What did you see tonight?

[John]

Venus (naked eye - it's badly placed to get in a scope at present here).

With my ED120 refractor:

Saturn

Jupiter

Neptune and, after some time to get dark adapted, TRITON !. First time with the 120mm refractor I think . Pentax XW 3.5mm (257x) plus averted vision / 1000 yard stare needed but as time went by and I got my eye in, it popped into view, albeit faintly, more often. Listed as magnitude 13.55 so probably at the limit of this aperture.

So far, so good but the forecast for the rest of the night isn't great

 

[Ags]

@John your report gives me some hope of catching Triton with my C6. But just finding Neptune would be an achievement for me!

Edited December 4, 2021 by Ags

[John]

11 minutes ago, Ags said:

@John your report gives me some hope of catching Triton with my C6. But just finding Neptune would be an achievement for me!

I'm using the star hop route (below) through stars in Aquarius to find it currently. The dim "zig zag" of stars in the green oval are visible in a 30mm finder as is Neptune itself, although it is faint in the finder.

 

 

[HollyHound]

Much like John... 

Venus, with the naked eye, whilst out walking the dog... seemed to be a bit of clear sky, so quickly setup the AZ100 with (new to me) FC-100DZ and FS-60CB (as finder). Unfortunately Venus was below the farmhouse, but got lovely view of Jupiter and ok view of Saturn (bit low and over the farmhouse).

Reminded myself just how how much of a difference a 100mm makes compared to 60 or 76mm, so glad to have the DZ in the fold 😀

Unfortunately clouds started to roll in and there was very little else to see, the odd star here and there but nothing worth pursuing, so just continued to take in the beauty of Jupiter until even that got clouded over.... still an hour with a new scope in the same week it arrives is a good thing 👍

[HollyHound]

55 minutes ago, John said:

Neptune and, after some time to get dark adapted, TRITON !. First time with the 120mm refractor I think . Pentax XW 3.5mm (257x) plus averted vision / 1000 yard stare needed but as time went by and I got my eye in, it popped into view, albeit faintly, more often. Listed as magnitude 13.55 so probably at the limit of this aperture.

This is a challenge I want to set myself.... never tried for Neptune (or Uranus) yet, so something to go for very soon... think this might be something to try with either the 10" Dob or perhaps the Mewlon ?

Sounds awesome to see a moon on a planet that far away... you can get a bit blasé about seeing Jupiters moons, but that's a whole different ballgame... nice one 😀

[John]

35 minutes ago, HollyHound said:

This is a challenge I want to set myself.... never tried for Neptune (or Uranus) yet, so something to go for very soon... think this might be something to try with either the 10" Dob or perhaps the Mewlon ?

Sounds awesome to see a moon on a planet that far away... you can get a bit blasé about seeing Jupiters moons, but that's a whole different ballgame... nice one 😀

Either the dob or the Mewlon would be good. When I first spotted Triton it was with my 12 inch dob. With practice I've found that I can now see it with some of my smaller aperture scopes. Not yet the 100 Tak or 102 Vixen though. Similarly with the brighter moons of Uranus.

The thrill of seeing Triton for me, however faint and elusive it is at the eyepiece, is that it is the most distant lump of rock and ice that I've been able to see. The idea of a world that is about the same size as the USA being visible across 4.3 billion km of space is rather awesome

 

[HollyHound]

1 minute ago, John said:

Either the dob or the Mewlon would be good. When I first spotted Triton it was with my 12 inch dob. With practice I've found that I can now see it with some of my smaller aperture scopes. Not yet the 100 Tak or 102 Vixen though. Similarly with the brighter moons of Uranus.

The thrill of seeing Triton for me, however faint and elusive it is at the eyepiece, is that it is the most distant lump of rock and ice that I've been able to see. The idea of a world that is about the same size as the USA being visible across 4.3 billion km of space is rather awesome

 

Thank you, given my relative lack of experience, I'll stick to the larger aperture scopes for now... I have either 7 or 10" of aperture to play with then. I do have the option of using tracking with the Mewlon which might help, but I've also acquired an EQ tracking mount for the Dob, which might be useful... first trick is to properly locate and get comfortable with Neptune 👍

That is a pretty awesome thing... we're used to stars and galaxies being huge distances away but they're fairly bright... as you say, this is a (relatively) small lump of rock and to see that from your back garden has to rank as something to remember 😀 

[ONIKKINEN]

I saw what could have been comet Leonard. Hard to tell in the conditions really.

Took a late night walk with the Nikon aculons in hopes of seeing comet Leonard before it drops below the horizon, and this was probably the last chance. Nice and fresh -22 celsius with wind chill 😆. Skies were a bit milky, probably some high cloud and coupled with the city conditions of bortle 8 i wasn't really expecting much but hey its not going to be visible probably ever again. Scanned the skies up from Arcturus and i am certain it was in the field of view and one of the starlike specks of light in there. Just no way to be certain of the observation as there was no shape or tail of any kind. I am at least partly tempted to haul the VX8 outside but since its getting late (5am is late, not early for me), its probably best to let it go as it would be probably an hour until its set up and cooled.

Did however see a shooting star of sorts, quite bright and lasted longer than a typical blink of an eye, possibly more than a second with a slightly brightening end before it faded. Probably burned in the upper atmosphere at that moment.

[Mr Spock]

What did I see?

Nothing but the rain...

[Stu]

No observing for me last night, despite some lovely looking skies. Just seem to be too tired to get out there at the moment.

I wandered into the garden for about 15/20 mins, just had a look up and took a couple of pictures with my phone. Orion, Taurus and the Pleiades were looking beautiful. I saw two meteors, one fast and bright, one very slow. Nice.

[Zermelo]

For once, CO was spot on and Meteoblue and Metcheck were too pessimistic. Clear after sunset, clouds came over about 9, though there was quite a breeze building.

The brighter planets are now inaccessible to me on the southern horizon, so I put out the Bresser AR-102S to explore some extended targets with 1.25"and 2" 30mm EPs.

M45 was very nice, fainter stars showing well and very sharp. M31 was as usual just the nucleus, but did show some good gradation. M33 was teasing some spiral structure this time; either the Bresser is outperforming my 6" reflector, or my brain is getting more attuned.  The double cluster was very impressive, directly overhead now.

Switching up the mag, M37 and M38 were showing well, while NGC 2281 and NGC 7380 were more modest, but both first timers for me.

 

[Ags]

2 hours ago, Mr Spock said:

Nothing but the rain...

Nearly the same here. When I let the dog out for his midnight sniffing in the herbaceous border I did briefly spot Capella in a fleeting gap in the clouds.

[Mr Spock]

18.9mm yesterday 

[ScouseSpaceCadet]

3 hours ago, Mr Spock said:

What did I see?

Nothing but the rain...

Same here. I'm knackered today. Daftly believing the over optimistic early hours forecast I stayed up late to catch A1 Leonard... 🙄

[mcrowle]

It's looking like my brief Comet Leonard session last week may have been my last.

Perhaps I should have stayed up longer, but at least until 4am Sunday morning was poorer than previously forecast, with barely a clear patch, frequent showers and 40mph gusts. The next week only looks worse.

Regards, Mike.

[John]

1 hour ago, mcrowle said:

It's looking like my brief Comet Leonard session last week may have been my last.

Perhaps I should have stayed up longer, but at least until 4am Sunday morning was poorer than previously forecast, with barely a clear patch, frequent showers and 40mph gusts. The next week only looks worse.

Regards, Mike.

I think I'm likely to miss Comet Leonard altogether. I'm no good at early rising these days plus that side of the sky is not the best

[Pixies]

Normally, my observing is after kids/dog gone to bed - so after 10pm. But this afternoon, my daughter was trying to pick out Jupiter, Saturn and Venus when we were out; saying that Saturn was her favourite planet.

So when we got home around 5pm, I grabbed the ST80 and set it up with the zoom EP. Saw Jupiter and Saturn in the scope. Did some constellations - Cygnus, Vega, Cassiopeia, Pegasus, Arcturus, Ursa Maj & Min, etc. Finished with M31 through the scope.

All before tea! It's cloudy now, too!

[Pixies]

She gets up at 6am too! (I know - is she really my daughter?)

This week I've asked her to check the sky when she's awake and get me up if it's clear. It'll save me having to get up too early to check for comet Leonard when it might be cloudy!

[Ian McCallum]

Jupiter and Saturn, earlier this evening.  I tried for Neptune, but I can't be sure if I found it or not - the nearby stars were being dimmed by light pollution.🤬  I did get some views of the Sun this morning, through a solar filter - no signs of any sunspots though.

[ONIKKINEN]

Took my chances with the weather and drove to a B6 area, some services claim partly cloudy some claim clear skies all night. Well ended up being partly cloudy and i cut my losses early, packed up my gear and headed back home. Wouldn't call it a complete waste though as i did have time to glimpse at a few targets.

First light through the newly acquired APM 24mm UFF showed me M81 and M82, Pleiades, open clusters M36-37-38 in Auriga and not much else. I saw no shape in M81 but M82 i did notice as the cigar shape it is named after. These are nicely framed in the same field of view with the 24mm, although this really wasn't a suitable power given the sky conditions. Pleiades was also quite nice with the 24mm UFF, stars were much sharper than what previous eyepieces have shown with the F4.2 newtonian so i was pleased to see that. So in conclusion, eyepiece good 👍 weather bad 👎.

[Dantooine]

Well last night Jupiter, Saturn and Venus as a crescent all with my 8 inch. Nice to be able to swing backward and forward when they are in a line like that. 

[UKDiver]

On 05/12/2021 at 11:01, Zermelo said:

For once, CO was spot on and Meteoblue and Metcheck were too pessimistic. Clear after sunset, clouds came over about 9, though there was quite a breeze building.

The brighter planets are now inaccessible to me on the southern horizon, so I put out the Bresser AR-102S to explore some extended targets with 1.25"and 2" 30mm EPs.

I guess I'm just far enough South from you to still get some views of Saturn and Jupiter last night. Venus was lovely and bright, but low and only visible through a 4m gap between houses.

[Bodkin]

An hour with a 12 inch StellaLyra dobsonian

I have had the scope for a few months now and am starting to learn its capabilities.  Last night was the first time with a newly fitted Telrad - I have always found these much easier than right-angled finders, but that is just me.

Mostly old favourites last night, with one exception

NGC 1514 (Crystal ball nebula/Secret Deep 15) - the new object for me.  This is an easily located planetary nebula in Taurus. The central star is very bright and is visible in almost any scope. The faint circular shell of nebulosity was just visible with a 34mm Maxvision eyepiece with an OIII filter.  A move down to a 14mm Pentax revealed a lovely sight with brighter central shell and dimmer outer shell. 

NGC147 and NGC185 (C18 and C19) - These relatively extended and faint galaxies in Cassiopeia are a couple of favourites of mine.  Both were pretty easy to spot and well framed in a rich field of stars.  C17 is a little fainter, but once I had C18 it was easy to star hop across.

NGC891 (C23) - A fine thin edge on galaxy. Maybe a hint of the central dust lane.

The Veil - Western and Eastern veil were magnificent with the 34mm and OIII.  Lots of delicate details in the Eastern veil in particular.  Pickering's triangle visible with averted vision.

NGC404 (Mirach's ghost) - one of my favourite test objects as it is so easy to locate.  Easily visible at low magnification, which is a sign of a good sky for my location.

M33 - Bright and good mottling, hinting at the arms.  NGC604 was pretty easy, particularly when I upped the magnification with the 24mm Maxvision.  Bright but small.

M27 - Very bright with some nice detail. The OIII filter helped to bring out some variation in brightness a little, but I preferred the view without.

After an hour or so the cloud came in, but it was a very enjoyable session.  I had been unsure about the StellaLyra dobsonian at first (pinched my fingers setting it up first time in the dark + focusser on the wrong side of the tube for me), but I am learning to enjoy my time with it and it will probably be a keeper now that I am a little more careful and have a telrad.  My eight inch dobsonian is likely to continue to get plenty of time under the sky as it is significantly lighter despite its long focal length.

 

[Zermelo]

1 hour ago, UKDiver said:

I guess I'm just far enough South from you to still get some views of Saturn and Jupiter last night. Venus was lovely and bright, but low and only visible through a 4m gap between houses.

Yes, they're now below the rooftops so I have to aim for a similar gap. Actually, with the earlier dusk I can access Jupiter if I look sharp - I've just had a few minutes before the rain came.

 

[Stu]

Just another naked eye session for me, unless I drags a little scope out later. The crescent Moon, and aligned planets made a wonderful sight, with a bonus ISS pass too which I didn’t manage to capture.