What did you see tonight?

[Ratlet]

Not a huge amount tonight.  The wee man had a danger nap at about 18:00 so I was still trying to get him to sleep at 22:30 when the wife came to relieve me and said she could see the moon.  Took the 127 mak out for a spin and a test of the underlay dew shield.   It gives great views and I would swear that the Casini Division was flickering in and out of view on Saturn.  Jupiter was good as ever although it seemed a bit washed out, there was still amazing detail on the cloud bands.

To finish off I tried splitting Epsilon Lyrae.  Easy split for the double with the 32mm (x47) but I'm pretty certain I managed to bag the quad with the 8mm (x188) for my first complete split of that particular grouping.

I think I will need to part company with the mak however.  I can't really find a comfortable way to use it compared to the 130pds and I much prefer the wide field views.  It's a cracking scope but I think with what I'm doing the 130pds does the bulk of what I need to.

[ScouseSpaceCadet]

The 102ED thankfully survived its mishap intact and tonight I had rather enjoyable hour and a half on Saturn and Jupiter, between 2300 and 0030. Seeing was OK despite the rising full moon. Saturn's Cassini Division just about evident and colour banding on the northern hemisphere. The moons Rhea, Titan and Iapetus strung out eastward.

I only clearly observed the north and south equatorial belts on Jupiter, however the NEB did show strong detail, with the wisps and swirls along the upper edge evident.

A newly acquired Vixen SLV 5mm provided the best views of both planets at 143x. For fun I popped a BCO 6mm into the GSO 2.5x ED barlow for 297x and was pleasantly surprised Saturn didn't turn to mush!

Finally as the cloud arrived I turned the telescope to the full moon and with the 24mm 65° eyepiece watched as our satellite was enveloped by the incoming cloud...

The Altair Ascent performed admirably tonight. I was considering trying a true apo but I'll need to look through an example first to be convinced the extra cost is worth it!

[Stu]

7 hours ago, ScouseSpaceCadet said:

The 102ED thankfully survived its mishap intact

Phew! What happened Peter? Glad all well, I know how much you like that scope.

[josefk]

Two new to me Herschels last night NGC 6866 (H VII-59) and NGC 6910 (H VIII-56) in Cygnus, Saturn as good as i've seen it this year, a small PN in also in Cygnus and a bunch of doubles in Lyra. I had to wait a bit for clouds to clear (getting on for 23:00) but when they did seeing at high altitude angles was fantastic. Rock steady. Not so good around Jupiter though for some reason (boiling) and in any event everything was dripping wet by 01:30. High haze turned to low fog in about 15 minutes. As @Zermelo remarked; Clear Outside was spot on. If i'd have carefully checked Meteoblue before setting off i may not have bothered and i would have missed the session. 

 

longer report here: https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/399611-between-clouds-and-fog-saturn-open-clusters-and-doubles/#comment-4287829

 

Edited September 11, 2022 by josefk

[IB20]

Observed my first non solar eclipse Moon occultation last night of a star, HR9014. Two things to note; the star was mag 6.1 so was very hard to see against the brightness of the moon. It also happened incredibly quickly! 

There’s a lunar occultation of Uranus on Wednesday 14th night around 10:30pm if conditions permit. Might be too low for me to observe but could be in better position for it’s reappearance.

[Ags]

6 minutes ago, IB20 said:

There’s a lunar occultation of Uranus on Wednesday 14th night around 10:30pm if conditions permit. Might be too low for me to observe but could be in better position for it’s reappearance.

Thanks for the heads up!

[Astro_Dad]

Just in from an hour or so on the gas giants. Early starts and busy work at the moment hindering long sessions with the 10” but the convenience of the Heritage 150p really helps get some observing in on week nights 👍

Saturn looking as sharp as ever tonight - seeing intermittently “good” in my estimation (I’d like to learn how to be more quantitative on seeing using the official scale). I’m always impressed how clearly the six inch Newt delivers views of Saturn. Moons Titan and Rhea standing out clearly. 

Jupiter looking superb. Very clear rich colours on the banding showing intermittently, and the planet taking higher magnification more successfully than I’ve achieved recently. The Galilean moons present and correct with Ganymede in the SE as the largest of the four really standing out as brighter and slightly more disc like than I usually see with this aperture.

I unboxed and tested set up of my new ZWO cam earlier this evening but I’m going to have to wait until later in the week when I have more time for the first light… 😀

[sorrimen]

1 hour ago, Astro_Dad said:

Just in from an hour or so on the gas giants. Early starts and busy work at the moment hindering long sessions with the 10” but the convenience of the Heritage 150p really helps get some observing in on week nights 👍

Saturn looking as sharp as ever tonight - seeing intermittently “good” in my estimation (I’d like to learn how to be more quantitative on seeing using the official scale). I’m always impressed how clearly the six inch Newt delivers views of Saturn. Moons Titan and Rhea standing out clearly. 

Jupiter looking superb. Very clear rich colours on the banding showing intermittently, and the planet taking higher magnification more successfully than I’ve achieved recently. The Galilean moons present and correct with Ganymede in the SE as the largest of the four really standing out as brighter and slightly more disc like than I usually see with this aperture.

I unboxed and tested set up of my new ZWO cam earlier this evening but I’m going to have to wait until later in the week when I have more time for the first light… 😀

Looking forward to those images!

[Davesellars]

It cleared quite reasonably last night around 11:30pm so got the 102ED out on the EQ5 with the newly fitted RA motor.  Good news was the tracking with the RA motor running was superb while observing Jupiter with the binoviewers.  Bad news was the seeing was completely abysmal and couldn't even make out the GRS that was apparently on show! - Most of the time the planet just looked out of focus and the air never steadied sufficiently.  I switched to the observing the Moon for a while which provide a nice but wobbly view with the 12.5mm orthos for 171x.  Not sure why I waited so long to get the RA motor as it's quite something just being able to soak up the view without it moving.

[Pixies]

Trying out a new mount tonight. The clouds are clearing  but the seeing is poor.

Have been observing a shadow transit of Ganymede. Jupiter has gone behind a roof just now, but I'll pop out again later. The transit ends at midnight.

[Ratlet]

Set off to work at 0430 and had Orion nicely placed at the bottom of the street.  Keep a pair of 10x50 panovision binoculars in the car so had a quick look for m42.  Found it easily enough.  Surprised it was visible as I was stood between 2 street lights.

Also looked at Betelgeuse.  It was orange.

First observation of both items.

[Knighty2112]

A brief 20 minute observation last night of Jupiter with the shadow transit of Ganymede starting at just gone 9pm last night. Jupiter was boiling away, but the shadow was easy to spot in my 80ED scope using x127 magnification. Later on in the morning I woke up early at just before 4:30am, so decided to have a look at Mars with the same scope and magnifiction combo. Could easily see the dark Y shaped expanse of the Syrtis Major Planum area with my Celestron Mars filter fitted to view it with, so looking forward to even better views of Mars closer to opposition. As Orion was on view also lower down and to the left of Mars I had a look at M42 also. As the moon was out also it wasn’t showing as good as in a nice dark sky, but nice to see it back once again ready for Autumnal and Winter skies. A UHC filter fitted to my Baader zoom EP made it pop out a little more.

Edited September 14, 2022 by Knighty2112

[johnturley]

Jupiter, showing both the disc and shadow of Ganymede on the Jovian disc, taken at 23.40 last night through my Esprit 150, 2.5x Powermate, ZWO ASI 462 Planetary Camera, and Baader Neodymium filter. Processed in Autostakkert and Registax, plus  a touch of extra sharpening in Lightroom

 

Edited September 14, 2022 by johnturley

[Astro_Dad]

13/09

Brief session last night chasing breaks in the cloud from around 21.30 BST. 

Out with the Heritage 150p. 

Albireo impressive as always as an entrée, just about visible with naked eye so an easy find manually. 

Saturn - just a quick look tonight but keen to maximise the number of observations I have of the gas giants as will miss them when the season is over…as previous night the ‘scope showing a pin sharp image at just under 100x power, with (very) subtle hints of surface features /shading vaguely suggestive of belts and brighter zones. 

Not the darkest of nights considering the moon (albeit low in the Eastern sky) but attempted a look at globular M2 (switching to the SynScan app for GOTO at this point). Impressive globular in Aquarius - tight and compact with a dense core (Rated II on the Shapely - Sawyer I to XII concentration class scale). Hints of outermost stars resolving with averted vision at 107x - but challenging. 

Finally following a suggestion from a fellow SGL member I used SynScan to slew to Kemble’s cascade. This is an impressive target consisting of a line of stars “flowing” into open cluster NGC 1502. Best view using a 25mm Plossl. 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kemble's_Cascade

I missed the Ganymede transit unfortunately but good to be out for an hour or so in what was a very mild September evening. 

Edited September 14, 2022 by Astro_Dad

[Stu]

33 minutes ago, johnturley said:

Jupiter, showing both the disc and shadow of Ganymede on the Jovian disc, taken at 23.40 last night through my Esprit 150, 2.5x Powermate, ZWO ASI 462 Planetary Camera, and Baader Neodymium filter. Processed in Autostakkert and Registax

Nice shot John. Your image proves the fact that Ganymede has a lower albedo and is more easily visible when over the Jovian disk. I would be interested to know if anyone spotted it visually last night?

[johnturley]

34 minutes ago, Stu said:

Nice shot John. Your image proves the fact that Ganymede has a lower albedo and is more easily visible when over the Jovian disk. I would be interested to know if anyone spotted it visually last night?

Yes, I could spot it visually when it was near to the centre of the Jovian disc, it was easier through the 14 in, but the Esprit seems to give sharper images most of the time, and it is easier to attach the camera, Powermate etc., to this scope.

John 

[Stephen_M]

1 hour ago, johnturley said:

Jupiter, showing both the disc and shadow of Ganymede on the Jovian disc, taken at 23.40 last night through my Esprit 150, 2.5x Powermate, ZWO ASI 462 Planetary Camera, and Baader Neodymium filter. Processed in Autostakkert and Registax

I had my first attempt at viewing planets from my back garden last night. I have a tall thin garden with high fences, but placing the dob next to the back door just about gave me enough space to observe Jupiter to the South East at about 9pm. I had a bit of a anxious wait to see if Jupiter would get high enough before the Moon also rose over the rooftops too. To pass the time, I looked a Alberio quickly, and tried to find Saturn but it was too low over the fence to be anything other than a small blurry dot. Alberio looked great using my William 32mm SWA. I must say I am super impressed with this EP with my dob, I also browsed around Aquila of a bit and just marvelled at the amount of stars in this area of the sky.

My main purchase over the summer was a Morpheus 4.5mm, which gives magnification of x270, and in combination with my 10" dob gave a great view of Jupiter and the moons. I was wondering if the dark spot was a trick of the light, or a shadow of one of the moons, so thank you for sharing that photo. I could just about make out the main equatorial zone, but it was difficult to make out any other details. Presumably this is due to the 10" capturing too much light, would I benefit from some sort of filter for this?

Here's a blurry smartphone pic.

[paulastro]

 I was out with the Starsense Explorer 8 inch dob last night, from 10.10pm to 1.25am.  Started out with some deep sky, mainly OCs and doubles due to the bright 84% illuminated Moon. Despite the bright sky and thin cloud at times, the SS performed admirably as usual so the majority of time was spent observing rather than finding.

I used a Baader zoom as it allows you to adjust the mag and hence the sky darkness to get the best out of each object in the prevailing conditions without swapping over eyepieces all the time.  Mags used were in the range of about x50 to x150.

Objects included Kembles Cascade, ET aka Owl Cluster, M13, Rasalgath, M92, Sarin, kappa Her, M27, M57, the double double, the Dble Cluster, M56, Steph1 (large OC),  M11 (Wild Duck Cluster), M29, M39 NGC 6811, and Albireo.  I left the hazy stuff for a better night.

It was a bit more hazy by around  midnight so I turned my attention to the Moon and planets, and boy, was I pleased I did, the seeing was exceptional for my site and this lasted until 1.25 when the seeing deteriorated a little.  I used my binoviewer, 24mm Orthos and x2 barlow element with the Baader Contrast Booster, giving around x200.

First up Saturn with its main rings, Cassinis, the rings crossing the planets and the main belt looking like  an engraving, quite stunning. Neptune was a small blueish, m7.8, 2.5 arc seconds disc - moved on quickly to Jupiter, and wow, the detail was just fabulous and I spent at least 45 mts taking it all in.  A shame the GRS wasnt on show. 

On to an excuisit gibbous Mars now at m0.3 and 10.6 arcseconds showing some nice albedo features with the wonderfully subtle colours that make it such a beautiful object as it heads towards its opposition in December. Finally on to the beautiful Uranus, the m5.7, 3.7 arcseconds disc looking greenish to my eyes.  Fingers crossed for the occultation this evening - Wednesday.

The five planets observed I turned to the Moon, again, it was startlingly sharp and full of detail along the terminator.  The highlight for me was Janssen, one of my favourite craters. I couldn't recall seeing more detail than that I could see it its rubble strewn floor and the sinuous rille system crisscrossed its floor - mesmerising to and avid lunar observer what a treat!

What a wonderful night, accompanied for most of it by the wonderful sound of our local Tawny Owls.

 

[Knighty2112]

4 hours ago, Stephen_M said:

I had my first attempt at viewing planets from my back garden last night. I have a tall thin garden with high fences, but placing the dob next to the back door just about gave me enough space to observe Jupiter to the South East at about 9pm. I had a bit of a anxious wait to see if Jupiter would get high enough before the Moon also rose over the rooftops too. To pass the time, I looked a Alberio quickly, and tried to find Saturn but it was too low over the fence to be anything other than a small blurry dot. Alberio looked great using my William 32mm SWA. I must say I am super impressed with this EP with my dob, I also browsed around Aquila of a bit and just marvelled at the amount of stars in this area of the sky.

My main purchase over the summer was a Morpheus 4.5mm, which gives magnification of x270, and in combination with my 10" dob gave a great view of Jupiter and the moons. I was wondering if the dark spot was a trick of the light, or a shadow of one of the moons, so thank you for sharing that photo. I could just about make out the main equatorial zone, but it was difficult to make out any other details. Presumably this is due to the 10" capturing too much light, would I benefit from some sort of filter for this?

Here's a blurry smartphone pic.

An 80A filter can be used to filter Jupiter’s glare a little and also help tease out details better in the belts, GRS etc. They are quite cheap also, so won’t  break the bank unlike other kinds of filters. FLO do them for £9 (plus P&P) for a 1.25” sized one, but sadly out of stock at the moment. I am sure other vendors have similar ones though too.

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/visual-oberving-rgb-filter-sets/astro-essentials-125-wratten-80a-medium-blue-filter.html

 

[johnturley]

5 hours ago, Stephen_M said:

 

My main purchase over the summer was a Morpheus 4.5mm, which gives magnification of x270, and in combination with my 10" dob gave a great view of Jupiter and the moons. I was wondering if the dark spot was a trick of the light, or a shadow of one of the moons, so thank you for sharing that photo. I could just about make out the main equatorial zone, but it was difficult to make out any other details. Presumably this is due to the 10" capturing too much light, would I benefit from some sort of filter for this?

Here's a blurry smartphone pic.

 

A 10" Reflector if it has a good mirror and is well collimated should provide excellent views of Jupiter, have you seen some of the images of Jupiter Neil Philips posts taken with his Orion Optics 10" f6.3 Newtonian, far superior to mine. 

I also find the view of Jupiter very bright through my 14in Newtonian, and sometimes this can 'wash out' some detail, you can improve the contrast with a filter such as the Baader Neodymium or Contrast Booster filter. Personally, I prefer the Neodymium, as I do not like the yellowish cast the Contrast Booster gives.

John  

[PeterC65]

I had a good EEVA session last night with the 72mm APO and Altair GPCAM2 327C in between the clouds.

I have a new, much faster, laptop so plate solving is now quick, and a new separate 27" monitor which makes the images look amazing. Once I'd persuaded the new laptop to play nicely with the mount, I managed to observe quite a few targets in close to real time, M2, M15, NGC6888, NGC6992, M31, M33, NGC869, NGC884, NGC752 and M27.

I'm still quite new to EEVA but so far it seems that I can see lots more detail and some colour in nebulae, and last night I was very impressed with the star clusters. I often find these disappointing through an eyepiece as they are mostly a smudge of stars, whereas with the camera, I was seeing differences in colour and magnitude, and plenty of the individual stars. Altogether a much more compelling experience.

Here is NGC884, one of the Double Cluster ...

And here is one of my favourites, the East Veil, NGC6992 ...

Both these images are what I was seeing last night, with only on the fly processing. Actually, there is some loss of detail, I think because they are in PNG format. I will save as TIFFs next time.

 

[Froeng]

So far… I can see the JETSTREAM!!!

[Ratlet]

TC-E2 teleconverter through a velux window for a hefty 2x power.

I can see these being great fun.  Looking in to Cygnus it made the dark lanes in that region more visible. I think a recliner and a beer would pair well with them.

My window faces almost due north so I had a look where M31 should be and you could make out hints of it.  Quite surprised.

Looking around caseopia I could make out something to the south of ruchbah.  I think it might have been the double cluster in Perseus which would mark a first observation of it.

It's a really fun think to just pan around with.  As you move across things flick in to view as they fall into averted vision.  Would be improved a lot if I had another.  I can see them being really handy for learning the night sky .

[Pixies]

1 hour ago, Froeng said:

So far… I can see the JETSTREAM!!!

Whoosh

I was using the new 105mm frac tonight and could split Epsilon Lyrae at x83! It was straight up, mind. The gas giants will be a bit poorer, I imagine!

Edited September 16, 2022 by Pixies

[Pixies]

I was setting up a new RACI on the scope tonight and was using Altair as the target. As I looked through the finder, I saw a tiny light fly past. "Satellite", I said to myself.

Then another,

and another,

and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another ...

 

Starlink passing by at 20:30. I counted around 30, roughly.