What did you see tonight?

[Mircea]

Hello

I'm new on the forum, I'm trying to join the party.

 

Friday morning and Saturday morning I was successful at observing the Venus-Jupiter conjunction on the morning sky.

I used my three inch F/9 Newtonian at 28x/ Plossl 25mm and 70x / Plossl 10mm.

Friday I estimated the distance among Venus-Jupiter to 102'. Stellarium said it was actually 97'. So 5% error. This is acceptable.

Saturday I estimated a distance of 49' but  Stellarium contradicted me saying it was 43'. It was a hair just bigger than the field of the 10mm Plossl at 70x. This is a huge 14% error.

Looking into the cause of this large error I learned the field of the so-called 10mm ''Super Plossl'' to be at most 50 degrees not 52 degrees as I expected.

The clouds prevented me to see today the two planets at 22' apart.

I'm attaching the sketches of the observations.

Clear sky, Mircea

[Mr Spock]

Clear blue sky tonight. I have the 102 out cooling. Just had a brief look at the moon. It looks good at x119 - can't go higher yet until it cools fully.

[Kon]

I had a nice session looking at the moon. What got my attention was Petavius and its rille, Rimae Petavius. It showed really nice in the 8" Dob and I could go to high magnification despite the light wind. A nice dark line was running inside the crater. Unfortunately I have to come back in since it is an early wake up tomorrow. Enjoy if you are out tonight.

[Mr Spock]

Sadly seeing condition here are dreadful. I'll give it another hour. I thought I might get some doubles in but Castor is a wobbly mess. Good transparency though - complete opposite on both from my last session.

[Zermelo]

Seeing and transparency both good here.

Another "mostly doubles" evening with the Mak, but the main task was to give the new Morpheus 9mm a workout. It did not disappoint. In comparisons with several other EPs, it gave tighter stars and crisper diffraction rings, less scatter and better contrast. This all helped with the more challenging doubles, especially the ones with a big magnitude difference. The Morpheus could therefore split doubles more readily than its 9mm focal length might have suggested, getting down as far as 1.6".

The head-to-head I most wanted to see was with the ES 82° 6.7mm, probably my best eyepiece before this one. I could see a clear improvement with the Morpheus, especially in the reduced scatter.

[Nik271]

Vallis Snellius on the Moon, with Svbony 102 ED at x80. This is a subtle valley: even though very long (almost 600km), it's not easy to spot next to the crater Snellius.

It was showing reasonably well at 9pm last night. Vallis Rheita further south was much more prominent looking like a dark canyon.

 

Edited May 5, 2022 by Nik271
typos

[tombardier]

The seeing is awful here right now, same as last night.  Trying to look at the moon, but it's just frustrating, I'm afraid.   A shame, as I have been trying to put a a new (to me) pair of 12.5mm morpheus to the test (in my Binotron).  I'll try again in an hour or so.

[cajen2]

Another 8" dob looking at the moon. Seeing  was pretty bad at first - don't think I left the scope to cool for long enough - but then it improved. Transparency extremely patchy - some high cloud and vapour trails persisted for ages.

I tried out different EPs and mags on firstly Castor and then the moon. I rapidly found that my collimation was a bit out, so stayed on the moon. The Morpheus 12.5mm gave the most pleasing view (96x mag) but not of course as much detail as the Pentax XW 5mm (240x). I was surprised at how good the Svbony UWA 6mm was (200x) but eye placement is critical with that one. I got fed up with constantly nudging the scope at the highest mags so returned to the Morpheus and had a good long look at the terminator - great stuff!

[Guest]

26 minutes ago, cajen2 said:

Another 8" dob looking at the moon. Seeing  was pretty bad at first - don't think I left the scope to cool for long enough - but then it improved. Transparency extremely patchy - some high cloud and vapour trails persisted for ages.

I tried out different EPs and mags on firstly Castor and then the moon. I rapidly found that my collimation was a bit out, so stayed on the moon. The Morpheus 12.5mm gave the most pleasing view (96x mag) but not of course as much detail as the Pentax XW 5mm (240x). I was surprised at how good the Svbony UWA 6mm was (200x) but eye placement is critical with that one. I got fed up with constantly nudging the scope at the highest mags so returned to the Morpheus and had a good long look at the terminator - great stuff!

We have such bad cloud cover at the moment I couldn't see it if I wanted to

[Stu1smartcookie]

My first evening out with the scope , this week ... a bit of high cloud that made viewing the moon a bit hit and miss at first but as the sky darkened the clouds seemed to disapear . What i did glean from last night is that maybe Zoom EP's are not for me as i found the SVBony 8-24 mm a bit , almost claustrophobic ... if that makes any sense to anyone . I now realise why most people use dedicated FL EP's as the views are brighter and in my opinion less restrictive ( due to the FOV? ). Mainly viewing individual and double stars last night as i have early starts during the week , so Late night astronomy is off the menu . Overall though a good session and a joy to set up and look through a scope . 

[LaurenceT]

2 hours ago, Stu1smartcookie said:

My first evening out with the scope , this week ... a bit of high cloud that made viewing the moon a bit hit and miss at first but as the sky darkened the clouds seemed to disapear . What i did glean from last night is that maybe Zoom EP's are not for me as i found the SVBony 8-24 mm a bit , almost claustrophobic ... if that makes any sense to anyone . I now realise why most people use dedicated FL EP's as the views are brighter and in my opinion less restrictive ( due to the FOV? ). Mainly viewing individual and double stars last night as i have early starts during the week , so Late night astronomy is off the menu . Overall though a good session and a joy to set up and look through a scope . 

You could be right about the FOV. The Svbony zoom fov is 38-56 degrees while my Baader Hyperion Zoom is 48-68 degrees and I don't feel the view is too narrow.

[Stu1smartcookie]

3 minutes ago, LaurenceT said:

You could be right about the FOV. The Svbony zoom fov is 38-56 degrees while my Baader Hyperion Zoom is 48-68 degrees and I don't feel the view is too narrow.

Horses for Courses springs to mind , Laurence . Zooms are convenient and obviously good for some . 

[StevieDvd]

Had a quick viewing session with the new Evolux 62ED on the AZ-GTi (alt/az mode) - sitting on the new (to me) Behrlebach Report 112 tripod. This is the first light using the ZWO ASI178MM I bought for solar/lunar, only a short video before I packed up as could not get a decent capture on my iphone.

[Stu1smartcookie]

11 minutes ago, StevieDvd said:

Had a quick viewing session with the new Evolux 62ED on the AZ-GTi (alt/az mode) - sitting on the new (to me) Behrlebach Report 112 tripod. This is the first light using the ZWO ASI178MM I bought for solar/lunar, only a short video before I packed up as could not get a decent capture on my iphone.

Nice moody shot , Steve ... glad you were able to use the Evolux . 

[Paz]

I was out looking at the moon last night (are you allowed to post what you saw yesterday?).

I was mostly concentrating on the floor of Atlas, the rim of Hercules, and the south pole / horn looking for what I call "moon diamonds"... those bits of the moon that are lit up but are separated from the main body of the lit face of the moon so they look like specs and slivers of rock or light hanging in space, they can appear anywhere along the dark side of the terminator.

The southern horn looked a lot like a talon from a bird of prey after looking at it for long enough.

I was observing with a 127mm f15 Maksutov, 20mm SLVs, and binoviewers with a 1.25x gpc so about 119x and seeing was ok.

I tried a pair of polarising filters to see if tuning the brightness brought different features out more (as it always does for me when solar observing and sometimes on lunar)  whilst it was still twilight but no filters was better this time.

[Whistlin Bob]

I didn't see anything last night, and by the looks of the sky tonight there's no chance there either.

However, it's been a nice sunny day and my local club is based at a forestry centre that runs family science discovery days. As a result I spent most of today with some solar film over the end of my newt showing and explaining sunspots to lots of very engaged (and engaging) young people and their parents.

So today I saw a very active star with  seven visible spots in my telescope and so did around a hundred other people.

Lots of pictures taken, but not really appropriate to share them on the web, so here's a rare quiet moment with my cheapo 3rd hand Skywatcher outside our obsy waiting to excite the next group.

[SuburbanMak]

Very satisfying impromptu session with the Mak 127 tonight ducking between banks of high cloud - seeing spectacular in the clear patches. 
Enjoyed great views of M13 with diamond dust apparent with an 18mm BCO (83x) & M57 a crisp smoke ring at 120x. 

Spent most of my time on obvious doubles and got stunning views of Izar (epsilon Bootis) splitting at 120x and opening out all the way up to 337x with a 2.25x Barlowed 10mm BCO - cool blue white secondary sitting just outside the first diffraction ring of the warm orange/yellow primary. 
Similarly rock steady and well spaced views of the Double Double in Cygnus. 
Looked at other doubles & clusters (M29, M39, Alberio, Omicron,17,61 Cygnus) before the cloud expanded to the packing-up point.  Nice though. 

[Mircea]

The Moon, last night, Saturday, May 7 a.c., seen with the naked eye through fog and thin clouds, illuminated 38%, according to Stellarium and with an apparent diameter of 30 '.
The phenomenon of the "ashen light" was clearly visible.

Apart from the Moon, no other celestial body could be seen on the entire sky.

The 8x30mm IOR binoculars showed a dimly lit Moon Corona, with a diameter of three to four Moon diameters and a rusty-brownsih outer stripe, wide but at the limit of observability.

Inside the Moon Corona were two bright areas.
One was oval, eccentric, almost tangent to the western edge of the Moon and whose major axis was approx. of two Moon diameters. So the edge of this area is away from the limb at most one Moon ray.
A second area, of lower brightness, was circular, centered on the center of the Moon disc and with a diameter that seemed to me to vary between three to four Moon diameters.

 

Clear sky, Mircea

Edited May 8, 2022 by Mircea

[Mr Spock]

I've got the beast pointed at the moon. It hasn't cooled yet but there are some stunning central peaks on the terminator.

[Ags]

Lots of detail on the Moon tonight. Viewing at an exit pupil of 0.8 mm was ok, no troubling floaters at night. I did try the same eyepiece in daylight with a Wratten #8 filter to boost contrast but the floaters were abominable. Not quite sure how that works optically...

Seriously impressed with the detail shown by the ZS66 at only 79x magnification. The scope could go higher but my eyes won't 😏

Sometimes I wish there was less detail on the Moon, I would be able to make sense of it then!

Had a long look at the Sun earlier in the day too.

[Mr Spock]

Seeing is good tonight, if not quite steady. Good enough for the beast to hold x380 comfortably.

Just been looking at Rima Réamur and Rima Oppolzer. Starting near Rhaeticus, I can follow Rima Oppolzer right through Réamur and Oppolzer.

[Kon]

Really nice seeing tonight and I managed some imaging and viewing of the Montes Apenninus and the Rima Hyginus, Rima Triesnecker and Rima Ariadaeuswith my 8" Dob. The Rima looked best earlier this evening with nice contrast. The Monte's Apenninus showed some fascinating shadows.

[Mr Spock]

And that's it. Now clouded over 😡

[Stu1smartcookie]

Lovely clear evening which was spent in the company of the 110mm Frac and the moon ... and a good chance to test (fully) my zoom EP . I had dismissed this EP a little too quickly in a previous post but in reality its made for planetary and lunar viewing .The still air  made the night a fantastic viewing experience . There is something , er, rather relaxing when looking at our Moon . I must admit i am not that familiar with all the features on the surface , there is a lot to see . Also i look and wonder what height some of the ridges and mountain ranges are . More homework needed , i can see why people devote so much of their viewing time to our closest neighbour.  

[badhex]

Managed a quick session last week to try out my new APM 24mm UFF. It performed excellently even in a budget scope (Celestron Travelscope) giving 17x and max FOV for a 1.25" EP, so I had loads of fun sweeping around, attempting various doubles and even managed the Ring! Full wordy report linked below, but in short targets were:

M13
Izar (no split)
M3
Epsilon Lyrae (split first pair)
Zeta Lyrae (split)
Delta Lyrae and friends
Sheliak (split)
Ring averted
HD 175635
M13