What did you see tonight?

[johninderby]

From my book on lunar features.

[Mr Spock]

Very different lighting. The two sides of Rima Cauchy were very well defined, and that crater in the split, white here, was very crisp and clean.

[Stardaze]

Wheeled the dob out at around 7 and had a peek at the moon, all looked great.  Put my little girl to bed and back out just after 8 to find a full sky of cloud which has rolled in a few hours earlier than suggested. I’ve packed back away and if there are some clear patches later, I may grab the binos. Pretty disappointed with that tonight. Glad some of you have clear skies and are out enjoying, look forward to the reports. 

[Davesellars]

Bah..  clouded here too.   Hoping it clears...   I was viewing M42 with the dob and realised the collimation was actually out so could have had an even sharper view of the Moon earlier...   After I collimated I was easily able to get E & F in the trapezium and also split Alnitak.  Was about to try for the same in the 4" refractor and it clouded over!

[Nik271]

Clouded here too, I think it's supposed to clear again from midnight but I have an early start tomorrow. Enjoy it if you can!

[Davesellars]

I brought everything in in the end... wind really got up and looked likely to rain...    If it does indeed clear I may get out with a refractor again (energy depending!)

[7170]

It is beautifully clear here, so far I've imaged doubles 21 Cas and 31 Ori. Guiding at 0.5" RMS earlier, but now slightly higher so it is nice and clear/stable up there.

[Stu]

1 hour ago, Mr Spock said:

Very different lighting. The two sides of Rima Cauchy were very well defined, and that crater in the split, white here, was very crisp and clean.

Any use? From Lunar Quikmaps and the NASA simulator.

[ScouseSpaceCadet]

Like most of the latter posts, cruising the lunar surface with a Skymax 127 and AZGTI for a hour and a half. 214x with the OVL Nirvana ES 7mm was just enough for the slightly wobbly seeing and my floaters.

Edited March 7, 2022 by ScouseSpaceCadet
7mm

[HollyHound]

Had an hour earlier this evening, comparing my new binocular acquisitions on the Neweer camera crane mount (which is great for binoculars).

Ran through the usual suspects… Orion Nebula, Pleiades, Hyades, the moon and just some touring around the sky (mostly cloud free) 😀

Pentax 20x60s were as I remembered… a narrow field of view, but very sharp and loads of magnification.

Super impressed by the Lunt 16x70s… great combination of wide field, magnification and aperture… such an immersive experience 👍

[Stu]

A few of us from CADAS had a good outreach session at a local school for years 4 and 5. Having been clear for much of the day, the clouds started rolling in just at the wrong time so we spent quite a while playing cat and mouse trying to spot the Moon. We then had a decent clear spell until the end, when a thick blanket descended.

Overall it went very well though, I think all the children managed at least one look through one scope, most got several goes.

We had a TEC140 on EQ6, Bresser AR102S on an AZ Goto and LZOS 130 on AZ100 Goto.

My evening started off as a bit of a comedy of errors, starting from the wrong home position then having the scope on the wrong way round so it pointed down towards the ground 🤣🤪, but once sorted the mount played beautifully all night. Even when the children knocked it off target, I could see that on SkySafari and just pressed Goto and it plonked itself back on target, tracking dead centre all evening.

Apart from the Moon, we just looked at M42 and M45 as it was too bright for anything much else, plus the clouds made things tricky at times so the Moon was the best option.

The children seemed to enjoy it, some spending time asking questions and making sure they understood either something about the scope or targets.

[Captain Scarlet]

CADAS @Stu? Did it exist before you arrived? (I won’t tell WAG if you don’t 😀)

[Stu1smartcookie]

I think its good to share the bad with the good so here goes ... Set up the new motors on the EQ5 and was preparing to go outside but i was in a rush and as we all know , astronomy shouldn't be rushed .. from that moment most things went wrong,dropping bits and pieces as my hands were frozen ,polar aligning issues, random car lights !  . The wind was a bit too keen and the sky briefly clouded over and at that point i decided to bring everything in ... of course once that was done the sky cleared and the moon looked like it was grinning at me through the living room window !!!!! Damn you moon , i'll get you tonight ! 

Edited March 8, 2022 by Stu1smartcookie

[Stu]

10 minutes ago, Captain Scarlet said:

CADAS @Stu? Did it exist before you arrived? (I won’t tell WAG if you don’t 😀)

🤣🤣 Indeed it did Magnus, a thriving club with regular meetings and some good outreach activity 👍👍

[Stu]

4 minutes ago, Stu1smartcookie said:

I think its good to share the bad with the good so here goes ... Set up the new motors on the EQ5 and was preparing to go outside but i was in a rush and as we all know , astronomy shouldn't be rushed .. from that moment most things went wrong,dropping bits and pieces as my hands were frozen ,polar aligning issues, random car lights !  . The wind was a bit too keen and the sky briefly clouded over and at that point i decided to bring everything in ... of course once that was done the sky cleared and the moon looked like it was grinning at me through the living room window !!!!! Damn you moon , i'll get you tonight ! 

Agreed, good to share the bad with the good, otherwise we always think everyone else does things perfectly all the time. Pressing Goto on the Moon and having the scope point down to the ground last night for me was a prime example 🤪🤪

[Kon]

I got the Dob out as soon as I got home from work hoping for some lunar observation; I managed 10 min of viewing while dinner was getting ready with the Dob still cooling down. The terminator looked amazing despite the Dob still warm; Theophilus, Cyrillus and Catharina looked really nice with the lighting and very sharp. I thought it will be a great night if seeing was so good already. I got out after dinner and no moon to be seen ☹️. The clouds had rolled in and that was it.

[ONIKKINEN]

Quick look at the Moon with my 7x50 Nikon Aculon binoculars. Always surprising how much the little binos can show of the Moon with so little magnification. Plenty of craters and little nooks and crannies around the terminator.

Of course looked at the other bino targets too: Pleiades, double cluster, Orion, smudge of M31 close to setting. Cant find other galaxies with the Moon still up. Will wait and see if skies are still open once the Moon sets.

[Ags]

Had a look at the Sun today in white (green) light. Some gorgeous sunspot groups on view, dominated a huge sunspot with a wide and sharply defined penumbra. 

[Captain Scarlet]

After a couple of days of howling wind and driving rain, and more forecast for the next few days, tonight's clear skies and sudden drop in wind forced me to set up my 300mm and look at the Moon amongst others. Seeing pretty terrible so I just played. After strolling up and down the very wobbly terminator I went to Polaris and used the Nexus DSC "what's around here" feature to manage to see some surprising mag 12-13 galaxies (with 45% Moon obviously _not_ washing everything out). Galaxies Arp 25 and Arp 114 were quite readily noticed, as well as open cluster NGC 188 / Caldwell 1. A few doubles as well, Izar, Meissa, Almach (lovely blue/gold), Rigel. I spent a little time experimenting, by deliberately moving the primary collimation knobs into miscollimation to see how much difference it made. Quite a lot of difference, even through bad seeing. And holding a long spirit-level across the front of the tube to see how changing its thickness affected the extra diffraction spike produced. Again, quite noticeable effects. Actually a nice "guerrilla" session.

Magnus

Edited March 10, 2022 by Captain Scarlet

[F15Rules]

It was clear last night (Thursday) until c8.15pm...of course, I didn't go out til 8pm!!.

Such as shame as I saw E&F with direct vision with the Nagler T2 12mm (86x) in my FS128, despite the moon.

Next stop was the moon itself and I got this so so shot on my Android phone literally between the clouds, so not great, but had it stayed clear the views, despite a stiff breeze, were looking wonderful.

Cheers,

Dave

 

[Kon]

After the earlier rain, I was able to get the Dob out despite the strong breeze. I spent a good 40min observing Clavius, Plato and Copernicus. The Alpine valley near Plato showed some nice details but unfortunately I could not up the mag too much due to the vibrations. The 'Golden handle' was catching the sun light quite nicely and looked great at lower mags.  I also managed some imaging of these craters (posted in  the lunar imaging section).

[cajen2]

I've been waiting for days for the chance to try out the StellaLyra 80° 20mm EP, and there was a short window in between rain and clouds tonight. I had enough time to see the moon, M43 and several other interesting bits of Orion and the Pleiades, but rarely for me, the focus was on the hardware rather than the views. Anyone interested in the results can see them in the Eyepiece section.

Edited March 13, 2022 by cajen2

[Captain Scarlet]

For me tonight, one of those nights of such terrible seeing you debate whether to sell off the piece of rubbish you happen to be looking through...

[mikeDnight]

I managed an hour at tea time and another hour from around 9pm looking at the Moon through my 6".  I spent most of my time during the second session studying Gassendi and Mare Humourum. It seems Humourum has more than its fair share of craterlets, so many in fact that I kept losing count.  Then to finish off the evening I took the 6" on a cruise through Perseus, stopping off at the double cluster for a while, then the occasional detour when an interesting open cluster caught my eye; and finally a quick look at the Pleiades and the Merope nebula.

 

[SuburbanMak]

Sneaked a quick Prinz 330 60mm f11.8 session before it clouded out.  Looked mainly at the moon - seeing very good and so, for a few minutes, was transparency although it quickly deteriorated to high cloud.  
Particularly noted, I think, the Gruithuisen Domes illuminated beyond the terminator, Montes Jura, Sinus Iridium & Montes Carpatum all looked good, didn’t get into crater naming. 
Lovely split of Castor with the 10mm BCO at 71x.  Rigel &  Meissa split & Sigma Orionis showing 3 stars & its companion Struve triangle in AV.  Alnitak not quite yielding to the BCO 6mm at a slightly wobbly 142x, some elongation. 
Sirius relatively steady & took it up to 142x, unsurprisingly no sign of the Pup. 
Unimpressive views of Pleiades, Double Cluster and M42 although clouding out by then and it was a moonwashed night with a 60mm after all.

By now there was a c 20 degree halo round the moon. Snapped a pic & packed up, nice to get out. 

Edited March 14, 2022 by SuburbanMak