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What did you see tonight?


Ags

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I set up my 6" Newt just after 9pm and did an hour before cloud started coming over. I started with 19p borrelly and then decided to have a go at 104p/kowal which is situated in Cetus.

I found the exact location and could see a faint smudge - is this the comet? Websites state from mag 10 to 15 depending which you look at. Anyway there was something there.

After that it was M1,M81,M82,M97,M108,NGC 7789,M33,M35+2158

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I had a good session tonight; transparency had improved a lot from earlier. I started with M42 (very nice extended nebulosity) with some colours and Flame was jsut about visible without a filter. I then did a 180 degree turn to Cassiopeia NGC654, C10 and NGC659. Moving further up, NGC957 and the double Persei looked stunning again. I put my OIII filter and took a look at the Heart and Soul nebulas nearby; nice nebulosity came through around the stars. They are both huge so i had to move around a bit. I moved to Cepheus and C4; this nebula has always been unimpressive. I did not try any filters. Cat's eye with its nice blue colour was very pleasing to see. I failed to see IC3568, but looking the map i was way off!  Then it was the turn of the Owl and M108. That was my first proper nebula to see (after M42) when I got my Dob last year so it always excites me since it was the one that really ignite my interest in hunting these nebulas. It looked nice with and without the OIII filter; i refer the unfiltered view since i can have the M108 in the same FOV. The filter brought out some more features, darker patches. By the end transparency dropped and packed everything back. It was a great night despite transparency being on/off.

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15 minutes ago, Stu said:

Had a fun evening doing an outreach event at a local school with CADAS (with @Zermelo). We had 5 scopes setup, 4 visual and one imaging. I took my Celestron Omni 120mm XLT and Tak FC76DC, aiming for widefield and higher power views side by side on my AZ100. This didn’t quite work out though as the dovetail on the Tak is very short and the safety Allen bolts at either end meant it didn’t fit in the dovetail! Fortunately I had taken the Scopetech mount along too but that meant I was run ragged between two scopes! It was a bit chaotic but the children were well behaved around the scopes and it worked well, especially when one of the other members came along to assist!

I had the 12.5mm Morpheus in the 120mm giving x80 ish and the 24mm Panoptic in the Tak giving x24.

The weather wasn’t great, but just about good enough, a mix of thick cloud (with occasional light rain) and clear spells but fortunately it was moving through quite quickly so there was always something to look at. The seeing wasn’t that good, but we had nice views of the 3 day old Moon, M42 and M45. I briefly found M31 but unfortunately it was hidden by cloud before I could show anyone.

The two things I pointed out to people on the Moon were the two illuminated mountain peaks of the lower end of the terminator, and the dramatic shadow cast by the crater walls across the floor of the crater Endymion. These show up very well in the NASA simulator just as they appeared at the eyepiece.

Highlight of the night (apart from the delighted responses of the children and parents), was seeing the ISS and managing to track it for quite a while through the scope, showing me clear views of the solar panels.

It started to rain a little just as we were packing up, all in all an enjoyable evening.

8E6A05C0-0EF9-4DCF-9584-709E3FC670DB.jpeg

Not much to add to that fulsome report, except that I got my first look through a Morpheus, courtesy of @Stu. That could prove expensive.

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Had a lovely view of the comet C/21019 L3 atlas tonight in my orion 8 inch scope. Fine blob in Gemini.

This Orion scope continues to impress me. I had a look around various galaxies and I was even able to pick a few mag 12 ones like ngc 2832. The limiting magnitude on stars tonight at my site was 13.7.

Mark

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Took my £60 Orion ST80 into the garden at about 23.30, lovely clear night in Surrey but you could hardly call the sky dark. Although this little scope was clearly at it's limits I easily found M42 and gazed in wonder. No colours but it's shape was clearly defined. I wish I'd started this years ago.

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2 hours ago, Captain Scarlet said:

The forecast was for clear until 1am so I got 80% of the way through setting up my 12” on my az-eq6, was just about to collect and mount the OTA itself into the rings when the clouds suddenly came and the heavens opened. I covered everything up to wait for it to pass but the rain just got heavier. Just finished bringing it all back in again. Extremely annoying.

Nothing if not stubborn, I went outside a little after packing everything up, and of course! it was all clear again. So I dragged everything out again, 12” newt on az-eq6, and I’m glad I did. 1am now, too tired to write it up this instant, but I’ll do so with a separate Observing Report tomorrow. Nice night in the end.

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7 hours ago, cajen2 said:

Exactly the same for me. I set up the scope as we had a visitor coming (a somewhat boring friend of my partner's) and, especially with blokes, it gives me something to talk about. So I focused on the moon at 125x, and called him outside to take a look. He did, shrugged  and went back inside. No pleasing some people....

It is always baffles me when people don't appreciate astronomical objects 🤔😡

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Friday early evening is filled with child-ferrying to various activities but in a down-half hour I sneaked 15 minutes naked eye from a dark spot between Scouts & swim-team.  Transparency was rubbish in bands of high cloud - nothing above mag2 but good in the clear stripes. 
Almost overhead I could pick out the Auriga Messiers with AV and the bits of Orion in the clear looked great. 
I had to meet a bloke in a pub after that to talk about post lockdown resurrection of a band (weighty matters) and this ran, predictably, late.  
Consequently elected for a garden session (driving out to dark site rendered impossible through beer, motivation to schlep gear on foot to the park very low). 
Nice night though, seeing & transparency after midnight much improved and was able to confirm that Mak-flocking exploits earlier in the week have not disturbed collimation & tantalising signs that things may be a little crisper. 
Hunted a long time for M101 & must’ve been looking straight at/through it but really couldn’t find it . 
Consoled myself with a lovely long look at M3 and the thrill of picking out  good  views of M81/2 in the same field - still blows my mind that I can see objects 11m light years away from a garden overlooked by year round fairy lights! 
Enjoyed splitting Algieba, Castor, Mizar & Porrima (a lovely even vertically aligned white pair standing 250x tonight). 
Thought about heading over to the park with the ST80 for a bit but caved in to a nightcap & SGL browse instead :) 

Edited by SuburbanMak
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Wasn’t back until after 10 last night from watching my daughter’s theatre production and with a long week of work hanging heavy on my eyes, elected for the Bino’s. Seemed fairly steady, but took in Orion quickly before an open cluster trawl: M35, M36, M37, M38, Col 89, NGC 884, NGC 886, M44, M45 etc. 

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I'm quite pleased I managed to see the planetary nebula NGC 2438 in M46. These are never very high from my location and the sky in the south is light polluted, so last night the conditions must have been very good. I used my new OIII filter, without it I doubt I would have spotted the nebula, it's quite dim. I used 20mm EP on a 180Skymax, so the exit pupil was a bit  low at 1.3mm but still it worked for me. 

People say that narrowband filters are only usable with large exit pupil and I can certainly see the sense in this, however my experience is that they sometimes work at high mags and small exit pupipl. It all depends on the object I guess.  

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51 minutes ago, Nik271 said:

I'm quite pleased I managed to see the planetary nebula NGC 2438 in M46. These are never very high from my location and the sky in the south is light polluted, so last night the conditions must have been very good. I used my new OIII filter, without it I doubt I would have spotted the nebula, it's quite dim. I used 20mm EP on a 180Skymax, so the exit pupil was a bit  low at 1.3mm but still it worked for me. 

People say that narrowband filters are only usable with large exit pupil and I can certainly see the sense in this, however my experience is that they sometimes work at high mags and small exit pupipl. It all depends on the object I guess.  

Yep - managed that last week, too. It's going to be even lower for me, too. 

Unfiltered, it was hard enough to make out M46, but with the Oiii (Astronomik) the little planetary nebula popped out with AV. This was with an 8" dob and a 5mm exit pupil.

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It stayed clear last night so I had another pop out just after midnight, 15x70's again, Perseus was really opened up in these bins and spent a bit of time there. On moving back into the Orion area I noticed a very red speck of light against the blackness of the background, I had never noticed this before. Only upon reading the Feb issue of BinocularSky this morning did I learn this is R Leporis (Hind's Crimson Star) so another first for me. I have a feeling I'm really going to enjoy owning these bins.

Earlier in the evening I had a nice detailed viewing of the crescent moon through them as well. These might actually encourage me to leave the garden and look for darker skies.

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On 05/02/2022 at 13:51, JDF said:

It stayed clear last night so I had another pop out just after midnight, 15x70's again, Perseus was really opened up in these bins and spent a bit of time there. On moving back into the Orion area I noticed a very red speck of light against the blackness of the background, I had never noticed this before. Only upon reading the Feb issue of BinocularSky this morning did I learn this is R Leporis (Hind's Crimson Star) so another first for me. I have a feeling I'm really going to enjoy owning these bins.

Earlier in the evening I had a nice detailed viewing of the crescent moon through them as well. These might actually encourage me to leave the garden and look for darker skies.

I have just secured a pair of 15x70’s … just being collimated , can’t wait to use them .. like you I think it’s an incentive to go further afield to a darker site to observe .  :) 

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1 hour ago, Stu1smartcookie said:

I have just secured a pair of 15x70’s … just being collimated , can’t wait to use them .. like you I think it’s an incentive to go further afield to a darker site to observe .  :) 

Consider a trigger grip and monopod.

Although solo trigger grips at the moment seem to be out of stock, Amazon do one with a tripod. You're getting the tripod for about a tenner:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B01LQX0P8Q/ref=psdcmw_1104574_t2_B000XUXPJ0

 

The same monopod as mine:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/265154279828

 

Bracket:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Opticron-Binocular-Tripod-Mount-Binoculars/dp/B005F51HE8/ref=mp_s_a_1_6?crid=16QFFWTLUVA0Q&keywords=opticron%2Bbinocular%2Bbracket&qid=1644178179&sprefix=opticron%2Bbiocular%2Bbracket%2Caps%2C145&sr=8-6&th=1&psc=1

 

Relentless cloud for at least the last two weeks here. Although it's clearing up a bit tonight and the 40mph gusts are heading down to a mere 20mph so a quick session in the garden corner may be grabbed later...

 

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14 minutes ago, ScouseSpaceCadet said:

Consider a trigger grip and monopod.

Although solo trigger grips at the moment seem to be out of stock, Amazon do one with a tripod. You're getting the tripod for about a tenner:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B01LQX0P8Q/ref=psdcmw_1104574_t2_B000XUXPJ0

 

I'll second that trigger grip suggestion, I have mine mounted to the same one and it's well worth the money, the tripod is perfect for this size of bins too.

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Had an hour or so out with the 80ED on the EQ5 as it's extremely windy with some very strong gusts.  Moon was really nice at 120x with the 5mm Pentax XW - seeing seemed ok but probably helped by the small aperture giving a nice sharp view.

Spent the time exploring around Mason / Plana - noticing and interesting valley or ridge coming from Mason B down to Grove.  Also around Posidonius able to detect easily Posidonius C and just about Rimae Posidonius cutting through the crater.   The whole area between this and Mare Crisium seemed really nicely illuminated able to make many details in the surface.

Hoping the wind is going to die down some and I'll get the 120ST out later for some DSOs!

Edited by Davesellars
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It's been clear here now from 6pm so I had the Skymax 127 out for a half hour to have a look at the Moon, it also let me try out the Skytee mount for the 1st time since it's purchase. Had a look at M42 with it, with a 32mm plossl with the UHC filter and a 10mm without filter, nebulosity showed best at the higher mag without filter. Seeing maybe not great as Trapezium was just about resolving 4 stars at  x150. Came in for some food and then back out for an hour with the bins again for a look at M31, not great with the Moon washing most of the sky out but still fun scanning around .

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I had a look at the moon earlier; despite the strong wind there were moments of very good seeing. I think the rain helped as well. I am not going to bother with anteing else tonight as the wind is shacking the Dob like crazy.

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Target for tonight was lunar using my Tak FC-100DL, BV’s, 15mm TV plossls & 2.5x power mate.
Starting with Posidonius, then directly below was the Aldrovandi ridge I think? down further the highlight for me was the well illuminated Taurus Littrow mountains where Apollo 17 landed, first time I’ve had a good look here and it didn’t disappoint.
Scanning further south through the Sea of Tranquility to Theophilus then down to Fracastorius at the bottom of Mare Nectaris. 
Only a quick session before clouds rolled in and the cold started to bite!
 

Edited by jock1958
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Popped the FC76Q out after seeing some clear spells, and decided to use the binoviewers. I used a T2 prism, x2.6 GPC and managed to reach focus easily, this setup giving me x100 with a pair of 25mm orthos)

I only looked at the Moon really, apart from a quick look at M42. Main things that stood out for me were Posidonius, Theophilus and a new one for me Riccius. The Messier pair also looked good, always interesting to view under the various different illuminations.

3B2B2FF3-5E83-4BB0-AC2E-53093F34C502.jpeg

6FDD29CC-3911-48EA-9ED0-3C81A1C2CF48.png

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Hello. Was out earlier myself. Not too long as rather windy. 
However @Stu the crater Riccus, not that I knew the name till now, jumped out at me. The way it was illuminated reminded me of the Sand Monster from Star Wars. Looked like 5 or 6 huge teeth circulating a large open mouth. 🤔🤔  -  new one for the observing log. 

John  

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