First Session in Months, and a Big Bonus to Finish - 12th Sep 2023

[Captain Scarlet]

I was beginning to fear I was getting out of the habit of observing, being so easy just to find an excuse and do something else, or simply go to bed. But I couldn’t ignore the forecast yesterday, and I’d had nothing to tire me out during the day. In the end it was a memorable session with a huge bonus at the end, well worth a next-day-wrecking 3am collapse-into-pit.

So, before dinner, most of the clobber (15kg of counterweights, AZ-EQ6 mount head, Planet tripod and big rings) went into the wheelbarrow and around to the field at the back of the house. I levelled and set up and went back inside to await darkness.

After dinner I headed back out, carrying the night's OTA, my 300mm Newtonian. The transparency was immediately obvious: Milky Way the best I’ve seen it this year, and M31 the “most naked eye” I can ever recall seeing it. SQM-L readings through the night were consistently 21.5 with the MW directly overhead.

I’ve been messing around lately with finders. I have two Telrads, but they are ridcuously dew-prone, and I’ve retired them (I plan to put them up for sale). I recently got a third SkySurfer V, taking my harem of in-service finders to those three SkySurfers, an APM 8x50 and my amazing EvoGuide 50ED/Pan24 (10x50). So I’ve been vacillating about which to allocate to which scope, swapping them around between my six OTAs. Consequently, I found myself last night with two non-pre-aligned finders, a Baader SS V and the EvoGuide50. Foolish error. I was forced, in the dark, to attempt to align my finders to the OTA. Which also meant trying to get the 12” pointed at something I recognized.

I tried the “unaided Polaris” route first, on the basis that Polaris doesn’t move while I’m fiddling about, but wasted at least half an hour failing to find it at 59x, not least because at 59x with 12” aperture, there are just too many stars. Luckily by then Jupiter had risen enough to be useful, and I used him. I found the planet easily enough by getting into the vicinity and using his huge wide diffraction stripes crossing the field of view to “guide me in”. Aligning the finders was then easy enough.

About the SW EvoGuide 50ED. I’ve managed to convert it into a finder by adding a super-short-light-path Baader T2 diagonal and extra-short eyepiece clamp. My Panoptic 24 eyepiece seems unique in having just enough in-focus accommodation to allow the whole to focus, making it a 10x50 ED finder. And what a Finder it is. The view through it is better than that of my Leica Ultravid 10x50s. Throughout the session I effectively had two very high quality scopes within 2 inches of my left eye. Going from 10x at that quality, to 183x or 59x (which are what I used most of the night) was such a joy.

After the fiddling around, I went first to Saturn.  He was just above a 200 metres-away neighbour’s house, and it was interesting, at 183x with the Delos 10, to see Saturn alternately being sharp, with Rhea, Tethys and Dione (and bright Titan of course) sharply in evidence, then a few seconds later all disappearing and Saturn a mush. And then back again. I’ve not experienced such regularly-variable seeing before, and from such extreme to the other. I returned to Saturn several times, and it was always like this. I tried the Delos 6 for 305x, but even in the sharp moments that was too much.

Next of course was Jupiter, which was a horrid blue-red fringed mess, being so low. Later it was much better.

I had in mind a globular cluster in Delphinus, my favourite constellation-asterism which just leaps out - seemingly literally – when you find it in the sky. I have a small boat which I’ve named Delphinus with a little diagram of its stars. Anyway the glob is NGC 6934. It’s quite small but resolvable in the 12”.

I followed that little glob with our king of globulars, M13. As ever, hugely impressive, and more so than I recall lately. The Propeller was immediately obvious, which it isn’t always. I headed across to the nearby faint galaxy NGC 6207 which for some reason was less obvious than I recall it from previously. Although there was a distinct core and halo.

After M13, and having read that M22 is a globular cluster to rival it, or would be if it were ever high enough, I tried for M22. Alas it was already past my Western-most tree-boundary and I was too late. Next time.

Although transparency seemed as good as I’ve ever seen it here, seeing was only so-so. I tested this by moving to epsilon Lyrae, my “Seeing-Diagnostic”. Yes they were all an easy split at 183x, but by no means crisp and clean: a long way from my night of utterly perfect seeing with the SV140 back in May. I did notice, however two extra field stars between Eps1 and Eps2 that I’ve not picked up before. It turns out they are two mag 12+ stars with 15-character GAIA names. The mag 10 star, TYC 3122-1635-1 just offset from eps1&2, I always notice.

Whilst looking through the Finder at 10x a nice-looking double nearby caught my attention, turning out to be zeta 1&2 Lyrae, a pair of white stars at mag 4 & 5. Also in the vicinity I stumbled across whilst slewing a beautiful wide-spaced pair, one bright orange, the other greenish-blue. They were delta 1&2 Lyrae. There’s quite a lot of loveliness in Lyra, even just bumbling around as I was.

In my perfect-seeing session in May with the 140 refractor, I managed to glimpse a mag 14.7/14.9 combination star just near M57. I wanted tonight to see how different it would be tonight with more than twice the aperture. Well, I was able to see that very-difficult-in-the-140 star quite easily, and an extra two dimmer ones nearby, one hovering on the edge of detection. Looking up using @John’s diagram, (thank you John) it seems those extra two are 14.7 and 15.3.

Now it was time for The Veil Nebula, and was I in for a treat. I fitted my Baader Oiii filter to my big Nagler 31, and headed to 52 Cygni. Of course, with the filter, the Western Veil leapt out, and 1.4 degrees from 300mm of aperture, the 5mm exit pupil maxing out my own pupil, gave a great view. I panned around, finding the Eastern Veil which seemed brighter than I recall from previously, and lots of wisps in between, one obviously wedge-shaped. I guess this was Pickering’s Wisp which I’ve sought but never conclusively “got” before.

I’ve observed and enjoyed the Veil many times, but despite numerous attempts using all combinations of equipment,  including this 300mm, I’ve never managed to see it without a filter. So it was without much expectation that whilst pointing at the Western part I removed the Oiii filter, put the N31 back in, and re-applied myself to the eyepiece. Well blather me – there it was, perfectly obvious with direct vision, sans filter! I was beside myself. After so many tries. Without using go-to, I tried to find the Eastern part, and it hove into view, quite obvious. Absolutely bloody marvellous. I took a wander around the clearing congratulating myself.

By now Jupiter was somewhat higher up, and putting the Delos 10 back in for 183x, I was treated to amongst the best views of the planet I’ve had. Though that’s not saying too much. I’ve never had the startling crisp view of Jupiter that others describe, and I didn’t have it this night either. But extra belts were on view with occasional extra detail, and that was fine. It was still too low and there was still a hint of residual atmospheric CA. I look forward to Jupiter rising as this season progresses. “Perfect Jupiter” is still in store for me. A bit like me envying people who’ve never yet read Lord of the Rings (film doesn’t count).

Uranus was next, nice round blue disc. Quick look for Titania or Oberon, nope. At mags 13.9 and 14.1 they might be possible?

I put the Nagler 31 back in and went for M31. I was getting cold and tired by now so didn’t go hunting for some of the objects within M31 itself. I’ll have to dedicate a session to that and those within M33. I made do with the Andromeda Galaxy’s lovely dust-lane and structural wide-field detail, including M32 and M110. Oddly, M33 was unimpressive tonight.

As a finish-off, I opted for a couple of open clusters. M45, Pleiades, was first. Although I was tired, the sheer startling brightness and myriad stars of M45 woke me right up! And the contrasting views between the exquisite 10x of my finder and the banging brightness at 59x from 300mm was a revelation.

I tried the same trick with the Double Cluster, and it was even better. I’ve observed this many many times, and the view through the 10x finder was familiar: it’s always a binocular object for me. But with the Nagler 31’s 1.4 degrees getting both clusters in the same view, at such brightness, it was indescribable. Such tiny, pinpoint, delicate structures, chains, twirls and colours of stars. It was as though the Double Cluster was an entirely new object. In particular I noticed a couple of rather red stars sitting between the two main clusters.

So that was it, and it also suddenly occurred to me at the end: virtually NO DEW. Incredible. I packed up and went inside some time after 2am, to decompress, make a quick post on the “what did one see tonight” thread and go to bed.

Then my phone buzzed. “AuroraWatch Red Alert. Major Activity etc” so I rushed outside and immediately to the North saw shimmering vertical columns of grey. I rushed back inside to grab my canon 6D/Samyang 85/1.4 and got a few frames. Before April this year I’d never seen the Aurora Borealis. Tonight’s was not quite as strong as April’s, but unmistakable naked eye nonetheless. Pure icing on tonight’s cake.

The photos below show it as the camera saw it, and after a bit of fiddling in PS, exactly as I saw it naked eye: i.e. distant streetlights still yellow but the sky and Aurora itself in greyscale with just the slightest hint of colour.

 

Thanks for reading, what a wonderful night. In bed finally at 3am, and wrecked the next day.

Magnus

Edited September 14, 2023 by Captain Scarlet

[josefk]

Cracking read and sounds like a cracking session. Great finder arrangement at the top there. 

[Mandy D]

What a wonderful night, for you! Then to cap it off, the aurora.

Sometimes, I forget what I am mising by not doing so much visual. I also have a 300 mm Newt and the 50ED which I was using as a finder on it. I agree that it is a wonderful little scope and for relatively so little money. I've now repurposed it for deep-sky astrophotography with my my ASI 178MM.

[Zermelo]

An amazing evening and an enthralling write-up. Thanks, Magnus.

[cajen2]

Up to your usual reporting standards, Magnus! With skies as dark as yours, plus 300mm aperture, views must have been spectacular. Not that I'm jealous or anything.......🥺

[Paz]

Great report, using a 12 inch reflector on tripod is heroic, getting it all around to a field deserves a medal!

[Captain Scarlet]

1 hour ago, Paz said:

… heroic … deserves a medal!

I used to think the same 😁, until I got a wheelbarrow. It totally transformed the setup and tear down chores.

[Captain Scarlet]

5 hours ago, Mandy D said:

What a wonderful night, for you! Then to cap it off, the aurora.

Sometimes, I forget what I am mising by not doing so much visual. I also have a 300 mm Newt and the 50ED which I was using as a finder on it. I agree that it is a wonderful little scope and for relatively so little money. I've now repurposed it for deep-sky astrophotography with my my ASI 178MM.

It really is worth overcoming the inertia of all the bother to get the 300mm out, as long as you have a sky dark enough to warrant it, which in Derbyshire you probably do? When I was in London I never bothered with anything more than an 8”.

M

[Mandy D]

7 minutes ago, Captain Scarlet said:

It really is worth overcoming the inertia of all the bother to get the 300mm out, as long as you have a sky dark enough to warrant it, which in Derbyshire you probably do? When I was in London I never bothered with anything more than an 8”.

M

I need to get the OTA mounted, yet. So far, I've only had it on the Skytee 2, which can barely manage it. I have plans to build a Dobsonian base out of aluminium, then later a much heavier AZ. I live on the edge of a small town a few minutes drive from the Peak District. At home, I believe we have Bortle 4. My other site in the Dordogne is Bortle 2. I have my 250PX out there and would love to take this one over.

[Epick Crom]

Amazing session and fantastic report Magnus👍. Great pictures too!

[Froeng]

On 14/09/2023 at 15:36, Captain Scarlet said:

I was beginning to fear I was getting out of the habit of observing, being so easy just to find an excuse and do something else, or simply go to bed. But I couldn’t ignore the forecast yesterday, and I’d had nothing to tire me out during the day. In the end it was a memorable session with a huge bonus at the end, well worth a next-day-wrecking 3am collapse-into-pit.

So, before dinner, most of the clobber (15kg of counterweights, AZ-EQ6 mount head, Planet tripod and big rings) went into the wheelbarrow and around to the field at the back of the house. I levelled and set up and went back inside to await darkness.

After dinner I headed back out, carrying the night's OTA, my 300mm Newtonian. The transparency was immediately obvious: Milky Way the best I’ve seen it this year, and M31 the “most naked eye” I can ever recall seeing it. SQM-L readings through the night were consistently 21.5 with the MW directly overhead.

I’ve been messing around lately with finders. I have two Telrads, but they are ridcuously dew-prone, and I’ve retired them (I plan to put them up for sale). I recently got a third SkySurfer V, taking my harem of in-service finders to those three SkySurfers, an APM 8x50 and my amazing EvoGuide 50ED/Pan24 (10x50). So I’ve been vacillating about which to allocate to which scope, swapping them around between my six OTAs. Consequently, I found myself last night with two non-pre-aligned finders, a Baader SS V and the EvoGuide50. Foolish error. I was forced, in the dark, to attempt to align my finders to the OTA. Which also meant trying to get the 12” pointed at something I recognized.

I tried the “unaided Polaris” route first, on the basis that Polaris doesn’t move while I’m fiddling about, but wasted at least half an hour failing to find it at 59x, not least because at 59x with 12” aperture, there are just too many stars. Luckily by then Jupiter had risen enough to be useful, and I used him. I found the planet easily enough by getting into the vicinity and using his huge wide diffraction stripes crossing the field of view to “guide me in”. Aligning the finders was then easy enough.

About the SW EvoGuide 50ED. I’ve managed to convert it into a finder by adding a super-short-light-path Baader T2 diagonal and extra-short eyepiece clamp. My Panoptic 24 eyepiece seems unique in having just enough in-focus accommodation to allow the whole to focus, making it a 10x50 ED finder. And what a Finder it is. The view through it is better than that of my Leica Ultravid 10x50s. Throughout the session I effectively had two very high quality scopes within 2 inches of my left eye. Going from 10x at that quality, to 183x or 59x (which are what I used most of the night) was such a joy.

After the fiddling around, I went first to Saturn.  He was just above a 200 metres-away neighbour’s house, and it was interesting, at 183x with the Delos 10, to see Saturn alternately being sharp, with Rhea, Tethys and Dione (and bright Titan of course) sharply in evidence, then a few seconds later all disappearing and Saturn a mush. And then back again. I’ve not experienced such regularly-variable seeing before, and from such extreme to the other. I returned to Saturn several times, and it was always like this. I tried the Delos 6 for 305x, but even in the sharp moments that was too much.

Next of course was Jupiter, which was a horrid blue-red fringed mess, being so low. Later it was much better.

I had in mind a globular cluster in Delphinus, my favourite constellation-asterism which just leaps out - seemingly literally – when you find it in the sky. I have a small boat which I’ve named Delphinus with a little diagram of its stars. Anyway the glob is NGC 6934. It’s quite small but resolvable in the 12”.

I followed that little glob with our king of globulars, M13. As ever, hugely impressive, and more so than I recall lately. The Propeller was immediately obvious, which it isn’t always. I headed across to the nearby faint galaxy NGC 6207 which for some reason was less obvious than I recall it from previously. Although there was a distinct core and halo.

After M13, and having read that M22 is a globular cluster to rival it, or would be if it were ever high enough, I tried for M22. Alas it was already past my Western-most tree-boundary and I was too late. Next time.

Although transparency seemed as good as I’ve ever seen it here, seeing was only so-so. I tested this by moving to epsilon Lyrae, my “Seeing-Diagnostic”. Yes they were all an easy split at 183x, but by no means crisp and clean: a long way from my night of utterly perfect seeing with the SV140 back in May. I did notice, however two extra field stars between Eps1 and Eps2 that I’ve not picked up before. It turns out they are two mag 12+ stars with 15-character GAIA names. The mag 10 star, TYC 3122-1635-1 just offset from eps1&2, I always notice.

Whilst looking through the Finder at 10x a nice-looking double nearby caught my attention, turning out to be zeta 1&2 Lyrae, a pair of white stars at mag 4 & 5. Also in the vicinity I stumbled across whilst slewing a beautiful wide-spaced pair, one bright orange, the other greenish-blue. They were delta 1&2 Lyrae. There’s quite a lot of loveliness in Lyra, even just bumbling around as I was.

In my perfect-seeing session in May with the 140 refractor, I managed to glimpse a mag 14.7/14.9 combination star just near M57. I wanted tonight to see how different it would be tonight with more than twice the aperture. Well, I was able to see that very-difficult-in-the-140 star quite easily, and an extra two dimmer ones nearby, one hovering on the edge of detection. Looking up using @John’s diagram, (thank you John) it seems those extra two are 14.7 and 15.3.

Now it was time for The Veil Nebula, and was I in for a treat. I fitted my Baader Oiii filter to my big Nagler 31, and headed to 52 Cygni. Of course, with the filter, the Western Veil leapt out, and 1.4 degrees from 300mm of aperture, the 5mm exit pupil maxing out my own pupil, gave a great view. I panned around, finding the Eastern Veil which seemed brighter than I recall from previously, and lots of wisps in between, one obviously wedge-shaped. I guess this was Pickering’s Wisp which I’ve sought but never conclusively “got” before.

I’ve observed and enjoyed the Veil many times, but despite numerous attempts using all combinations of equipment,  including this 300mm, I’ve never managed to see it without a filter. So it was without much expectation that whilst pointing at the Western part I removed the Oiii filter, put the N31 back in, and re-applied myself to the eyepiece. Well blather me – there it was, perfectly obvious with direct vision, sans filter! I was beside myself. After so many tries. Without using go-to, I tried to find the Eastern part, and it hove into view, quite obvious. Absolutely bloody marvellous. I took a wander around the clearing congratulating myself.

By now Jupiter was somewhat higher up, and putting the Delos 10 back in for 183x, I was treated to amongst the best views of the planet I’ve had. Though that’s not saying too much. I’ve never had the startling crisp view of Jupiter that others describe, and I didn’t have it this night either. But extra belts were on view with occasional extra detail, and that was fine. It was still too low and there was still a hint of residual atmospheric CA. I look forward to Jupiter rising as this season progresses. “Perfect Jupiter” is still in store for me. A bit like me envying people who’ve never yet read Lord of the Rings (film doesn’t count).

Uranus was next, nice round blue disc. Quick look for Titania or Oberon, nope. At mags 13.9 and 14.1 they might be possible?

I put the Nagler 31 back in and went for M31. I was getting cold and tired by now so didn’t go hunting for some of the objects within M31 itself. I’ll have to dedicate a session to that and those within M33. I made do with the Andromeda Galaxy’s lovely dust-lane and structural wide-field detail, including M32 and M110. Oddly, M33 was unimpressive tonight.

As a finish-off, I opted for a couple of open clusters. M45, Pleiades, was first. Although I was tired, the sheer startling brightness and myriad stars of M45 woke me right up! And the contrasting views between the exquisite 10x of my finder and the banging brightness at 59x from 300mm was a revelation.

I tried the same trick with the Double Cluster, and it was even better. I’ve observed this many many times, and the view through the 10x finder was familiar: it’s always a binocular object for me. But with the Nagler 31’s 1.4 degrees getting both clusters in the same view, at such brightness, it was indescribable. Such tiny, pinpoint, delicate structures, chains, twirls and colours of stars. It was as though the Double Cluster was an entirely new object. In particular I noticed a couple of rather red stars sitting between the two main clusters.

So that was it, and it also suddenly occurred to me at the end: virtually NO DEW. Incredible. I packed up and went inside some time after 2am, to decompress, make a quick post on the “what did one see tonight” thread and go to bed.

Then my phone buzzed. “AuroraWatch Red Alert. Major Activity etc” so I rushed outside and immediately to the North saw shimmering vertical columns of grey. I rushed back inside to grab my canon 6D/Samyang 85/1.4 and got a few frames. Before April this year I’d never seen the Aurora Borealis. Tonight’s was not quite as strong as April’s, but unmistakable naked eye nonetheless. Pure icing on tonight’s cake.

The photos below show it as the camera saw it, and after a bit of fiddling in PS, exactly as I saw it naked eye: i.e. distant streetlights still yellow but the sky and Aurora itself in greyscale with just the slightest hint of colour.

 

Thanks for reading, what a wonderful night. In bed finally at 3am, and wrecked the next day.

Magnus

Wow, amazing report! It must have been a cracking night! Thanks for posting this write-up!

[SuburbanMak]

Fabulous report Magnus!