What did you see tonight?

[Nyctimene]

Was out yesterday evening under mostly cloudy or at least hazy skies with the Skywatcher Heritage 130 P Flextube. Good seeing conditions; so I was able to split once more Pi Aquilae (1.4"!) with mag 183x and better with 225x, with a clear dark gap in moments of stable air. When observing M 57, the 13 mag star close by to the East  (GAIA 2090....) was flashing up several times. A mighty little scope; best grab-and-go scope I ever had.

Stephan

[Andy ES]

So Jupiter, Saturn, Jupiter, Saturn, Saturn, Saturn tonight.

Good to show my observing buddy and CPC Humper 😁 that lower power is sometimes better.

saturn is always a brilliant crowd pleaser though, lots of Wows.

nice to check the moon names with sky safari.

another pleasant calm fresh night out, just nice 👍

[SuburbanMak]

Post holiday garden session with GSO 10” Dob & Towa 80mm f15.  Seeing and transparency best around midnight with for a few seconds at a time some super views of Jupiter & Saturn.  My first look at the gas giants with the Dob, Saturn in particular really impressive - 4 possibly 5 moons and good views of banding in the disc and grey tones at the North Pole.   The rings in moments of good seeing were almost 3D and the Cassini division bobbling in and out at times. 

Jupiter showed many bands with at times some detailed whorls at their edges. The Galilean moons two even pairs either side. 

Still feel I can tweak better collimation out of the Dob but on balance tonight it just edged the f15, although a crisper view, for brightness and feature resolution.  

in both scopes the sky was supporting around 120x  for best views with the Baader Zoom a great and convenient pairing in the Dob and Classic Orthos in the f15. 
Also enjoyed M31  with M32 clearly visible and a super view of M57 - both with the 10 inch.  
Clouded out now but a nice compensation for no longer being on holiday. 

[Mandy D]

When the clouds eventually parted around 11 p.m. last night I decided to have a peek at Saturn, but with a 135 mm f/2 lens this time, figuring I could get a brighter image for spotting the moons and with no tracking. At an exposure time of 1 second I was getting reasonably round moons, with Titan showing very bright to the upper right of Saturn and a couple of fainter moons nearer the planet. I could get Titan all the way down to ISO-400 with a 1 second exposure. At very high ISO the foreground was clearly lit by a street lamp poking over the roof top and the sky appeared bright pale blue with white clouds surrounding Saturn, but the moons were still visible. Of course the clouds eventually had to obscure everything so I packed up and went to bed.

Edited August 21, 2022 by Mandy D

[Nyctimene]

Observed last evening the Snowglobe Nebula, an 11.4 mag planetary in Aquila, with the 18" Obsession. With 133x mag (Maxvision 18/82) and the trusty Thousand Oaks O III filter, the nebula was easy to make out with direct vision. It showed as a round 2' disc, with a slightly brighter S and SW rim, and occasionally darker inner area, extending to the N. Increasing the magnification to 164x (Docter 12.5 mmf) showed no further details. The 16.2 mag central star could not be seen. The planetary was not difficult even without a filter (even during astronomical dusk). Should be visible in any 4"; rewarding.

Stephan

[Mandy D]

So, I thought I'd post some photos of what I saw last night. Not sure how many moons of Saturn I captured, but Titan is definitely there and clearly visible in the cropped version. This started out as an experiment to see how much was possible with a 135 mm lens. This lens is the unusual Nikon 135 mm defocus lens, which is popular for portraiture, so I thought I'd see how it fared with a family portrait of Saturn and some of it's moons. Apart from a little vignetting, I think it performed well. Saturn is very low in the widefield image as I was shooting over a neighbours roof!

Nikon D800, 135mm, f/2, ISO-800, 2s

 

Edited August 21, 2022 by Mandy D
Better quality zoomed image

[Astro_Dad]

I’m sure a geographer or meteorologist will help identify these particularity striking clouds this evening. 

[Mr Spock]

Altocumulus 

For clouds it's nephologist.

[Astro_Dad]

Thanks @Mr Spock  - I wasn’t  familiar with the term nephologist.  It looks by my quick search  to be an older term less often used today - referring to a specialist in what is a field of meteorology. You learn everyday! 

Edited August 21, 2022 by Astro_Dad

[DaveL59]

went for a quick smoke a few mins ago and was very surprised to see Saturn already over the rooftops and looking very bright, a bit twinkly tho, hmm. A few seconds and I realised it was moving towards me, bloomin jet with its main beams on. Man I must be getting old and doddery already!

[Ludd]

A quick tour of old favourites with the 17.5” dobsonian: M13 was the star of the show, but I enjoyed a nice view of M51 with the structure showing nicely in the 24mm APM eyepiece, M31 and companions very clear in the east, M33 just recognisable as something more than a smudge, M27 big and clear, M57 tight and bright,Bode and Cigar easy to see, and of course Saturn and Jupiter blazing in the south with many moons.  Tempted to stay up as I could see the Pleiades rising but tomorrow is a work day…

[Epick Crom]

Just observed the conjunction between Graffias ( Beta Scorpii) and C/2017 K2 PANSTARRS. Splendid view, with the double star and comet 43' apart. They shared the field of view at 70x using my 68 degree Saxon eyepiece.

[bosun21]

On 07/08/2022 at 12:04, Zermelo said:

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

This is not surprising considering that it had just cleared your neighbors roof. The heat radiating from the home would be sure to adversely affect the image. With the BCO being some 25 degrees less FOV the degree affected would be less apparent. I have been more than happy with the 9mm Morpheus on both the gas giants. I consider the 9 and the 17.5mm to be stand outs in the Morpheus range.

[MercianDabbler]

I thought the sky looked promising tonight with just some high wispy cloud so set up the FL102 about 9:30. Seeing looked pretty iffy - Arcturus wasn't just twinkling, it seemed to be moving around. Managed to get Nunki into view quite easily but from there things went downhill - stars just seemed to be there one minute and then gone so I concluded that the clouds were worse than I'd thought. Lyra looked clear so I bisected the two bottom stars using the Rigel finder and got M57 into view in the 32mm Plossl. The 15mm SLV view was OK but things went pretty fuzzy when I tried the 9mm DeLite. The EP was at a very awkward height so I thought of trying a garden chair but found that they were soaking wet. By now things were looking less clear in Lyra so scanning for a clear patch I decided to have a practice on M51 with the Rigel. This went quite well - I used a bit of dead reckoning to find the spot and looking through the scope I found I'd gone straight to the triangle of stars near M51. Couldn't make out the galaxy but that was hardly a big surprise - I've never seen it from home and conditions were hardly great.

Lyra had then cleared again so I had another go at M57. I tried the same EPs again with similar results but keeping the 15mm SLV in place for a while I got some very nice views intermittently if I could stand kneeling down for long enough. A dew was starting to form on the tube now so I thought that pointing the scope so high was a bad idea. A bigger blanket of cloud was looming so that was the end of proceedings.

[Muc]

Had lovely steady seeing myself this evening.  Could use 250x with 120 achro f/8.3 while viewing the double double which is very rare. Did done random cruising around Cygnus also. Finished with quick peek of Saturn but close to roofs etc. Lovely wind down to the day. 

[Stu]

 

On 20/08/2022 at 02:40, Pixies said:

At some points however, I was having problems with the view through the filtered Nirvana. I eventually realised that I was seeing the reflection of my eye being thrown back at me by the mirrored surface of the filter!

Might be worth trying a towel over the head to avoid this? Could help, as the light is presumably coming from surrounding glare/LP?

[Stu]

I know I can be a bit of a grumpy old man about this, but I would love to see more of these posts as individual reports in the observing section. I find myself skimming through the thread, with some really great observations and it would be good to comment on them rather than just like. One good idea which I think PeterC65 does is to post in the observing forum (or whichever is appropriate), then link to a short summary post here. That works well 👍

[Zermelo]

On 19/08/2022 at 23:40, Pixies said:

At some points however, I was having problems with the view through the filtered Nirvana. I eventually realised that I was seeing the reflection of my eye being thrown back at me by the mirrored surface of the filter!

I've noticed something like this with my 24mm UFF. Filters give a kind of reflection - though I'd not thought it to be of my own eye. It does not appear in the UFF without a filter, and does not show in any other eyepiece I have, filtered or not.

 

[Pixies]

38 minutes ago, Zermelo said:

I've noticed something like this with my 24mm UFF. Filters give a kind of reflection - though I'd not thought it to be of my own eye. It does not appear in the UFF without a filter, and does not show in any other eyepiece I have, filtered or not.

 

I'll need to try it next time with a hood over my head and focuser. I assume it's from local light pollution.

[Pixies]

2 hours ago, Stu said:

 

Might be worth trying a towel over the head to avoid this? Could help, as the light is presumably coming from surrounding glare/LP?

yep - sorry, replied to Zermelo's post before reading yours.

[Mr Spock]

Nice and clear. Have the 12" out for some fainter doubles. 

A tough one, but just split COU1923 at 0.5". In moments of steady seeing I could just make it out at x304; put the Barlowed 7mm ortho in for x458 and that separated it. Nice - that's my closest yet. Nearby HU674 at 0.8" was comparatively easy; spotted another pair in the same x304 field - UC236 - which I hadn't marked on my chart.

[Ags]

A 0.5" split is phenomenal! Very well done 😀

[Mr Spock]

Not so good now. Seeing has deteriorated and there's some cloud coming across from the SW.

Had a good look at Saturn. Too unstable for high powers but reasonable at x169 in the 9mm ortho. Tried the 18mm Barlowed and that was a bit better with some nice belt shading.
When my Powermate arrives the 18mm will give x211 - I reckon that's just about perfect for Saturn.

[Davesellars]

Had a little while viewing Saturn with the 102ED and binoviewers then moving on to Jupiter but was clouded out after 10 mins.  Some nice detail - the seeing was reasonable.

[johnturley]

Had my best views of Saturn and Jupiter of the year so far last night, Cassini's Division was clearly visible in Saturn's rings, plus the satellites Titan, Rhea, and Iapetus. 

Quite a lot of detail was visible in the Jovian cloud belts, but unfortunately the Great Red Spot was not on show, it should be tonight, but the forecast is cloudy.

Finally turned the telescopes towards Mars, a hint of markings were visible on the tiny 9 arc second disc, plus suspected both the South Polar Cap, and the North Polar Hood.

Also obtained the best images I've taken so far through my Esprit 150, using a ZWO ASI 462 planetary camera, a 2.5x Tele Vue Powermate, and stacked and processed in Registax, I might be able to improve the images further in Lightroom, but not had time to do that so far. I also had a Baader Neodymium filter in the light path, not sure whether this helped.

 

Edited August 26, 2022 by johnturley