What did you see tonight?

[scotty1]

About 23.30 

Phone

 

Edited April 18 by scotty1

[mcrowle]

A short timelapse from last night.

Regards, Mike.

[AstroNebulee]

1 hour ago, mcrowle said:

A short timelapse from last night.

Regards, Mike.

Beautiful pillars on your timelapse. Great work. 

Lee 

[SwiMatt]

5 hours ago, lunator said:

M44 can look really good in binoculars when not washed out by the Moon🙂

I confirm! I kind of already forgot my first time on Saturn (I had owned a telescope for a few months when I saw it first)... but my first views of the Pleiades the night my binoculars arrived and the Beehive the night after, those are etched in my memory!

[Orange Smartie]

Just the moon for me last night. The weather looked promising, but clouded over pretty quickly and then with a few spots of rain, I thought it best to pack up. I had a good look at the Montes Alpes, Montes Caucass, Cassini, Mons Piton and the trio of Aristillus, Autolycus and Archimede. Oh, and managed to guess my way to Iota Cancri, which for those who don't know, is a very pretty double star, easily split, and appearing as a nice colour-contrasting pair.

 

[Mr Spock]

I've got the 12" out again. Just put it out and without any cooling (it's cool in the shed) the seeing is far better than last night. I've just been looking at Clavius and Tyco at x253 and it's lovely and crisp.

[Stu]

25 minutes ago, Mr Spock said:

I've got the 12" out again. Just put it out and without any cooling (it's cool in the shed) the seeing is far better than last night. I've just been looking at Clavius and Tyco at x253 and it's lovely and crisp.

Don’t forget to have a look at Hesiodus as per this thread, should still be visible.

 

[mikeDnight]

I managed to spend an hour or so admiring the terminator tonight, despite not feeling too well after some rat bag gave me covid.  Anyhow, I decided to try using a 1.7X gpc in my binoviewer and a 2X Barlow in my diagonal. Not certain of the magnifications, but the views were gorgeous and far more detailed that the attached hand held phone pic's. Using my 35mm Ultima's and 25mm Parks Gold eyepieces,  the eye relief was very comfortable and would be great foe eye glass wearers. Sitting back in my chair it was almost like watching TV, or looking through a spaceship window. The scope was a FS128. Some pics were taken in daylight so a bit pale.

[Mr Spock]

Just been studying Hesiodus and Pitatus. The rilles in Pitatus are quite prominent at x380.

The good seeing is a chance to try out my 4mm eyepieces. Svbony 3-8 v 4mm Nirvana v 4mm Circle-T Ortho v 4mm TOE. They are all similar except the TOE is just a bit clearer. There's a hill in the right side of Pitatus with a 1.1km crater just below it. The crater was seen in all the eyepieces but was crisper and easier in the TOE.

Also tried the Svbony at 3mm v the 3.3mm TOE. The TOE was the winner with the Svbony just a touch hazy. Quite acceptable detail though. I don't see a difference in magnification so I'm guessing the Svbony isn't actually 3mm.

[Mr Spock]

Rima Birt is quite well presented too.  Birt E looks like a tadpole!

[Mr Spock]

You can see Rima Birt in this image from just now. 

[Stu]

42 minutes ago, mikeDnight said:

I managed to spend an hour or so admiring the terminator tonight, despite not feeling too well after some rat bag gave me covid.  Anyhow, I decided to try using a 1.7X gpc in my binoviewer and a 2X Barlow in my diagonal. Not certain of the magnifications, but the views were gorgeous and far more detailed that the attached hand held phone pic's. Using my 35mm Ultima's and 25mm Parks Gold eyepieces,  the eye relief was very comfortable and would be great foe eye glass wearers. Sitting back in my chair it was almost like watching TV, or looking through a spaceship window. The scope was a FS128. Some pics were taken in daylight so a bit pale.

Nice shots Mike, you caught the light ray across Hesiodus crater, did you spot it?

[Mr Spock]

Couple more snaps...

Struggling a bit with the camera. It's so heavy the Dob is wobbling like jelly.

[IB20]

A great few hours on the moon with the SM125mm. Bagged the Hesiodus crater ray thanks to the great post in the celestial heads up. 

A chain of craterlets which I think is Stadius was really eye-catching. I don’t recall seeing those before in any frac so the aperture gain is proving a point. Birt crater and Rupes Recta looking equally impressive too. 

Had a quick look with the 30mm Vixen NPL for the Leo triplet and could see the star in M66. Swapping to the 17.5mm Morpheus showed faint smudges for M66 and M65. An impressive feat as the moon brightness is washing out the sky and I’ve only ever seen the triplet in my 8” dob up to now.

Decent seeing despite the stiff breeze too.

[John]

The so-called "straight wall" is not so straight under good seeing at 250x 😉

I can see why it's sometimes known as Huygens's Sword tonight.

 

[John]

8 minutes ago, John said:

The so-called "straight wall" is not so straight under good seeing at 250x 😉

I can see why it's sometimes known as Huygens's Sword tonight.

 

Also, not far from the Rupas Recta, the crater Davy and it's famous chain of tiny pits - the Catena Davy. The larger ones resolvable with the 100mm frac, the smaller ones hinted at and form the curving line. Another of my favourites 🙂

Edited April 17 by John

[Mr Spock]

In for a coffee at the moment. There's a layer of high cloud. Shame. the seeing is really good for once.

[lunator]

Been at my local astro meet tonight but had a look at the Moon in the binos Clavius was clear to see.

Also checked R Virginis I put the at ~7.8

Cheers

Ian

[Mr Spock]

21 minutes ago, John said:

the crater Davy and it's famous chain of tiny pits - the Catena Davy

I've tried to reprocess my image from above to show it. This is the best I can do with my skill level (basic).

[mikeDnight]

59 minutes ago, Stu said:

Nice shots Mike, you caught the light ray across Hesiodus crater, did you spot it?

I hadn't noticed that Stu. Nicely spotted! 🙂

[AstroNebulee]

8 hours ago, mikeDnight said:

I managed to spend an hour or so admiring the terminator tonight, despite not feeling too well after some rat bag gave me covid.  Anyhow, I decided to try using a 1.7X gpc in my binoviewer and a 2X Barlow in my diagonal. Not certain of the magnifications, but the views were gorgeous and far more detailed that the attached hand held phone pic's. Using my 35mm Ultima's and 25mm Parks Gold eyepieces,  the eye relief was very comfortable and would be great foe eye glass wearers. Sitting back in my chair it was almost like watching TV, or looking through a spaceship window. The scope was a FS128. Some pics were taken in daylight so a bit pale.

Hope you feel better soon Mike, lovely images and report. 

Lee 

[AstroNebulee]

7 hours ago, John said:

Also, not far from the Rupas Recta, the crater Davy and it's famous chain of tiny pits - the Catena Davy. The larger ones resolvable with the 100mm frac, the smaller ones hinted at and form the curving line. Another of my favourites 🙂

That's a cracking image and lovely seeing that line of craters. Not seen that before. Thank you. 

Lee 

[AstroNebulee]

Finally I was able to get out to image my first milky-way of the season. Following the rain of the evening that as forecasted passed over and led to clear skies from 12am right though the night. I set off at 2am to my best milky-way imaging site overlooking the village quarry. Though the moon was just past the first quarter and bright, I had time to take in the perfect silence and wildlife noises of the owls, foxes, bat's and scurrying rabbits. 

I took my static tripod and dslr and as a quick experiment my alt az az with dslr bracket to see if I could get 1min exposures with no star trails on my samyang 14mm f2.8 lens. Success so something to work on next time for the core. 

I then set up my static tripod, Canon 600D with Samyang 14mm f2.8 lens and took some long exposure foregrounds whilst I waited for the moon to get lower and the milky-way to rise higher as the moon was really blowing it out. Eventually the moon set enough to crack on. I have manged to capture 3 sets of landscape panoramic 5 panels in each and 1 portrait panoramic set of 8 or 9 panels for processing. The latter finishing imaging just as the dawn was beginning to try and end the darkness up in the east. So probably around 30 minutes of good darkness before that happened. 

It was lovely to see Scorpio and Antares, the teapot asterim, the great rift through Cygnus, Aquila and Lyra again after such a long time. It's even better now looking south, that the town 3 miles away in that direction now turn off almost all their streetlights at night. 😊 So I packed up and headed home for a coffee to warm up, with the dawn chorus starting up and the belt of Venus in its early stages. Though chuffing cold by the end of it and lots of dew, good job the dew heater did its job admirably. A most enjoyable session though I'm going to be knackered later at work. Thank you for getting this far on my ramblings. 

Clear skies. 

Lee 

Edited April 18 by AstroNebulee

[John]

4 hours ago, AstroNebulee said:

That's a cracking image and lovely seeing that line of craters. Not seen that before. Thank you. 

Lee 

Thanks Lee - I have to confess that one is not my image though. I just look and let others with the skills and patience take the pictures 🙂

This one I can credit: Apollo 12 Command Module, 21 November 1969:

Edited April 18 by John

[HollyHound]

Great to see all these lovely images of the moon 👍

I finally got out last night for the first time in absolutely months (work!)... had a lovely hour just finding new and interesting stuff on the moon, with the faithful "grab and go" 76mm 😀

Hoping to get more time again soon 🤞