What did you see tonight?

[Captain Scarlet]

Just in from a short but enjoyable session with the 140 frac. First Light for my Feathertouch on the scope. Wonderful as expected.

Seeing seemed not too bad: 268x on the Moon was fine. One Plato craterlet on show, the big central one, in moments of clarity, but no Alpine rille, though it felt as though it should’ve been visible. Not sure what the optimum angle is for that. That remains a Nemesis for me.

Epsilon Lyrae a nice split too, first look of the season.

Magnus

[John]

The moon dominates the sky here tonight.

Lots to see but following the Hesiodus "ray" phenomenon a couple of nights back, I could not resist a look at the smaller neighbour, Hesiodus A with it's double ring structure. It's small but quite well illuminated just now:

Image Credit: ACT-REACT Quickmap / LRO / NASA

[SwiMatt]

I wish the Moon was available from my balcony tonight. Unfortunately after a few amazing nights, now it's behind my building and tonight I was too tired to get elsewhere. I still managed to bag M38, M36 and M37, not without frustration. I had to search at 100x to increase contrast 🤣 Seeing was decent and it gave me some OK views at 166x !

[John]

Good seeing tonight. I've been able to get really sharp and crisp views of Gassendi, it's rilles, central peak and fractured floor using the Svbony 3-8mm zoom (4mm setting) AND a Parks GS barlow which gives a combined magnification of a rather ludicrous 494x. Stepping up to 566x and a touch of the sharpness is lost although the views are still quite impressive. The scope is my old ED120. 

Schiller looks like a huge divot close to the terminator.

The Parks GS barlow is the same optically as the old Celestron Ultima. Nice glass 🙂

 

Edited April 19 by John

[John]

Irresponsible behaviour: Nagler 2-4mm zoom on 2mm + 2.2x barlow (the Parks GS 2x is 2.2x really) in a 900mm FL scope = 989x 😬

Apollo astronaut viewpoint gliding over the lunar surface. I'll pretend that the floaters are a dirty command module window 😉

Highly un-scientific, but fun 😄 

 

Edited April 19 by John

[Zermelo]

Aurorawatch sent a red alert earlier, so we walked to a spot out of town with no street lighting and a decent northern horizon. As the last glow faded in the west, we strained our eyes to the north. Was there a faint, mauve tinge to the sky there? We both thought we could see it, but not definitively. Aurorawatch had by now downgraded to yellow, so we headed back. Next time...

[Mr Spock]

I'll be on it shortly. Put the 100 out and had a quick peek at Gassendi. Perfectly presented. Just let the scope cool a little and we're off.

[scotty1]

Another slight show from the Aurora, it was very active earlier before dark, ok for the Southern hemisphere. 

Dodgy phone pic

 

[Mr Spock]

Having a great lunar session. Seeing is quite good if a little wobbly. It's the long period wobble you get sometimes.

Gassendi N is resolved into a crater and is a fine sight with the rille next to it. A good chance to evaluate eyepieces again - full report to come. The Svbony 3-8 field curvature I noted in the f5 Newt is not evident in the f7.4 apo - interesting. Comparing the 3mm setting, it's very good, falling just short of the 3.3mm TOE and 3.5mm LVW. I prefer the view through the LVW, it has that 'easy on the eye' feel to it. That's another eyepiece better in the f7.4 - in the f5 it's too easy to get blackouts from incorrect eye position.

1 hour ago, John said:

I could not resist a look at the smaller neighbour, Hesiodus A with it's double ring structure. It's small but quite well illuminated just now:

Same. It's an interesting feature. Shame I didn't have the 12" out so I could get a bit more magnification.

The south part of the Schiller Annular Plain, or whatever they call it now, is very prominent. Going back out now - there's so much to see yet!

[Mr Spock]

Just took in half a dozen bright and familiar doubles. Back to the moon now:-

[John]

2 minutes ago, Mr Spock said:

Just took in half a dozen bright and familiar doubles....

 

I do a bit of that when the moon is bright as well. Adds some variety 🙂

I've packed in now (wimp !) - keep on trucking @Mr Spock 👍

[Ags]

31 minutes ago, John said:

keep on trucking @Mr Spock 👍

I think Spocks keep on trekking, surely?

[scotty1]

4 hours ago, Mr Spock said:

Just took in half a dozen bright and familiar doubles. Back to the moon now:-

Have you two weather stations? 

[Mr Spock]

4 hours ago, scotty1 said:

Have you two weather stations? 

Yes - the one on the left has 'retired'.

[Stu1smartcookie]

Walking along the seafront in St.Brelades Bay , Jersey … looking at a second clear sky in a row , without any optical equipment .. I snapped a photo of the moon , freehand when the sky was still blue … I edited on the phone and used a black and white filter which enhanced the contrast a bit .. original added too … couldn’t resist another moon shot 

Edited April 21 by Stu1smartcookie

[John]

Dominant moon again. The crater Pythagoras is looking very fine close to the lunar limb. It's central peak has a very distinctive appearance under this illumination. This image captured in 2006 by Michael A Phillips, USA:

  

Edited April 21 by John

[AlcorAlly]

Tried Kappa Leonis with 2.2” separation for the first time. Spent a loooong time staring at it 230x. Secondary wasn’t visible at all in 4 inch refractor. Not even a trace. Not even a hint. Excellent seeing with perfect stable airy disk but maybe transparency not great? Also the moon 98% shining bright. Will try again another time. 

 

[John]

36 minutes ago, AlcorAlly said:

Tried Kappa Leonis with 2.2” separation for the first time. Spent a loooong time staring at it 230x. Secondary wasn’t visible at all in 4 inch refractor. Not even a trace. Not even a hint. Excellent seeing with perfect stable airy disk but maybe transparency not great? Also the moon 98% shining bright. Will try again another time. 

 

The secondary star of Kappa Leonis is magnitude 9.7 I think. With the bright moon nearby I think that would be quite a challenge with a 4 inch aperture.

I got Iota Leonis (mags 4.6 and 6.7, separation 2.3 arc seconds) with 4 inch refractors this evening but it was not dead easy by any means.

[josefk]

A rather hazy, milky and bright moonlit night last night but i still managed a couple of hours just on M44 trying to sketch double stars within it.

Transparency was awful and seeing was pretty bad - an early session attempt on Tegmine had it hopping, skipping, and jumping across the FOV. No chance.

Still another night grabbed against the odds.

Sketch over here: https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/421375-messier-44-with-double-and-multi-star-systems-21042024/#comment-4480381

 

[Merak]

Last night it stayed clear longer than the previous session of 5 minutes.    Shifts had taken it out of me this week so was only going to stay out for 20-30 mins or so.     Started of with The Moon, this time bumping up the magnification to 428x.    First time I've actually tried such powers and on the limb, details took on a 3D type effect.  Will certainly try it again.

Went on to look at a few doubles and open clusters, one of which - NGC7610 would've been a nice (easy)one to sketch.  Perhaps next time.   Another one of note was NGC1502 in Camelopardalis, with 2 of the stars contained with it like a pair a celestial cats eyes.

In the end, a 20-30 minute session turned in to over 1 and a half hours.   Now to address the 8-13mm eyepiece gap....

[SwiMatt]

The seeing was quite poor here tonight, but I got a nice view of the Beehive, first through binoculars and then at the lowest magnification that my Mak allows - 60x. The building in which I live gave me an assist and protected my view from the moonlight.

I ended my (cold!!) evening with a binocular look at the feet of Gemini where I think I glimpsed a washed out M35, and then found the Cheshire Cat in Auriga, but couldn't see any of the clusters in there.

[Stu1smartcookie]

8 hours ago, SwiMatt said:

The seeing was quite poor here tonight, but I got a nice view of the Beehive, first through binoculars and then at the lowest magnification that my Mak allows - 60x. The building in which I live gave me an assist and protected my view from the moonlight.

I ended my (cold!!) evening with a binocular look at the feet of Gemini where I think I glimpsed a washed out M35, and then found the Cheshire Cat in Auriga, but couldn't see any of the clusters in there.

Glad you had a chance to get out and view something.

 

[SwiMatt]

10 minutes ago, Stu1smartcookie said:

Glad you had a chance to get out and view something.

 

This won't last... 58 N is a terrible latitude to be doing astronomy during summer... 🥲

[paulastro]

Who'd have thought it, Seestar S50 captures 'Pillars of Creation' in M16.

I only noticed it a couple of days ago when reading about M16 in the Cambridge Messier Atlas and saw the two pics attached below underneath the pic I took on April 17th.

My pic was taken at 2.58am, with M16 only being at  6.5deg altitude when I started the 26 minute exposure.  On top of that the conditions were quite poor when I took it, m3 limiting mag.

OK, my pic is hardly the best  (😅) , but I still think its pretty cool.

[Mr Spock]

OK, CO is saying 100% cloud. I'm looking out of the window and seeing 0% cloud... If it holds I'll get some doubles in. Sat shows a band of cloud coming across but nothing the other side of it.