What did you see tonight?

[Mr Spock]

Had a look at the moon earlier. It's so low now I'm fighting trees and rooftops  

Tried a few doubles in Hercules, but the transparency is so poor I gave up. Seeing is good though - just had a nice view of ε Lyr at x179 in the 102mm. Looked good at x286 too.

I can barely get below mag 10 though. Naked eye is limited to 4 

[Franklin]

Hazy skies and poor seeing but still, it's good to have no cloud for a change. Trying out my, new to me, LVWs on the Moon and later Saturn with the SD81. Very impressed with the Vixen wide-fields, the lunar terminator looked etched when the seeing allowed and Rupes Recta looked stunning with the 3.5mm at x178. Saturn was pretty low in the SE and there was some colour from dispersion but I gave it till midnight and the view improved as the seeing settled down a touch and Saturns altitude increased. No sign of any belt detail tonight but the rings and their shadow and Titan were visible. Jupiter was getting up in the East but I had to pull the plug as I've got work in the morning.

[Pixies]

I'm out with @Franklin's old Vixen A105M on the SP mount! Transparency isn't great and seeing a little ropey too. Couldn't split the doubles of epsilon Lyrae at x100. 

Having trouble with the RA motor driver too tonight. It appears to have settled down now after an hour of intermittent tracking. However, once working, I could see more high clouds rolling in. Managed to observe Albireo and the double-cluster; trying out different eyepieces. But have come in for a beer and wait a while. The forecast says clearing up in an hour. Saturn should be above the rooftops by then,

A frustrating night so far.

[Mr Spock]

10 minutes ago, Franklin said:

Trying out my, new to me, LVWs on the Moon and later Saturn with the SD81. Very impressed with the Vixen wide-fields, the lunar terminator looked etched when the seeing allowed and Rupes Recta looked stunning with the 3.5mm at x178.

I wish I had a 3.5 - it would give an ideal x204 on the 102mm 😭

[Ags]

26 minutes ago, Mr Spock said:

I can barely get below mag 10 though. Naked eye is limited to 4 

Hey! That's a good night over here!

[Franklin]

4 minutes ago, Mr Spock said:

I wish I had a 3.5

One will turn up some day. I'm on the hunt for a LVW 17mm to complete the set.

[Pixies]

3 minutes ago, Franklin said:

One will turn up some day. I'm on the hunt for a LVW 17mm to complete the set.

You and me both!

[ScouseSpaceCadet]

Months have passed since I've had a good session and tonight promised much. Unfortunately the mid evening pristine sky turned, with wobbly seeing and so so transparency. Anyway, undeterred after two star aligning the AZGTI using Altair and Alkaid the gotos put each target into the fov of the Skymax 127s 24mm 65° eyepiece . Not that I really needed to use goto for the eventual targets to be honest.

Starting with Saturn. The Cassini Division was just about evident but wobbly seeing kept me at mid-low mag so no atmospheric banding tonight. The moons Titan and Rhea were obvious.

After Saturn disappeared behind next door's trees (grrr!) I picked out M2. The 7mm Nirvana-ES helped darken the background sky enough for the odd twinkle to pop but ultimately the view was as expected under Bortle 7/8 late summer skies, a fuzzy ball with a brighter fuzzy core.

M15 next, more of the same but overall smaller with a tighter, brighter core.

Finally Jupiter. Still in the SE and scraping house roofs, so not ideally positioned and combined with the sky conditions lets just say I've had far better views.

Still, despite the uninspiring observations it was nice to get out for 1hr 10mins observing and find I'd not forgotten how to use the kit!

The cat gained her astro wings, accompanying me on her first late night astro session.

And I just remembered I've left the light shield tarp set up and locked up ... 🙄

[Mr Spock]

Completed a dozen doubles in Lyra.

Couldn't resist finishing on Saturn, first view of the year. It's still too low here to get a decent fuzz-free view. Could just about make out Cassini  and maybe a bit of shading. Might be better when I can get the 12" on it 

[Davesellars]

Had an hour from 4 until 5 with the 4" refractor viewing Jupiter and Mars (a first in a long time on both planets!).  Seeing was remarkably steady although there was visible haze which would have accounted for the terrible transparency earlier one (so I didn't bother getting the scope out then...).   Some good detail on Jupiter (best with the 5mm Pentax XW) and easy to see a shadow transit and Mars, although small was very easy to make out distinct regions using the 7mm Pentax and 2.5x barlow. 

[Whistlin Bob]

A wonderful evening last night- there's been nothing for ages and then 2 good sessions in a row- and it was not a work night, so the 14" could come out to play!

M11 was a little bit disappointing to start with, as the sky down low was very milky- a shame because I love this object. It was all good from there: m13, m27, m31 and friends gave a really nice summer tour. Caroline's rose was a real highlight, and the veil with an Oiii filter and down at 50x was superb. I also copped a nice view of the Pacman nebula with the same filter, which is a visual first!

The real highlight, though, was my first sight of the planets this season. Seeing on Saturn was good enough for the Cassini division to be clear, along with some detail on the disk. Jupiter rose much higher, great views esp of the northern equatorial belt- lots of detail.

Going to be tired today, and I don't care!!!

Edited August 6, 2022 by Whistlin Bob
Typo

[PeterStudz]

Completely unplanned session for me in Southampton. For some reason I woke up at around 2am and after a good 30mins trying to get back to sleep I gave up and decided to have a “quick” session with the  200p Dob.

Seeing good although transparency iffy with some thin high cloud. Highlight for me was Jupiter, probably the best I’ve seen it this year and I could crank up the magnification. Plus the icing on the cake - a surprise shadow transit of what I think was Europa which I noticed around 3:45am and continued to watch until the sun started to rise. I do enjoy shadow transits. 

Finally went to bed at about 4:45am at which time I slept like a log. Mind, I’ll probation regret it as I have promised my daughter a camping in the garden observation night this evening/tomorrow morning!

[josefk]

Hi @PeterStudz  you’re right it was Europa. I wrote it up as Io even though I couldn’t get my head round the geometry of that as Io was leading the planet to the west. Europa makes much more sense 👍🏻  Thanks. 

[scotty1]

The cirrus clouds stayed to my south, so I couldn't get a photo of the milky way core. Overhead was quite clear after 1am, I took a few wide field shots of the milky way overhead. 

Jupiter was bright, Taurus and M45, Mars. 

Six Persieds were seen, I hoped to get one on photo, there were likely more I missed while setting up phone and camera. 

Also had a Barn Owl flying parallel with me for about 10 seconds, and crossing over from one side of the vehicle to the other. I was on a country lane doing 20mph, the barn owl was about 4 metres from the ground.

Edited August 6, 2022 by scotty1

[Kon]

I was out last night for a short session as clouds kept passing by. In the moments of clear skies the Milky Way was showing some nice structure. I started with M57 and followed by M27. Nice nebulosity on both and stars down to mag 12 could be seen. I think the transparency was on/off. The Coathanger looked great and it was the first time I paid attention to it. M71 was a fuzzy 'ball' with hardly any stars resolving. With clouds kept coming very frequently I didn't bother with the Veil. Saturn was rising and Cassini division showed nicely. Jupiter on my East was just getting up and it was just a mess of a fuzzy ball. No wonder with all the clouds. Happy to have been out and see some old favourites.

[MercianDabbler]

Scope out again tonight. Part 1 was looking at the Moon - somewhat delayed by family, err... happenings but I managed to catch it for 30 minutes or so before it went behind the houses. Copernicus was the most notable feature with its crinkly edge and twin peaks in the middle. Wobbly seeing probably more noticeable than yesterday. Wispy clouds also in evidence again. The other notable sight was a star nearby... which I've now found is delta Scorpii. I wasn't sure if it was going to be occulted before I lost the Moon so I kept watching and sure enough it winked out at about 22:43. By that time the lower edge of the Moon was already lost to me so it was just in time.

Learning from last night... scope moved to the Patio now for Jupiter... which has just popped up now so I'll be off.

[Captain Scarlet]

I was out again last night 2nd night in a row until >2am. 8” newt, I didn’t bother with any recollimation from previous night. Saturn was the best I’ve ever seen, the first time definitely seeing the Cassini Division and atmospheric stripes too just about evident. Jupiter, lower and earlier also not too bad, plenty of detail. Caroline’s Rose and M11 lovely as ever.

Oddest moment was while aligning on Polaris, a bright meteor streaked past as I was at the eyepiece. Christ what a shock, I nearly jumped out of my skin. Smoky afterglow stripe also stayed for a few seconds. I don’t expect ever to see a Perseid at 60x magnification again!

Just too tired tonight though to use the 3rd consecutive clear night to observe 💤 

Magnus

[MercianDabbler]

55 minutes ago, MercianDabbler said:

scope moved to the Patio now for Jupiter

Ah well... fairly meh. Seeing was poor. I could make out a couple of bands but the planet seemed to be having a difficult time staying circular. The moons were spread out in a nice line though.

 

[Ags]

Took out the C6 for a look at Saturn - first time this year. The seeing was not great, I settled on 140x with a light yellow filter to reduce atmospheric dispersion. I couldn't make out the Cassini Division or any surface detail, but Titan was an easy spot and Rhea was also barely visible. I should have put the ZS66 out too, I suspect it would have handled the seeing better.

[Davesellars]

Absolutely stunningly clear here tonight at 1am and very transparent.  I didn't have much energy but got out for an hour with the binoculars for a change scanning the sky.  The Milky Way was nicely clear naked eye with some structure around Cygnus as well as M31 and Double Cluster easy to see.  M33 was also very obvious with the binoculars. I believe I could just see the North American nebula although very indistinct appeared as a faint large puff of smoke.

[Zermelo]

It was very decent here last night with the Mak 127. There was a bit of wispy cirrus about early on, but it seemed to disappear after midnight.

Transparency was very good, seeing was slightly variable, but probably Pickering 8 in the steady spells. I measured 20.98 mag/arcsec² at 01:00, and the milky way was looking well. It turned out to be colder than I expected, though.

It was a slightly inefficient session as I recently upgraded to Sky Safari Pro v7 and this was the first time using it at the scope. I also changed my soft keyboard, so there was a fair bit of fiddling about and learning while I was navigating and typing observations.

As usual there were a dozen or so doubles on my list. I like to try for new ones but I'm getting to the point where I seem to have split all the easier ones (?) Last night's were mostly dimmer pairs, like Σ2720 in Delphinus (+9.17, +9.56 @4.0"), being a bit odd in that the separation is easy, but I needed averted vision to actually see that it was double.

I had a quick look at a couple of open clusters, but when Saturn cleared next door's roof line, I switched to that. It's far from ideal at the moment, but it was the first time this year that I'd managed to catch it, as it moves into the more accessible part of the night. I was interested to see how the 9mm Morpheus would handle it, given that it had generally given less light scatter than most of my other eyepieces when splitting doubles. It was an OK view, but not close to the best I've had. The Cassini division was barely visible at the ring extremities, and I could make out only Titan in the surroundings. There was quite a bit of scatter.

I switched to a 10mm BCO for comparison, and this reduced the scatter a little, enough for me to make out Rhea, opposite Titan. I could also just about make out some darker shading on the northern hemisphere. I tried adding a Baader semi-apo filter for the first time, which possibly helped a very small amount. I'm probably expecting too much with Saturn in this position, but Jupiter should be a better prospect in the next few months.

[PeterC65]

Second attempt at EEVA last night with the Altair GPCAM2 327C camera and the Photoline 72. This time I used the SharpCap software, having read the manual up to and including the section about live stacking.

Full Report

It went better than last time but I'm still missing something, especially when it comes to using the Altair GPCAM2 327C camera. After a frustrating few hours I switched to the Canon EOS 1100D DSLR and had some success. Here is what M31 looked like ...

Way better than anything I've seen visually, but this was after a couple of minutes of live stacking of 25 second exposures, so not really the close to live experience I was hoping for. Still, it does mean that my investment in eyepieces remains worthwhile!

[PeterStudz]

Mammoth session with my daughter camping out in the garden in Southampton with our Skywatcher 200p Dob plus binoculars. Could do with a full report but too tired! Targets included a few open clusters eg Double Cluster, Andromeda (first time looking at that since last year), Ring Nebula, M15 Globular Cluster, Pleiades (haven’t seen that for a while), Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Uranus and finally, when it got light and woke up, the sun. I’ve probably forgotten something. Also saw a few nice shooting stats. 

Seeing very good, transparency decent. With Jupiter we got some of the best views of the GRS that we’ve seen. Probably because Jupiter is at a decent hight and the GRS was visible during that high point. Some really good details on the banding too - fantastic!

Mars of course still tiny but visibly less tiny than back in June. Could make out some dark surface details, but only just. Could not see any ice caps. Sun in white light and (by the look of things) sunspots starting to get active again. 

Oh… I was also testing out my almost finished DIY equatorial platform. Working well and a novelty having the planets just “hanging there” at high magnification without nudging! 

[MercianDabbler]

Third night in a row for me. I'm working on streamlining my setup steps so that the 102mm scope gets out more. Today I had a sort through the holdall and turfed out anything not needed for visual. I'm also trying out a new clamping screw for the SP tripod leg to hub joint to cut out the fumbling around with an allen key. The new screw seems to work... just another 5 to make.

Main objective was the Moon again. A nice view of Sinus Iridium which is probably one of my favourite areas. The seeing was able to sustain the 5mm Starguider EP today which was nice but I need to practice looking through it without causing the scope to vibrate. Clavius also looked good with its arc of smaller craters inside in ever increasing sizes.

I now have my ADM dovetail on top of the FL102 (I think I use dovetails backwards from everyone else) and tonight had the Rigel finder on there so I decided to spend some time practicing with it to see if I could 'hit' targets by getting them into view in the 9mm DeLite. Arcturus was quite obvious and at a convenient height so that was the first target, followed by Mizar and Aloth in Ursa Major. I've used the Rigel plenty of times before (and it does what it should) but it still took a few attempts before I got the hang of it again.

Scanning around the sky and looking at Stellarium for another target I decided to try a star hop from Altair to M71. The Rigel got Altair centered in the 32mm Plossl and then I managed the hop to Sagitta without losing my place too many times. It's a lot easier to star hop with the ST80 though so that will probably find its way back onto the dovetail bar soon. M71... yes I saw it... not at all in the 32mm, just about in the 15mm SLV and slightly better in the 9mm DeLite. The Moon was really lighting up the haze and contrails left by planes and casting shadows so definitely not the best conditions for this sort of thing.

[Ags]

Saturn with the ZS66 tonight, a more satisfying view than with the C6 last night. I was using a barlowed SLV 6 - nice! Glimpses of the Cassini Division.

Had a quick look at Almach afterwards, so orange! The blue companion is a bit too small in the ZS66 to show color however. Lovely pinpoint stars.