What did you see tonight?

[lunator]

Had a quick look through the 15x70's this evening. There was quite a lot of fast moving cloud.

The Moon terminator and craters looked very good and I got a glimpse of M38.

I tried for some Galaxies in Leo and Virgo but I am not sure I could be certain of seeing anything.

Cheers

Ian

 

 

[John]

I did a little testing and measurement of 1.25 inch diagonals, mirror vs prism, for @wookie1965 / Paul. 

After that, the cloud cover allowed a look at Iota Leonis with my Tak 100mm, and that was about it !

 

[Ags]

It was not a night for astronomy but stars were peeping through the complex, multi-layered clouds so I went out to test the collimation of my RC6. The collimation still has a way to go (primary screws overtightened), but I stuck in a 20 mm eyepiece and tried a few low power targets . I had quite a pleasing view of some brighter doubles like Mizar. One benefit benefit of the pinched optics was that stars were slightly defocused so star colors were accentuated. Really impressed with the purity of colors in the RC. 

I was using my FMA135, ASI120MM and ASIAIR as an electronic finder to zoom to a few targets and it worked really well, although of the galaxies I tried only M81/M82 were bright enough to peep through the murk. On a better night, using the AIR&co to quickly find targets will work quite well I think.

[scarp15]

M3.

Finally managed to get out and waited patiently until just past 11.30pm, emerging towards the south, M3 glowingly popped into view in the 21 Ethos. 6mm Delos and it resolved into a splendid peppery sparkling glow. 

[Epick Crom]

I had a nice 1 hour session observing the waxing crescent moon last night using my 10 inch dob. 

Firstly I used my 10x50mm binoculars to enjoy the sight of Elnath 2° away from the moon. A nice sight!

Using my 10 inch, I saw for the first time the crater Cauchy sandwiched in between Rupes Cauchy and Rima Cauchy. How I've never seen this feature before is beyond me as it looked very prominent last night. Very interesting seeing a crater between two linear features!

 

Clear Skies 

Joe

 

[Stu1smartcookie]

My first outing for over a week. Lots of high cloud ( as is the norm these nights) making the moon look less contrasty , but still happy to see it . Tried to look for a few DSO’s but , due to the diffuse light from the moon and the persistent cloud it proved to be fruitless.  So just contented to look at the likes of castor and regulus and a few other bright stars . In a normal ( if there is such a thing ) clear night this would be the absolute basic I would expect but we have reached such a “low” when it comes to actually using the equipment, that any patch of clear sky is now seen as a little victory .

One thing I did try was my new 6.3 reducer for the Celestron c8 … bought to use as a visual aid for a wider view … probably a bit fiddly when I want to revert back to view planets , but , I reckon it’s a good addition

Edited April 14 by Stu1smartcookie

[Littleguy80]

Despite the seeing being a bit poor this is making for a very enjoyable Sunday ☀️ 

[Gonariu]

A few days ago I bought a used Celestron Newton 76/700 complete with tripod, altazimuth mount, optics and two 20 mm and 10 mm eyepieces (I don't really know which optical scheme, they seem the same as those of the Travelscope 70). I got it because I needed a new photography tripod for the Konus Vista 80 and the one for this telescope seemed like it would work. Last night I tried it on the moon and I must say that the optics are beautiful, I also put a 2.3 mm Celestron Xcell eyepiece in it and, despite the 304X which gave a dark image, it was still quite well defined with my great amazement. The problem, as in all small telescopes, was the tripod which was not exactly ideal for this optics; I'll try it with the Sckywatcher Maksutov 90/1250 sight and neck to see if it can work with them.

[Mircea]

Last night I made variable star observations : RR  Leo, R Leo, R CrB, R Boo and RX Boo.

RR Leo is new to me in more ways. It is the first variable star for which I had to use pretty high magnification ( 176x) for comparison  on my 200mm Dobsonian.  Also the magnitude of the star itself was low, I reported m=10,6.

The Moon hindered me a lot, the dim star was hard to find on a bright sky.

I used the 200mm Dobsonian also on RX Boo. The other three stars were observed with the Aculon 10x50mm binocular.

 

At the start of the session I checked the collimation by splitting the stars Nu Aur / H 5  90 , 56'' separation  but stars are 7.4 magnitudes apart , Bu 1053 , separation 1.9'' and STF 799 , separation 0.7''.

 

Mircea

[Mr Spock]

Hmmm, interesting. The person from Sheffield who keeps posting astro photos on the local facebook page has posted some images of the moon from today. I don't know what part of Sheffield they are in but I've seen 100% high cloud all day today with just the sun occasionally lighting it up.

[SwiMatt]

A little moment under the Moon was what I needed 😍 I did a sketch of this three-craters feature, I wonder if someone can help me identifying it. I thought it was the Ptolemy chain, but by comparison with pictures it does not seem right... 

[Littleguy80]

12 minutes ago, SwiMatt said:

A little moment under the Moon was what I needed 😍 I did a sketch of this three-craters feature, I wonder if someone can help me identifying it. I thought it was the Ptolemy chain, but by comparison with pictures it does not seem right... 

Here you go  

[SwiMatt]

Just now, Littleguy80 said:

Here you go  

A 1000 thank you I swear I will buy an Atlas soon 🤣

[Littleguy80]

Just now, SwiMatt said:

A 1000 thank you I swear I will buy an Atlas soon 🤣

Haha no worries. This might be a little better. 

[mikeDnight]

  The sky gradually cleared as the afternoon drew to a close, and the Moon was well placed and in a clear stable sky. The seeing was actually superb.

  I decided to get all my toys out and started off by observing the Moon using my 60mm Carton refractor. Although only 60mm, this is a remarkably good telescope, and as it has a 1.25" focuser I could use a binoviewer which was a great advantage for lunar observing in the 60mm.

  I next moved on to the FC100DZ which showed the intricacies along the spectacular terminator in much more detail.

 Meanwhile the 5" was lying dormant but soon to turn its attention to the Moon revealing breathtaking detail in the first class seeing. 

 After uncapping the 5" and fitting it with a maxbight binoviewer  I settled myself into my comfy chair and spent the next hour just studying the awesome terminator. Arago a medium sized crater was on view, and alongside it was Arago A & Arago B, both sizeable domes i believe. Arago A certainly had a craterlet on its summit.  South of Arago was the Apollo 11 landing site, just on the border of visibility was the washing line where Buzz dried his socks. Just kidding about the washing line and socks, but the seeing was as steady and clear as can be. Then the wobble moved in and I knew my best seeing was over. A cloud front began to encroach on my view but I wasn't too upset as I'd had a great time, over two hours in all, and I was content to close the roof on my obsy, but not before taking yet another pic of my 5" refractor. What did we do before cameras on mobile phones?

 

Edited April 14 by mikeDnight

[Merak]

Me "Ah it's clear, let's get the scope out for the first time in ages".

Ten minutes later: it clouds over.

Pic taken with phone through Svbony 3-8mm ep @ 8mm.   

Mark

 

[John]

Just a quick look at the moon and a few double stars with my 3 inch F/16 refractor this evening. My first look at the moon with this scope - as I hoped, the slow focal ratio resulted in no false colour visible at all around the lunar limb. Craters along the terminator were filled with jet black shadows. Very sharp views at 171x. As I gazed at the lunar surface, I thought of an 11 year old Patrick Moore getting his first glimpses of the moon with his newly acquired 3 inch refractor back in 1934. He must have been mesmerised by the views 🙂

 

[Mr Spock]

Still cloudy here. I don't know how you all do it 

[lunator]

It did clear up here for a bit but I only had time for a short Bino session. The Moon did look spectacular and I enjoyed observing the craters. I quick sweep of Auriga picked up M38/36. I then popped over to M44 as it always looks good in in Binos. I wasn't able to split Zeta Cnc 🙃😊.

A final sweep through Leo and Hydra where I enjoyed looking at some of the more strongly coloured stars. 

Cheers

Ian

 

[DirkSteele]

Decent session for about 3 hours. A lot of open clusters. Started with M35 (bit close to the moon) before moving on to the three Messier OCs in Auriga before setting up camp in Cassiopeia for a while and taking in about a dozen. Swung over to M3 to take in someone old rather than young before heading to Hercules and M13 and M92. Also had a quick look at M51 and M81/82 before finishing with M57 which had just cleared the tree line.

 

Was colder than I expected so was not quite dressed appropriately (weekend away) but clouds stopped play just before 1am.

[SwiMatt]

Quite a hazy night here on the Swedish West Coast, but enough visibility to take a good look at the features on the Terminator. At 200x the view was steady enough. Features I identified post hoc, that I noticed and observed, are the Crater Barrow in the North, the Montes Caucasus delimiting Mare Serenitatis (beautiful contrast there!) and more towards the South I took my sweet time on Maurolycus crater. I also took a look at Teophilus et al. to compare to my view yesterday. 

I wanted to sketch, but the pesky hazy clouds were all over the place and I think it would have frustrated me. Still, an enjoyable 30 minutes at the eyepiece! 

Edited April 15 by SwiMatt

[Epick Crom]

I had a nice session last night observing in Canis Major with my 10 inch dob. Tried splitting Sirius but was unsuccessful this night. Nice views were had of M41, NGC 2362 and the lovely double star HR 2764.

The highlight of the night was catching the supernova SN2024ggi in galaxy NGC 3621 in Hydra. I couldn't see the galaxy itself but spotted the supernova as a clear dot! I estimate it to be around mag 11.5. Just my second ever observation of a supernova so pretty chuffed!

[lunator]

I was working tonight but managed to get outside for a short session with the 15x70's. The Moon looked spectacular  (again) 😀 with plenty of detail on the terminator. M44 was more washed out by the moonlight. I did manage to spot M67 and M53. I think I also spotted NGC5053 which is a Globular Cluster very close to M53. 

Cheers

Ian

 

[John]

Some double stars and the moon with my 70mm F/6 ED this evening. Seeing not so great through. Moon was behind the house later so it was worth at least trying for some brighter DSO's. Despite the paltry aperture, I did manage to see M 65 and M 66 of the Leo Triplet group. NGC 3628 was not visible though, perhaps unsurprisingly given the small scope. As Meatloaf sang in 1977, "Two out of three, ain't bad" 🙂

 

 

Edited April 16 by John

[Mr Spock]

Some clear sky here but occasional showers and 45+mph winds put me off. Next few nights look promising though.