Hurrah! Bagged Neptune at last!

[DeanWatson]

Hip hooray, bagged Neptune finally, it was the last planet I needed in my collection. Had better start on the Extra Solars now! (only kidding).

I did take a photo of it and got a little blue disc but really nothing shattering, just pleased I've had it and Uranus now.

If I get a chance tonight I think I might make up a Solar System montage of all eight just for fun. Its really nice to have seen them all now, even with th heavy Moon light pollution at the weekend, really feel I've achieved something worthwhile!

Thank heavens for GOTO!! (can't take too much credit after all!)

I'm just glad that pluto has technically been declassifed in the eyes of all ('though it'll always be a planet to me...!)

[mike.brightmore]

Why not try for little Pluto anyway. It is there low in the South around Sagitarius. Would be difficult with the moon as it is but when the moon's out of the way you could take an image of the area of sky that your GOTO sends you to. You have to repeat this over a few weeks and the little dot that moves relative to the rest of the stars is Pluto (well that's the theory). Though at magnitude +14.2 you would need to give it a fair exposure time.

[DeanWatson]

I was thinking of it but it would necessitate demolishing our house Mike! I might take the gear up into the hills at some point though and it would certainly be lots of fun to grab it. I mean hey, its Pluto!

[Mikea]

From the reference to GOTO, I take it you used this to locate Neptune? I did the same thing last time I was out. No way could you see it naked eye, but Mr GOTO found it. Very faint when I looked and tbh, I couldn't have told you what colour ir was supposed to be. Like to see your photo though

[Talitha]

Congratulations, Dean. I'd go for Pluto anyway.. maybe the ten brightest asteroids, too.

Something i did years ago on film was to get a 30 second shot of a supernova (in SGR, if memory serves). It was a kick to compare the photo to a star chart, and see a 'star' where there's not supposed to be one.

[Karo]

Congratulations!

I've tried to find it the last two times I've been able to observe but not managed to get it either time Should have had the FOV to make finding it easy - at least according to my FOV circle in KStars - but I just couldn't see it. I'd have thought as Uranus can be naked eye visible that 80mm should be enough for Neptune, esp from a dark site? Maybe not at f/5, *shrug*.

Any tips regarding what to look for so I know next time? Or is it super obvious when you've found it? I had the impression it would be a blueish 'star' at this aperture and f/ratio.

Cheers,

[red dwalf]

I also tried for it with goto, mount was working fine on Moon, Jupiter and a couple more stars but when I tried for Neptune I couldn`t see anything at all, will try when there`s no Moon hopefully it will make a differance.

[DeanWatson]

Hi all, Yes , I did use the goto, and to improve the accuracy (i've found that with planets, given that they move, it can sometimes be a little off) I GOTOed (Is that a word?!) to Jupiter, centered manually by unclutching (wish Skyscan had the Synchonise feature like on the Meade handsets), locked and then GOTOed to Neptune.

I tend to do this with deepsky imaging as well, makes sure the object is nicely centred when I start if so faint as not to be viewable in light pollluted skies.

[DeanWatson]

BTW, Supernova Talitha, NICE!