What did you see tonight?

[paulastro]

I had an excellent session this morning, November 4th.  As the Met indicated it would the sky cleared by 1am, and I was out ready to go by 1.20 - using the Celestron StarSense Explorer 8 inch dob. The session ended at 4.35 when I was too cold and tired to carry on.

The good thing with the SS scopes is that most of your time is spent actually observing rather than finding - I may have mentioned this before somewhere 😊.

It was a good night with steady seeing, but at times the transparancy was poor so I concentrated on OCs, 17 of them, plus 6 galaxies, 3 nebula and 1 SN remnent - M1.

I looked at some old favourites but also a sprinkling of new objects to me. The following are some of the highlights.  For most of the time I used my Excellent ES 68 24mm and Morpheus 17.5mm.

The highlite of the session was the Rosette Nebula and the embedded OC,  NGC 2244 - C49 and C50 respectively. Its a very large nebula in a great area. The star cluster is very fine and the whole area is full of interesting detail. The object itself is quite complex and I spent some time exploring it - it repays repeat visits. There is an excellent account of it in James O'Meara's book The Caldwell Objects.

I visited some of my regulars including the ET's Cluster, the Double Cluster, M31 and company, M81/82 and of course M42 - always hard to resist. It was stunning in the Morpheus 17.5, and then with a x2 barlow.  Later also with my binoviewer, x2 barlow and 24mm Orthos.

It was nice to see M41,(OC) in Canis Major - its often affected by haze, at a higher altitude it would be even more impressive.  I also observed OCs M47 and Its neighbour M46 in Puppis (ofter overlooked), and M50 in Monoceros. After observing M34 in Perseus, I took the opportunity to seek out Trump 2 and Mellote 1, also in Perseus.

I observed  Mars from about 3 -3.20 when it was around 60 degrees altitude. The seeing was excellent, by far the best thuis apparition.  Using the Morpheus plus barlow and the binoviewer Mare Sirenum and Mare Cimmerium  were easily visible in the S, and there was what I think was Elysium to the N.  

It was an excellent session - and my new head torch worked a treat as well 🙂.

 

[Astro_Dad]

4 hours ago, paulastro said:

I had an excellent session this morning, November 4th.  As the Met indicated it would the sky cleared by 1am, and I was out ready to go by 1.20 - using the Celestron StarSense Explorer 8 inch dob. The session ended at 4.35 when I was too cold and tired to carry on.

The good thing with the SS scopes is that most of your time is spent actually observing rather than finding - I may have mentioned this before somewhere 😊.

It was a good night with steady seeing, but at times the transparancy was poor so I concentrated on OCs, 17 of them, plus 6 galaxies, 3 nebula and 1 SN remnent - M1.

I looked at some old favourites but also a sprinkling of new objects to me. The following are some of the highlights.  For most of the time I used my Excellent ES 68 24mm and Morpheus 17.5mm.

The highlite of the session was the Rosette Nebula and the embedded OC,  NGC 2244 - C49 and C50 respectively. Its a very large nebula in a great area. The star cluster is very fine and the whole area is full of interesting detail. The object itself is quite complex and I spent some time exploring it - it repays repeat visits. There is an excellent account of it in James O'Meara's book The Caldwell Objects.

I visited some of my regulars including the ET's Cluster, the Double Cluster, M31 and company, M81/82 and of course M42 - always hard to resist. It was stunning in the Morpheus 17.5, and then with a x2 barlow.  Later also with my binoviewer, x2 barlow and 24mm Orthos.

It was nice to see M41,(OC) in Canis Major - its often affected by haze, at a higher altitude it would be even more impressive.  I also observed OCs M47 and Its neighbour M46 in Puppis (ofter overlooked), and M50 in Monoceros. After observing M34 in Perseus, I took the opportunity to seek out Trump 2 and Mellote 1, also in Perseus.

I observed  Mars from about 3 -3.20 when it was around 60 degrees altitude. The seeing was excellent, by far the best thuis apparition.  Using the Morpheus plus barlow and the binoviewer Mare Sirenum and Mare Cimmerium  were easily visible in the S, and there was what I think was Elysium to the N.  

It was an excellent session - and my new head torch worked a treat as well 🙂.

 

Inspiring report Paul - great to see the StarSense is working out for you! 

[scotty1]

Caught this with my phone about 17.30 

Edited November 4, 2022 by scotty1

[paulastro]

3 minutes ago, scotty1 said:

Caught this with my phone about 17.30 

That's nice, where is it taken, the church looks a nice building.

[scotty1]

5 hours ago, paulastro said:

That's nice, where is it taken, the church looks a nice building.

My friend calls it Thunderbirds 1 , it's Bury St Edmunds. 

 

[Stu1smartcookie]

5 hours ago, scotty1 said:

My friend calls it Thunderbirds 1 , it's Bury St Edmunds. 

 

FAB SCOTT

[SzabiB]

Another great evening at the club observatory.

Forecast was promising ( it was a lie...), so we had a mini meet up again on Culloden battlefield. 

Sadly the clouds started to roll in when we turned up (I am pretty sure, these are still the same clouds following us what FLO sent with my new MAK last week).

One of the club member brought me a brand new 32mm Celestron Omni Plossl to try and buy, so I pointed the 127 to the moon direction. 

The viewing was on and off with occasional clear skies. I spent my majority of time on the moon, trying to identify different regions and matching it up with the map. Sometimes I just used my new 32mm, framing the whole moon and taking in the view, while my mind was calm and racing in the same time , thinking about random thoughts. 

I pointed the scope to Mars (rather disappointing view) and Jupiter for a while than moved back on the moon and fixed my phone holder to the eyepiece. Spent the last one hour with taking pictures and playing with different settings and my super cheap/usefull Bluetooth shutter button.

After 9 o'clock sky started to be hopeless, so we packed up.

The great thing about this kind of sessions is the community. While myself is not the most social person most of the time and I like my space and quietness (standing back of our garden, 3 o'clockin the morning), oddly I really enjoy small meet ups. We had good conversation about interesting topics, seen some mind twistingly genius diy solutions and  got some priceless tips. Even the conditions were not the best and I haven't seen ton of stuff, I still came home happy and satisfied.

[josefk]

Well it was a toss up between a few hours out in the cold last night or a glass or two of chilled NZ Sauvignon Blanc. Unbelievably a couple of hours in the cold under a super bright moon won out. I am going round the bend surely.

It really was indeed bright - SQM 20.47 using a the iPhone app "Dark Sky Meter". Transparency "fair" and seeing i thought was steady until the double stars got tight 🙂

Five double stars observed (all Astro League ones so drawn too) - 118 Tauri, Zeta Piscium, Gamma Arietis, Psi1 Piscium, & 65 Piscium. All very pretty and so far so good. The first and last in that list are <5" but split obviously and easily so I then tried Alrischa (p1.8") and completely failed at any magnification. What was really weird is that is i couldn't even detect the double here - it didn't elongate in any way at any mag'. The scintillation was pretty huge at high mags (i'd been using "just" 140x for the first five) so i assume what i thought was a steady sky wasn't so steady after all. 

Three PNe where also observed.

NGC40 - one of the Bow Tie Nebula. No Bow Tie for sure but some arc-seconds of quite prominent (relatively speaking) nebulous gas and the central star an easy and bright spot - observed with and without O-III. it didn't need O-III to see the halo.

Then two really contrasting stellar PNe - IC 2149 and IC 3568.

IC 2149 was detectable in a way straightaway but then it took nearly an hour to be sure. I was using 24mm EPs at 105x w/ and w/o O-III and a 17mm EP at 140x with UHC to really increase confidence on the ID and I drew this with and without O-III so i'll be interested to look again at those attempts later. It was never bigger than a "smidge out of focus" stellar and several other stars in the FOV "beat" the O-III filter so it was never on it's own. IC 3586 on the other hand was a text book blink - in a star field with others w/o O-III and completely isolated w/ O-III. 

More extended PNe were just not visible for me last night - i failed to see Jones-Emberson 1 and M1-7

Mars was fantastic to the naked eye all night - really like a hard shard of copper sticking out of the sky (i have astigmatism ;-)) but through the scope on several attempts throughout the night it was wobbling and glaring - filling my eyepiece with orange glare in the atmosphere.

Sauvignon Blanc - not missed.

Cheers

[Astro_Dad]

Quite a simple Friday night for me - just enjoyed the naked eye views of Jupiter and the Moon moving together across the sky, then later with my 10x50’s and finished much later with a lunar close up using the 6 inch Newt. 

[starhiker]

I got a couple of hours with a nice sky last night.

It was the first time that I notice the issue when the dob is not cooling down. I tried to look at the moon immediately after moving the telescope out, then found that the image is so blur and turning the focuser didn't help. Then I let it cooling for a while and started from moon, saturn and jupiter.

I decided to check around Lyra following a observation list imported in skysafari. Most of the effort is made to split the double double and to observe M57. Maybe the 133x eyepiece is not powerful enough, I could only vaguely split one of the double. They are too bright. For M57, it was easy to find it using the 40X eyepiece. But it is hard to find it using 133x - easy to lost it when switching eyepieces. I was just curious if I can see it better using a higher power one. I will try it again next time.

Finally I use my dob to find M31 the first time. I managed to find delta and pi firstly in the finder, then found Mirach by moving up, then mu and nu. After nu appears in the finder, M31 vaguely appears in the finder too. The rest is straightforward.

Late night, I observed mars and orion nebula the first time. Mars are so bright and red. Maybe too bright. 

Orion nebula is AMAZING! I wasn't expecting that I could see a rather bright white?/blue? patch so clearly. Simply amazing. But I didn't have much time before the cloud covered everything.

[Pixies]

2 minutes ago, starhiker said:

Most of the effort is made to split the double double and to observe M57. Maybe the 133x eyepiece is not powerful enough, I could only vaguely split one of the double.

Double-double (epsilon lyrae) can be split at lower magnification, but you need reasonable seeing. Last night's atmosphere was wild, the jetstream was right overhead - no wonder you couldn't split it!

[douglaslogan2]

Last night on 7/11/22 viewed the moon for the first time with newly acquired nexstar 8se. Also a blurry Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Looking forward to the learning curve though!

 

 

[Sulaco85]

6/11

Bit of a frustrating one for me, first night out with my 2nd hand celestron zoom on a heritage 130p. 

Lots of moisture in the air and seeing was next to awful. Got my breath on the lens of the zoom and the night never really recovered from there haha. 

Got some nice views of the moon and orion nebula but most DSO targets flooded with moon light. Once the clouds covered the moon around 0100 it got better but then cloud coverage completly blocked everything. 

A shame as my previous two sessions after getting back into it again were brilliant! Guess you have to take the rough with the smooth.

Have a 32mm vixen NPL arriving in a few days which should make star hopping a bit easier.

The zoom is fun but as others have said the field of view is very narrow, which I now realise is something I really don't like! 

So will pick up a couple of BSTs and use the zoom as a "compliment" as oppose to it being a "main" eyepiece. The baader 20% offer is tempting but feel a 200 pound eyepiece may be over kill for this scope.

[Astro_Dad]

05/11/22

A nice evening on the waxing gibbous Moon, taking in many lunar features and hunting down November S@N magazines Moonwatch feature - crater Hainzel. 

Heritage 150p and SvBony 7-21mm zoom the equipment of choice. 

Trickier than expected to find (done mainly retrospectively studying a phone picture). It is hard to see anyway due the dominance of Hainzel A and B, and I was a day after the apparent optimal date, nevertheless combining orientation using both the Moon Atlas app and the useful fold out Philips Moon map I found the general area.

 

It was a very clear night - The Moon had earlier formed a stunning backdrop for the local firework display! 

Finished on Mars, 150x power and able to see a few darker areas of surface shading but I think my best Mars session is yet to come. 

Edited November 6, 2022 by Astro_Dad

[Mr Spock]

Last night was the first clear night for weeks. However, I stayed in due to the large number of fireworks going off 🤬

Good job I did. There's a spent rocket right on my observing patio 

[Ratlet]

14 minutes ago, Mr Spock said:

Last night was the first clear night for weeks. However, I stayed in due to the large number of fireworks going off 🤬

Good job I did. There's a spent rocket right on my observing patio 

I remember getting smacked in the face by a spent firework at the millennium celebrations when I were but a lad.

I do not recommend it.

[Ratlet]

The great red spot is now my Nemesis.  I went out and thought I'd have a look at Jupiter and the moon and lamented the fact the GRS was not facing.  Came in to check Stellarium and it in fact was in pole position the entire time I was out.  I think my issue is that it is too bright in the 130pds and I lose some contrast.  Might try some serious observing and playing with my polarising filter.  Might be time to flock the scope too.

Astronomy is like an infection.  I just wanted to take pretty pictures of nebula and stuff.  Now I'm obsessed with sketching and planetary is getting it's hooks into me!  I just sold my ruddy Mak because I didn't think it worth having a scope just for planets.  Someone send help (or a Tak).

Also did a bit of testing with the Tair 3.  I cleared of a serious fungus infestation and after putting it together found dartboards around every star.  Turns out I put the front element in backwards.  Testing went well and there is minimal chromatic aberation and no dartboards even on bright targets.

Edited November 6, 2022 by Ratlet

[allworlds]

I think Stellarium has the GRS in the wrong place unless you do a custom config? I use this webpage, https://skyandtelescope.org/observing/interactive-sky-watching-tools/transit-times-of-jupiters-great-red-spot/

[Ags]

Stellarium shows the GRS in the right spot for me on Android.

[Ratlet]

Checked against that website (thanks for sharing, that's getting saved on my phone for sure!) this morning and it should have been front and central last night about 9:45pm.

I think half my issue is I'm not spending enough time observing the planets to pick up enough detail.  should probably get the zoom involved as using my fixed eyepieces I've got x80 and x160 and i suspect the seeing will support somewhere in between most nights.

[SzabiB]

Another evening in the back garden. 

After Saturday night wild camping (running away from fireworks with the dog), last night I decided to just stick around in our back garden. 

Unfortunately clouds were coming and going very rhapsodically, also the moon had his own personal cloud, didn't manage to see much. 

Played around a fair bit with my MAK + newly obtained 32mm plossl, than spent a cat - mouse game with higher magnification on the moon, trying to beat the clouds. 

When Mars popped out finally, I was delighted, but I just couldn't manage to get any good view....I am not lucky with the Mars at all.  

11 o'clock I was observing my eyelids already in horizontal position. 

Edited November 7, 2022 by SzabiB

[JeremyS]

13 hours ago, allworlds said:

I think Stellarium has the GRS in the wrong place unless you do a custom config? I use this webpage, https://skyandtelescope.org/observing/interactive-sky-watching-tools/transit-times-of-jupiters-great-red-spot/

Not checked that webpage, but the S&T App shows GRS incorrectly. I pointed it out to them a couple of years but they didn’t feel moved to do anything about it.

[Epick Crom]

9 hours ago, JeremyS said:

Not checked that webpage, but the S&T App shows GRS incorrectly. I pointed it out to them a couple of years but they didn’t feel moved to do anything about it.

I use the Sky Safari 6 Plus app and find it is always spot on in showing the correct position of the GRS. 

[josefk]

A full moon and breezy to boot so just a quick grab and go specifically to make sketches of a few well known targets. If you saw me trying to sketch juggling a fluid head tripod, reading glasses, red light and sketch pad you would laugh. Nothing is ever in the right hand at the right moment.

Anyway Otto Struve 525 and Zeta Lyrae sketches collected in Lyra and 31 Cyg and 16 Cyg sketches collected in Cygnus. I hadn't appreciated before that 16 Cyg and the Blinking Nebula NGC 6826 could be observed (and sketched) in the same FOV (70x/1-degree). NGC 6826 visible with averted vision at 30x once it was obvious where to look as well even under the terribly bright sky.

A quick finish on Mars and even at only 70x it was looking nice. No shimmer or glare (though no detail either).

Cheers

Edited November 9, 2022 by josefk
pic added

[RobertI]

1 hour ago, josefk said:

. I hadn't appreciated before that 16 Cyg and the Blinking Nebula NGC 6826 could be observed (and sketched) in the same FOV (70x/1-degree). NGC 6826 visible with averted vision at 30x once it was obvious where to look as well even under the terribly bright sky.

Thanks for heads up, I shall add to my list of “two in a view”. 👍