynx but no luck yet again. 

One of my favourites at this time of year. I've not had a go so far this year though so thanks for the reminder 🙂

[Nigella Bryant]

I've managed two nights in a row but tonight was the best revisiting my two favourite winter highlights, the Eskimo Nebula and Hubbles Variable Nebula. Both quite striking in the C11 @ f11 and my new AA26C camera. I still have to get the off axis guider going I had for Christmas, lol. 

I've rebuilt the mini pc hub that sits on the top plate of the C11 so all of that is functioning a lot better with more umf, lol. 

[Saganite]

8 hours ago, Epick Crom said:

After a long day at work I just had enough energy left to haul out the 10 inch dob and have a quick 1hr session targeting Orion and Cancer.

I was pleased to find open cluster NGC 2175 in Orion for the first time. It's a rather broad and scattered cluster. It's meant to have some nebulosity associated with it but I couldn't see it. A quick check up on Cancer revealed M44, M67, NGC 2775 and Tegmine.

I also tried for one of my nemesis objects, NGC 2419 the Intergalactic Wanderer/ Tramp 😂 in Lynx but no luck yet again. 

I had to look up NGC 2419, as I don't think I have ever seen this one, so now I know I am keen to have a look.   Many thanks...

At  mag 10.5  I may have to set the dob on this one 

Edited March 6 by Saganite

[Stu]

Another nice session for me, two in a row now! Main highlights were drinking in the view of the Double Cluster in the 31mm Nagler, that never gets old, and also seeing some of the Markarian’s Chain Galaxies from my garden. This is something I could only dream of when back near London so I must learn to appreciate and make the most of my skies.

 

[John]

3 hours ago, Saganite said:

I had to look up NGC 2419, as I don't think I have ever seen this one, so now I know I am keen to have a look.   Many thanks...

At  mag 10.5  I may have to set the dob on this one 

It is quite indistinct but I did manage to spot it with the 100mm refractor a few years back:

NGC 2419: A very, very distant globular cluster - Observing - Deep Sky - Stargazers Lounge

Amazing to think back to what was going on back then and what was still to come - thank goodness astronomy was still possible 😬

 

 

Edited March 6 by John

[Saganite]

Thanks John  very helpful ,particularly  the link to your previous observation of it.  The forecast here tonight is clear from about 8pm to 10 pm, getting foggy by 11pm which suggests the atmosphere will at least be calm though the transparency will worsen as the evening goes on, but being so high I will be ready to have a go from early evening.  I will put the dob out but I intend as always to observe it with the ED152, so it will be an interesting challenge ..

Being able to observe definitely helped through that terrible year  as you point out.

Edited March 6 by Saganite

[GasGiant]

Not seen this one before???

[dweller25]

7 minutes ago, GasGiant said:

Not seen this one before???

The coffee spiral galaxy ? 🤣

[Mr_Cat]

First light on my new setup.. lol..

Solved the issue with the finderscope I put on the C925 last night. - I'd added a Diagonal to make it easier to view but to get it to focus I'd had to put a barlow ahead of it. So the FOV was to small to really be useful (and the eyepiece I was using was not very good..)

So tonight I swapped a RDF onto the C925 and obvs had a spare finderscope. Removed the diagonal, put a decent eyepiece in, pointed it out to sea and said "yaaar" a few times..
but then I figured a plan... 
Diagonal and barlow back in, decent eyepiece and a camera tripod later  

In all honesty it was surprisingly good.

 

[John]

20 hours ago, John said:

One of my favourites at this time of year. I've not had a go so far this year though so thanks for the reminder 🙂

 

I got this tonight with my 102mm refractor. Thought I'd do a separate report on it:

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/419842-ngc-2419-the-intergallactic-wanderer/

 

Edited March 6 by John

[Nigella Bryant]

1 hour ago, dweller25 said:

The coffee spiral galaxy ? 🤣

Think you've mixed it up with the cappuccino galaxy, it has a more dense milky way.