Did I see Uranus or not?

[Martyn_Bannister]

WARNING - long and dreary report - WARNING

Well, last night (2010-09-12 Southern UK) looked very promising but, apart from a possible plus, it turned out to be an absolute disaster.

Having been to a single star party, where my scope (KONUSMOTOR130 reflector) was totally dew soaked, I have had the whole thing apart to clean the primary and the secondary, both of which were absolutely filthy. I don't think the dew was the actual cause, I think it was like that when I got it off ebay. However, the dew soaking caused me to examine the mirrors closely, hence the cleaning. Everything cleaned, I proceeded to re-assemble it all. This is when the first disaster occurred. The secondary is mounted on a holder, which is held in by a cap on an enclosing tube. I had put the tube into the spider and was inserting the secondary holder into the tube when it slipped and, ever so gently, knocked against the side of the tube. It was not gentle enough to prevent damage however and knocked a chip out of the edge of the mirror.

The air turned blue.

However, having totally KO'd the mirror, there wasn't anything I could do immediately, so assembly proceeded without further mishap. When it came to fixing the primary cell back in the OTA end cap, I was at a loss. The cell is held by three pairs of "push-pull" collimating screws, each "pull" screw going through a big rubber bush into a thread on the cell. I didn't recall them being very tight, so pulled the cell up until it was just touching the bushes and carried on.

Hours were then spent trying to collimate the beast. I don't have a cheshire or a laser, so it was all done by eye, as THIS useful page gave me guidance. My daytime target of some far distant trees seemed pretty good in the 17mm eyepiece but, strangely, I could only get focus if I didn't push the eyepiece fully into the tube. In fact, it had to be out of the tube by about 10mm. Weird. Wasn't like that before. Oh well. Surely nothing to do with the chip? No, must be something else.

I finally got it to a state that I thought was reasonable. Just like it was before, with a small slice out of the secondary mirror, bottom right, the shadow of the edge of the hole in the tube. Doesn't look right, but it always used to be reasonable, so leave it like that. Hmmm, looks like the cloud might clear tonight, so I set up my DSLR for some reasonably wide angle star shots and waited for dark.

As soon as polaris appeared, I got the best polar alignment I could. It's not very good, since the mount waggles about on the top of the tripod legs like a duck's tail, but managed to sight polaris then up a bit and left a smidge. Spot on. Unfortunately, forgot to turn off the red dot finder. For about the tenth time!

Night fell.

As Jupiter seems to be rising further round to the south every day, it was hidden by my inconvenient tree for some time, so tried to get a bead on one of the doubles in Cassiopeia. This is when I found that the red-dot battery was on its last legs and I don't have a new one. The omens were not looking good.

Finally found a star to look at with the 17mm. Not sure which one, but switched to my 10mm eyepiece for a good look.

Coma? Blimey, never seen anything like it. The star looked like a twin tailed comet. Hhhhrrrrumph. Obviously this collimation malarkey is more difficult than it looks. Oh well, set the Canon 5D up and start taking some pics while I wait for Jupiter. It's my favourite, because I can identify it now. I had my lovely Olympus Zuiko 50mm f1.4 on and chose ISO 200 and 20sec exposures. Point it vaguely towards Andromeda (I know M31 is up there somewhere), lock the shutter down and get the binos out. After about 10 minutes I suddenly realised that the camera wasn't taking shots. DOH! Try turning it to "continuous"!

Aha, Jupiter is finally visible over the inconvenient tree. Lovely looking in the binos, lets get the scope on it. Managed to find it, despite the dim rapidly diminishing glow from the red dot. As usual, it was a disk with just a suggestion of bands and the moons strung out like sparkling jewels. Time to rig up my butchered Argos 2MP webcam. Finding Jupiter again wasn't easy and, even when I had, it was a featureless disk despite tweaking every setting I could find. Strange, it was better than this last time. OK, totally write off the scope for now.

Hmmm, DSLR, 50mm lens, not as wide as it was last time I took some shots. Star trails. Wonder if 20sec exposure is too long? Lets up the ISO to 400 and decrease the shutter to 10secs. Off we go again.

Up to now, not much has gone right. However, having seen a thread on here about Uranus, the more I looked at Jupiter through the binos (7 x 50, Russian, £1 at a boot sale, but quite good it seems), the more I thought I could see Uranus above it and to the right. Two bright stars below and to the right, one bright star that might be Uranus above and to the right. Can it be? Surely not with binos? Wow, I wonder?

Rushed inside to check Stellarium and it certainly fitted the bill. It was very bright though. I thought Uranus was quite dim?

Anyway, that was the highlight of the evening, so stop the DSLR, take a few dark frames at both ISO's and shutter speeds and get ready for bed.

Come morning time, I took the opportunity to shoot off some flats using my trusty handkerchief at both ISO's against the first streaks of dawn. Put the lens cap on and take some dark flats too.

Having delivered the daughter to school, I started to transfer the 560 shots from the camera to the PC. A sudden thought occurred. I hadn't taken any of the shots in RAW! BUGG@R IT! That means that DSS will whine about not being able to use anything apart from the light frames. A perfect end to the session

When I get a minute, unless I am totally flamed for rambling on for pages about the most useless session ever, I'll delight you all with the ongoing story of my attempts to collimate my scope. I will get it right one day, I'm sure.

Thanks for reading

[Andrew*]

I've had sooo many nights like that!!

Uranus is technically naked eye visible right now, and is the brightest "star" above right of Jupiter, so you could well have bagged it. Do you remember the colour of this star you saw? It should be faintly greenish. If it was anything else, probably not.

Andrew

[Martyn_Bannister]

I've had sooo many nights like that!!

Uranus is technically naked eye visible right now, and is the brightest "star" above right of Jupiter, so you could well have bagged it. Do you remember the colour of this star you saw? It should be faintly greenish. If it was anything else, probably not.

Andrew

Well, my eyes/brain, combined with the russian optics couldn't really distinguish anything but "bright light".Certainly can't say I could detect any colour in it at all. But it certainly seemed to be in the right place. If it's naked eye visible at the mo I'm gonna claim it! Thanks for the info and the confirmation that I'm not being persecuted by the sky gods

[Moonshane]

Martyn, I reckon everyone's had a night like that! Collimation seems daunting at first but is easy once you get the hang of it and once it's close to good or good, it's only a little tweak to get it spot on again.

Russ is quite close to you and he's a top bloke. I bet he'd be happy to team up and give you the collimation lesson you might be able to use. Tools needed are a collicap - you can make one from anything that will fit into the eyepiece holder - eg a cheapo 2-4mm Plossl with the glass out or a film cannister with a hole in.

a Cheshire or a laser collimator. the former is cheaper and to some extent easier but the laser is also favoured by some especially when barlowed. there's lots of help on here ad online but someone showing you is worth its weight in gold.

I think you saw Uranus, when you get it in the scope it's a small greenish disk which gets bigger with magnification.

[Martyn_Bannister]

Martyn, I reckon everyone's had a night like that! Collimation seems daunting at first but is easy once you get the hang of it and once it's close to good or good, it's only a little tweak to get it spot on again.

Russ is quite close to you and he's a top bloke. I bet he'd be happy to team up and give you the collimation lesson you might be able to use. Tools needed are a collicap - you can make one from anything that will fit into the eyepiece holder - eg a cheapo 2-4mm Plossl with the glass out or a film cannister with a hole in.

a Cheshire or a laser collimator. the former is cheaper and to some extent easier but the laser is also favoured by some especially when barlowed. there's lots of help on here ad online but someone showing you is worth its weight in gold.

I think you saw Uranus, when you get it in the scope it's a small greenish disk which gets bigger with magnification.

Nice to know I'm not alone

I'm absolutely, positively certain (almost) that I have the scope sorted now as my next monotonous installment will show. However, should the clouds ever clear and prove me wrong, I'm gonna beg someone (probably Russ) to help me with it. If it ain't right now then I'm gonna need TWO experts at least

Even though the scope was officially AWOL, so I couldn't get a better look, I'm gonna claim it. Next time it's clear I'm going straight there with the scope as it now is) to confirm.

[Moonshane]

I bet you had it. in the finder, it's the only really bright target above and to the right of Jupiter (in a straight finder this would of course be below and to the left!).

[Photosbykev]

I feel so much better now

[matthewota]

Here it is as of fifteen minutes ago:

[Martyn_Bannister]

Here it is as of fifteen minutes ago:

Damn, looks totally different. Ah, but you are in the USA? That would probably explain it

[Talitha]

Martyn, Uranus a magnitude 5.7 and quite easy with binoculars as long as you have a good chart to reference, i've seen it using 7x35's. They didn't show any color, just another star-like point of light in the sky. Well spotted!

[the_laughing_crow]

Listen, I feel really really sorry for saying this. I know a lot of you people have been doing this for a very long time and rightly take a lot of pride in your work/hobby... and its probably irritating for you to see a guy with less than 100 posts making this kind of post....

But am I the only person who laughs a little on the inside when I read a thread title like this one?

No Im not 14

[matthewota]

Damn, looks totally different. Ah, but you are in the USA? That would probably explain it

I may have the orientation wrong as I did not check it. North is to the top.

[Moonshane]

Listen, I feel really really sorry for saying this. I know a lot of you people have been doing this for a very long time and rightly take a lot of pride in your work/hobby... and its probably irritating for you to see a guy with less than 100 posts making this kind of post....

But am I the only person who laughs a little on the inside when I read a thread title like this one?

No Im not 14

you are not alone mate. I point blank refuse to call it oorahnus - it's always youranus to me. I love telling folk at work that I saw Uranus last night - creates a stir on the packed train too.

I am 14 (in my brain at least)

[Talitha]

No Im not 14

You sure had me fooled.

[Martyn_Bannister]

Listen, I feel really really sorry for saying this. I know a lot of you people have been doing this for a very long time and rightly take a lot of pride in your work/hobby... and its probably irritating for you to see a guy with less than 100 posts making this kind of post....

But am I the only person who laughs a little on the inside when I read a thread title like this one?

No Im not 14

LOL. Everyone on this forum seems to avoid this connotation, I thought because, in the astronomy world, it must be getting a little old hat now . I have to admit that mentally I still have to switch it to the more conventional pronunciation.

[russ]

You sure had me fooled.

[Martyn_Bannister]

Here it is as of fifteen minutes ago:

Hi Matthew. I was basing it on this

On the left is roughly what I could see (now provided by Stellarium, withouth the planet labels). I was pretty sure I was looking at "star" A, not B and on the right is what Stellarium was showing me, with the planet labels.