What did you see tonight?

[John]

Quite nice here. A little hazy perhaps but a good double star night, currently.

[Stu]

Binoculars only for me tonight, a touch windy plus too tired.

Had an unsuccessful look for the comet Pons-Brooks, so settled for a few other targets. Jupiter is never great through binos but Europa and Ganymede showed up nicely close to the disk.

I had a look at the S asterism between Mintaka and Alnilam, framed well in the 4.5 degree fov of the Canon 15x50 IS binos. Similarly the whole of Orion’s sword, with some nebula showing and the Trap just about resolving into two or perhaps three stars.

M38, 36 and 37 were easily found in that order, 38 showing slight arms to justify its Starfish name. Then a hop over to M35 in Gemini.

M45 was as lovely as always, perfect in this field of view. Then on to a few galaxies; M81 and 82 easily found with my usual star hop, and showing their trademark shapes. I didn’t expect to get M51, but there it was, a small faint smudge, but definitely there, unlike M101 which was a fail.

Lastly, the Double Cluster, and that lovely loop of stars which leads across to Stock 2.

Enough to keep me going til I can finally get a scope out!

[John]

56 minutes ago, John said:

Quite nice here. A little hazy perhaps but a good double star night, currently.

Best split tonight with the Elliott 3 inch refractor was Iota Leonis. Here is what the Webb Society's Bob Argyle said back in April 2017 about this uneven brightness pair:

Webb Deep-Sky Society: Double Star of the Month: Iota Leonis (webbdeepsky.com)

Pleased to get it with the 3 inch tonight at 171x. Secondary was close in but clearly split and more or less due east of the primary. Quite testing for sub-4 inch aperture scopes I reckon.

 

Edited April 9 by John

[Whistlin Bob]

For my birthday last month I got Steve O'Meara's Observing the Herschel 400. It was a beautiful night tonight, so I was able to make a start. 

5 little NGC galaxies around Leo, then mugged into favourites- the triplet and m51, then finishing by watching M3 drift through my binoviewers half a dozen times.  

I needed that!

[LukeTheNuke]

I wasn't sure I'd observe tonight, as I was a bit short on sleep, and it was pretty windy earlier in the day. I popped outside to try to convince myself that the stars were twinkling like mad and conditions must be terrible. And earlier in the day, I'd checked the lunar phase. No excuse to be found there! The wind was not bad at all.

But gosh, it would be a cold one, and my wife's just gone down with suspected Covid.

But out I went. I blame it on returning to SGL. You folks get me all excited again about this wonderful hobby!

I intended to be super lazy and use the 21 mm Ethos in my 10 inch dob. But then I fancied viewing M13, so I grabbed a 12 mm Delos along with the 21 mm Ethos.

M13 looked pretty good. Gosh, my garden is looking like a runway these days, thanks to a bunch of solar lights. I thought it would be a good idea to switch off the two brightest ones.

I tried to find M81 and M82, but they were very high up at that awkward position for dobs. I took in some galaxies in Leo. M51 was looking splendid. That other globular in Hercules, I forget the name - it is pretty sweet, I spend more time on it than I normally do. Back to try for M81 and 82 again. Bingo! My, the galaxies are looking sweet tonight.

Off to the Virgo Cluster. Only I can't find it! Where the hell have they put it? After a while, I realise I have forgotten what Virgo looks like, and I'm not looking where I think I am. Until now, I've just been using the 12 mm Delos. Time for the 21 mm Ethos! Ah, yes, at last, several galaxies spotted. It definitely helps if you don't invent new constellations.

Well somehow I've been outside for two hours. How wonderful that gear that I think is over a decade old is giving me these views tonight. And I'm reminded that as much as it's fun to get aperture fever if funds allow, a 10 inch scope is a pretty potent device. 

Edited April 10 by LukeTheNuke

[josefk]

8 hours ago, Whistlin Bob said:

For my birthday last month I got Steve O'Meara's Observing the Herschel 400. It was a beautiful night tonight, so I was able to make a start. 

5 little NGC galaxies around Leo, then mugged into favourites- the triplet and m51, then finishing by watching M3 drift through my binoviewers half a dozen times.  

I needed that!

That's a great book @Whistlin Bob - if you use Sky Safari and would like the monthly observing programme of that book in SS lists let me know - i have slowly slowly created those lists over the last year or so. 👍

[josefk]

i've been casually waving a telescope at the sky for 30 years this year but i've only been pursuing this hobby with diligence and an aim to get better at if for 2 years exactly this month. Pride comes before a fall and all that but last night i felt like the newbie training wheels could come off :-). Super productive night with the moon out of the way and my Cassegrain out pointing (not waving) into the dark clear skies.

It looks like my "haul" is 31 DSO, 29 of them galaxies in Sextans, Leo, and Virgo, with 12 sketches (!!!) and probably quite a few new "Herschel 400 ticks", and finally a brilliant hour observing purely in the "Herschel style" letting the sky drift West over a fixed scope/EP POV. I was doing this in the Markarian's chain area - hardly moving my observing eye from the scope for long periods and letting the sky develop and reveal itself in front of me. A fascinating and i think (need to check my notes) quite productive method - bringing me new observations (i think/hope) in this area which by definition are guaranteed "not imaginary" because i was only checking smudges "after the fact" (i.e after detection) to ID them. 

Awesome - now i need to get through a full day in the office on 3hrs sleep 🙂 

 

 

[josefk]

...forgive the over exuberance this morning - it's been a while :-)...

Initial notes looks like 19 new observations out of the 31 (the ones in orange at the left hand side of this table). I'm guessing a good bunch of those will also be H400 objects. Ding dong.

 

Fuller report now added over here: https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/421050-galaxies-galore-in-sextans-leo-virgo-and-coma-berenices-09100424/

 

Edited April 11 by josefk

[Mr Spock]

What a night. As soon as the wind dropped it clouded over 😡

[mikeDnight]

 I can't say that I noticed much of a wind last night though it was a lot colder than I'd expected. The seeing was quite steady but there was a veil of haze over the sky which was probably caused by all the aircraft meshing their vapour trails like a net curtain and killing the transparency.  Never the less I spent an hour or so just star hopping and admiring a few pretty doubles, with Tegmine being the one I loitered over the longest trying various eyepieces to see which gave the nicest presentation.

 For the past 13 years I've had the joy of observing from the shelter of a small run-off roof observatory, which was my wife's idea. She'd noticed that on cold nights my breathing was affected as I'd wheeze a little after coming back into a warm room. I've never smoked so it was nothing to do with that, but she was concerned enough to ask me why I didn't build an observatory to protect me from the biting wind? I'd never given it much thought but once she'd planted the seed I set to work on a few designs. In less than a month I'd built my shed, although no one is allowed to call it a shed. I'm only mentioning this here as it really does offer a great wind break, as well as gives a clean, comfortable and relatively dark environment from which to oggle the night sky. Oh, and she paid for the materials! 

 A doodle from last night:

- 

[John]

Lovely drawing Mike, as usual 🙂 👍

[PeterC65]

I managed to fit in an EAA session last night between all the rain. Highlighting the Caldwell Objects in Stellarium, I could see that many of the smaller ones would be in view so I setup the Explorer 200PDS, Barlowed to maximise its magnification, and paired it with the 72mm refractor for some nice widefield context.

Observing lots of small galaxies can be a bit tedious but these Caldwell galaxies were an interesting mix, plus I observed the Eskimo Nebula (a PN) and revisited the supernova in NGC4216 which is clearly dimming now …

Probably the best of the night was NGC4565, the Needle Galaxy. Too big for the Explorer 200PDS really, but conveniently right across the diagonal so that it just fitted in the field of view.

The full report is here.

[Whistlin Bob]

12 hours ago, josefk said:

That's a great book @Whistlin Bob - if you use Sky Safari and would like the monthly observing programme of that book in SS lists let me know - i have slowly slowly created those lists over the last year or so. 👍

That would be really excellent. Was thinking last night that's what I need to do. That would be really helpful 🙏

[Zermelo]

19 minutes ago, Whistlin Bob said:

That would be really excellent. Was thinking last night that's what I need to do. That would be really helpful 🙏

FYI, three different Herschel 400 lists linked to here :

 

 

[SwiMatt]

I was just out to see the thin crescent, lovely sight!

These days mark one year since the bug of astronomy caught me. My first logbook has naked eye entries in April 2023, I noticed while starting my new fancier logbook with a fast and dirty sketch of the whole Moon (clouds came fast) at 60x. So consider this a bit of a celebration post! 

Like last year, I'm again getting frustrated at how late I need to stay up these days to catch some dark skies 🤣 Summer time in the Nordic countries is a stupid time to do night-time astronomy, time to buy myself a solar filter! (and put some money away to buy a star tracker for sketching...)

(sorry for the entries in Italian )

[Nyctimene]

Just came in from a short (30 mins) observation of the nice triangle: thin crescent moon - Jupiter - comet Pons-Brooks. The APM 16x70 MS ED gave crisp views in the clear evening sky; Moon and Jupiter fitting in the same field of view (4.1°). A tad to the W, the comet's coma and star-like false nucleus came into view. Brightness of the coma around 5.0 (a tad brighter than the defocussed Pi Ari (5.3 mag) close by). Tail visible for 15-20 arc min, but several times, especially during moving the tripod-mounted binos, even longer in averted vision, up to 1.5°(?). Three totally different objects of the solar system, almost in the same field of view; fascinating.

Stephan

Edited April 10 by Nyctimene

[Ags]

I spent the morning, day and evening eyeing clear skies, but now that night has fallen the clouds have closed in. Really feeling like the sky has something against me!

[scotty1]

1 hour ago, Nyctimene said:

Just came in from a short (30 mins) observation of the nice triangle: thin crescent moon - Jupiter - comet Pons-Brooks. The APM 16x70 MS ED gave crisp views in the clear evening sky; Moon and Jupiter fitting in the same field of view (4.1°). A tad to the W, the comet's coma and star-like false nucleus came into view. Brightness of the coma around 5.0 (a tad brighter than the defocussed Pi Ari (5.3 mag) close by). Tail visible for 15-20 arc min, but several times, especially during moving the tripod-mounted binos, even longer in averted vision, up to 1.5°(?). Three totally different objects of the solar system, almost in the same field of view; fascinating.

Stephan

Cloud and drizzle over the UK 

 Would of loved to get a photo of those three.

[josefk]

On 10/04/2024 at 20:05, Whistlin Bob said:

That would be really excellent. Was thinking last night that's what I need to do. That would be really helpful 🙏

Hi [wrong tag] - i posted them over here but missing June and July - i must have not prepared them yet - probs for obvious reasons.

If you use them just upload September first and check it - i'm not sure if exporting lists exports the whole list in its native state or "my" current view of it. If September is empty it's my current view in the export (all observed). just let me know and i'll try again with the filters off.

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/294168-member-contributed-observing-lists-and-links-to-others/page/3/#comment-4468432

Cheers

Edited April 12 by josefk
wrong user tag - oops

[SwiMatt]

Just got myself some beautiful binocular views of the Moon with very evident Earthshine and the Pleiades, all in one beautiful field of view 😍 I opted for a bit of a more artistic sketch, I'm exploring different ways of sketching (it's half the fun!)

[Whistlin Bob]

2 hours ago, josefk said:

i posted them over here

That's worked a treat, thank you very much 👍👍

[Paz]

I went out last night to have a look at the moon. It was constantly cloudy across the sky with the thickness varying over time amd from one spot to another.

I was checking out a 55mm TV plossl that I got for use with a quark but haven't had a chance to check yet. It was all good (except that it needs a huge amount of back focus) and funnily the low-power view of the moon was sharp as can be despite the clouds. Low power also meant no hassle tracking and no wind vibes or other wobbly stack issues. I ended up enjoying this nice and easy going view of the moon with the clouds scudding by for some time with the 55mm at 18x and a completely unusable 7.1mm exit pupil, who would have thought?

Most stars were not visible through the clouds but I switched to a 4.5mm Delos and checked out Castor at 217x. The cloud was no problem, and it would have been a fine view except for the wind vibing my scope.

Over in Leo Regulus was just visible naked eye and Algieba was coming and going. Both were a clear but wobbly sight , I then hoped over to 54 Leonis which was invisible naked eye and another clear but wobbly view presented.

I think in recent months when it's clear (or at least not completely clouded out) it often seems to be because storms are going through and so cloud problems are just replaced with wind problems. I've been mulling over getting a stronger mount because of this.

[John]

Last night I could see the moon and just the brightest constellation stars through a thin but annoying cloud layer, so I didn't bother observing. It was Astro Society night anyway so I got my fill of astro fodder that way. Interesting talk about the Andromeda Galaxy being visually "warped" at it's extremities - something to look out for if I get a really dark, transparent night later this year when M31 is high in the sky.

[Mr Spock]

I saw some pics of the moon on my local fb group from last night. However they were hazy. I might have tried the scope If I'd have known there was a chance. CO was red 100% all the way. I could see the moon late on here (I'd been watching tv all night), but it was too low to bother.

[Naughty Neal]

When I get home form my night shift of an weekend evening Saturday am - Monday am at 03.40hrs , I neither  bother  now about setting up .  Now the clocks have gone fwd it's isn't too long before the dawn brightness suddenly creeps in.  

Last night by eye alone the seeing here wasn't great , even Polaris wasn't discernable neither were any other of the major players in the two Ursa's.