What did you see tonight?

[josefk]

Mars and Saturn!  The nearly closed rings of Saturn look great. Mars was a bit of a blobby mess. This was at the end of a dusk till dawn all nighter. 

I think I saw my faintest galaxy of the year so far too NGC 3066. Mag 12.8. Not sure if it’s the lowest surface brightness so far this year though till I check my notes later. It was difficult seeing as it was never properly dark. 

if I get a few minutes of white light Solar in before packing up it’ll be a full house. 👌🏻

[josefk]

3 hours ago, josefk said:

Mars and Saturn!  The nearly closed rings of Saturn look great. Mars was a bit of a blobby mess. This was at the end of a dusk till dawn all nighter. 

I think I saw my faintest galaxy of the year so far too NGC 3066. Mag 12.8. Not sure if it’s the lowest surface brightness so far this year though till I check my notes later. It was difficult seeing as it was never properly dark. 

if I get a few minutes of white light Solar in before packing up it’ll be a full house. 👌🏻

Well a few minutes turned into an hour. I’m sure sketching sunspots is a bit like sketching Jupiter. It seems to evolve if you go too slowly. I assume this is AR 3691 - I’ll check later with a coffee. 
 

 

Edit: the breakout detail is actually AR 3697. Looks like it will be a good target today. AR 3691 which was huge on bank holiday Monday is the much diminished spot group in the WNW (11-o’clock). 

Edited June 2 by josefk
ID of sunspots

[SwiMatt]

3 hours ago, josefk said:

Well a few minutes turned into an hour. I’m sure sketching sunspots is a bit like sketching Jupiter. It seems to evolve if you go too slowly. I assume this is AR 3691 - I’ll check later with a coffee. 
 

 

Edit: the breakout detail is actually AR 3697. Looks like it will be a good target today. AR 3691 which was huge on bank holiday Monday is the much diminished spot group in the WNW (11-o’clock). 

Lovely sketches @josefk! What aperture are you using to gather such minute details?

[josefk]

2 hours ago, SwiMatt said:

Lovely sketches @josefk! What aperture are you using to gather such minute details?

Thanks @SwiMatt this one this morning is with just 85mm but it’s a good 85mm. Phenomenal 85mm really - I don’t think anybody told it it’s a small scope. I was also using a binoviewer which helps and the seeing before 07:00 this morning was also very very steady so there is that. 

I’ve just tried again with a decent 95mm APO (cyclops style) and although the sky looks clear blue to the naked eye - through the scope it’s swimming and milky, nowhere near the same resolution of detail. 

[PeterStudz]

Southampton back garden. Bortle 7. Early hours of 2nd June 2024.

Been very busy recently, but I’ve been wanting to play around and get familiar with my little SkyWatcher 1145p, which I’m planning to take on holiday. To a dark site and by air, car and ferry. Now mounted on a AZ Pronto. 

It was cloudy and not looking good at 10 - 10:30pm, so I went to bed for a bit, setting the alarm for midnight. On waking up I was pleased to see a clear sky. Went about using what I’d take away with me and hopefully find and resolve any potential issues/improvements. Looked at more targets than I normally do and I was surprised how transparent the sky was. Even with the sky not properly dark and being in Bortle 7 it was nice to see what a small basic telescope can do. Fun too. Targets included, in no particular order…

M29 Cooling Tower 

Coathanger Cluster 

M39 Cluster

M27 Dumbbell Nebula 

M11 Wild Duck Cluster 

M13 Hercules Globular

M57 Ring Nebula 

The double star Albireo

 

M11 was a bit low and in a poor bit of sky. I could only just make it out. The other open clusters were great. Also good to see that a UHC filter made a significant improvement on M27 even when using a small aperture. I could not resolve any stars in M13 but it had a slight “sparkly” appearance. Albireo was lovely… been a while since I’d seen that. Finished at about 2am for a good night. 

[paulastro]

Went out last night around 11.45 and used the Celestron Starsense 8inch Dob till about 2.30am.  Looked at brighter objects as the sky was rather hazy.  The highlight was M22 which is very low at its best up here.  It glowed through low cloud like a ghost as the cloud varied.

At the same time I had the Seestar going.  Attached is a pic of part of IC1396.  It's a large object and as I had moved away from the centre Seestar doesn't imprint what ithe subject is as it usually does.

[Mr Spock]

Meh. Forecast was clear for tonight. It's changed now and there's a lot of high cloud coming over 😡

I suppose at least I'll get a full night's sleep 

[Nik271]

I had a quick look at some bright doubles in the twilight with my 102 ED refractor. Izar was great at x180, the seeing is good. Transparency not so much. Before packing up looked at T CrB again. Still dim at 10-th mag. Oh well, another time then. 🥱

[bosun21]

Out with the 10" Synscan dobsonian last night 2/3rd June. There was patchy high cloud about which thankfully got less as the night progressed.  After a quick 2 star alignment on Arcturus and Vega as they were the first to appear in the slowly darkening sky, I selected M13 (again). I couldn't see it at all and initially thought my go to was way off. I always level accurately and use a reticled eyepiece to centre the alignment stars so I was confident I was in the correct spot. I went indoors and made myself a cup of tea while darkness descended. On my return I could now see the globular cluster in the eyepiece. I cranked up the magnification to 120x with a 10mm UFF which helped darken the sky. Despite not being fully dark I could easily see the individual stars clearly. I then went to M5 , M3 and M57 next as in skies that aren't properly dark I find that the brighter globulars make the best targets (to me anyway). The seeing was decent although the transparency wasn't all that. Alberio was nice and crisp also at 120x with the colours of yellow and blue looking really nice. Back I went to M13 and this time I sat at the eyepiece and once I checked it was centered I took my eye away from the eyepiece and completely draped my head with my black fabric and sat there for what felt like an eternity. I wanted to get as close to being perfectly dark adapted before putting my eye back to the eyepiece and viewing M13. Wow! What a difference with the brightness and clarity being boosted. I sat there for a good 30 minutes more just soaking up the view. That was my astro appetite fed for the night so I retreated back indoors. Thanks for reading my ramblings.

 

[josefk]

2 minutes ago, bosun21 said:

Back I went to M13 and this time I sat at the eyepiece and once I checked it was centered I took my eye away from the eyepiece and completely draped my head with my black fabric and sat there for what felt like an eternity

Nice one @bosun21 - i'm doing this more and more these days - i'm finding it quite interesting to note how dark adapation of the viewing eye is degraded away from the EP even in a dark spot  and how even in a dark spot fully shading the EP with a hood or a blanket really deepens the view. I can imagine M13 really sparkled for you. 

[PeterC65]

5 hours ago, bosun21 said:

Back I went to M13 and this time I sat at the eyepiece and once I checked it was centered I took my eye away from the eyepiece and completely draped my head with my black fabric and sat there for what felt like an eternity. I wanted to get as close to being perfectly dark adapted before putting my eye back to the eyepiece and viewing M13. Wow! What a difference with the brightness and clarity being boosted. I sat there for a good 30 minutes more just soaking up the view.

I bought a monk style observing hood a couple of months back and am hoping this will make a significant difference next time I do some visual observing.

[bosun21]

1 hour ago, PeterC65 said:

I bought a monk style observing hood a couple of months back and am hoping this will make a significant difference next time I do some visual observing.

It will Peter up to a point. If you can still see any light from your forward vision (and I mean ANY light) then you won't be 100% dark adapted. It will still be a major improvement though.

[PeterStudz]

1 hour ago, PeterC65 said:

I bought a monk style observing hood a couple of months back and am hoping this will make a significant difference next time I do some visual observing.

I have an “observing hoody” that is useful for this. It isn’t purpose made but it also has massive pockets, great for eyepieces etc. Although it’s fleeced lined (great in the winter, too hot in the summer) and not nearly as good as the above “monk style” make. I also see that they do “Observing Vests” which includes a hood. I’m very tempted by that.

Hoods are also useful for white-light solar, without I often notice glare coming off the eyepiece. 

[Elp]

I actually recently forayed to a dark site, forecast seemed clear on multiple websites but astro luck is few and far, it was semi cloudy once there. Waited half hour, started to clear up overhead so setup the visual (no way I was going to image anything useful), put eyepiece in and couldn't see anything, even when pointed at a clear patch. Very quickly it was near complete cloud, or it was more like a haze. Just standing there with my own vision it was hard to visualise anything like the air was oppressing my vision, never experienced it before (it's also completely dark, I couldn't see my setup 3 metres away other than the slight form of the white OTA, no moon out). If you've ever seen THAT House of the Dragon episode squinting your eyes trying to eek out any detail, that's what it was like, but all around you, and the only relief was to leave.

[Stu1smartcookie]

Big Red gets a surprise outing this evening… I’m sure the clouds will spoil it but for a quick hour let’s make the most of it

Morning Update ... 

Really sad times ... as soon as the sky started to darken the clouds rolled in ... the only saving grace with his set up is that it literally takes no more than 5-10 mins to assemble . ... Apparently next clear sky at night will be Saturday ( although im not sure which saturday zzz)

 

Edited June 4 by Stu1smartcookie

[Mr Spock]

Just doing some doubles with the FC-100. Come in after 20 minutes to get the big gloves and woolly hat. My fingers are dropping off!

[Mr Spock]

Called it a night. Wind chill is around zero 🥶

Tried Antares again - no show. So I had a look at Polaris - that's nice and easy.

[josefk]

7 hours ago, Mr Spock said:

Just doing some doubles with the FC-100. Come in after 20 minutes to get the big gloves and woolly hat. My fingers are dropping off!

It was shockingly cold wasn’t it? I was out till about 02:30 and if I didn’t know the month I would have guessed March!

[sheffieldsunwatcher]

Outside until about 1am, from about 11pm, largely looking at double stars, and letting the experience of viewing very distant objects wash away some of the grubbiness of the earlier pre-election debate. I've not concentrated on double stars previously, and it was very enjoyable - I was guided by a Nexus DSC, which is a godsend. Also viewed M3 and - perhaps the highlight - the double cluster in Perseus, which thankfully wasn't out of view due to the hedge on the left-hand side of our garden. I was very cold by the time I came in, and it took me a while properly to warm up and drop off to sleep. 

[josefk]

1 hour ago, sheffieldsunwatcher said:

I was very cold by the time I came in, and it took me a while properly to warm up and drop off to sleep. 

...the secret is to pre-book hot water bottle arrangements 😉

[Oscar23]

On 04/06/2024 at 17:43, Mr Spock said:

Called it a night. Wind chill is around zero 🥶

Tried Antares again - no show. So I had a look at Polaris - that's nice and easy.

Michael, how much separation does Antares usually show for you on a good night? I had a look since I only recently found out it's a binary. I think I saw Antares B, but only as a small blue blob seemingly conjoined with Antares A. That was at 240x. Is that fairly standard? Very photogenic star to look at in any case with how aggressively it flickers in different colours. Reds, greens, yellows, and now blues... hey, it's in HDR

[Nik271]

Antares is hard only for us further north because it's so low to the horizon. In good seeing x240 is plenty to split it. The  pair has similar separation as Izar, about 3 arcseconds but 5 magnitudes of brightness difference.

[Mr Spock]

Antares is very low here - just over the top of my fence. I can't split it with the FC-100 and it's too low (below the fence line) for the 12".

[Oscar23]

So, in theory, given the seeing and optics permit, I should be able to see the two as two distinct, separate dots, with a gap between them? Is that purely in theory or have you guys seen that before?

[Mr Spock]

If I was at 20° north instead of 53° it would be an easy split.