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Woooo, clear skies!!

Beano

By Beano
in The Astro Lounge

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Beano

Beano

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Anybody else enjoying clear skies tonight? Here in manc it's the clearest night in a while. Had a gander at joop with my new EP's (celestron omni plossl) and I'm impressed. As I looked I had 4 moons, not so long after one disappeared behind the gas giant!

Hopefully the skies will last and i will make it to 3am for Saturn!

Didn't bother trying for images, I was having too much fun looking with my own eyes.

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Mark-mck

Mark-mck

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i'm having clear skies here in the east mid's, managed about an hour oggling jupiter.

think i can see saturn, rising from the east? is that right? but having a bit of bother focusing as my scope is rubbish and the mount is **** to say the least, but never mind that i'm going to carry on freezing half to death till i find out if it is saturn.

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KevG

KevG

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i'm having clear skies here in the east mid's, managed about an hour oggling jupiter.

think i can see saturn, rising from the east? is that right? but having a bit of bother focusing as my scope is rubbish and the mount is **** to say the least, but never mind that i'm going to carry on freezing half to death till i find out if it is saturn.

It's not your focuser, Saturn does not break the Horizon till around 11:30, although you will need give it another couple of hours to get a decent view

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Demonperformer

Demonperformer

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Has been really clear around Poole, although a massive cloud bank did make its appearance from the south. Fortunately, I missed most of it (while the camera was photographing it) and by the time I noticed it had almost cleared, so have set the camera going for another batch on the supernova.

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JamesF

JamesF

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Sitting here in half of my ski gear whilst dinner is finishing cooking. It's beautifully clear here, though my weather station tells me it's -3.5C and it doesn't look like it's bottoming out yet.

Had another look at Jupiter earlier and clearly saw the N(?)EB at 100x magnification. Couldn't find Uranus at all though. Also had my first proper view of M42 and was able to realise what I was looking for. The nebula fills the entire view even at 40x and I was just able to pick out the Trapezium. When I looked a couple of weeks ago there wasn't even enough contrast to see the nebula.

The only downside is that there's some bash on at the cricket club "next door" this evening and it's like Piccadilly Circus out there, not to mention the three floodlights they've turned on out the front. Hopefully it'll all have calmed down a bit when I go back out later.

James

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Beano

Beano

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It's one of the clearest skies I think I've seen from Warrington (Cheshire) since late-November 2010. Wife & 2 children joined me in the back garden to see M42 for their first time. All suitably impressed :)...and frozen :(.

I thought the same too, I've not seen it like this for some time (I'm in Atherton).

I've been looking at Orion all night too, it's amazing to look at with the naked eye.

Definatley making the most of it. Awaiting Saturn and stocking up on coffee :confused:

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Davie

Davie

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Really nice night in the NE of Scotland, alas when I went outside I found that one of the kids had been messing about with the finder scope and as I'm new to all of this I'm now a bit lost :)

Still I'll try and mess about a little as clear skies here are so damned rare!

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Davie

Davie

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Whereabouts are you Davie? I have relatives in Caithness, which couldn't be much further from me in Bournemouth on the south coast, where we currenltly have... cloudy skies :-(

You're right you couldnt be much further away if you tried :) Caithness is right up top, I'm just north of Aberdeen in Ellon

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Beano

Beano

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Really nice night in the NE of Scotland, alas when I went outside I found that one of the kids had been messing about with the finder scope and as I'm new to all of this I'm now a bit lost :)

Still I'll try and mess about a little as clear skies here are so damned rare!

You should be fine without the finder if you're looking at planets (with low magnification eye pieces). I'm waiting on a new mount to be made for my finder so had to find joop without earlier. Didn't take too long but for anything other than that I'd imagine you'd struggle.

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Davie

Davie

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I was thinking on trying to set it up with one of the brighter stars or waiting for another wee while until Saturn is a bit further up (no idea how bright it will be as I've never had a clear sky this late to look!!) and trying to set it up again. Other than that if the Boss (wife) is finished with the laptop I might go out with the computer and set up the web cam for a trial run/mess about.

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Beano

Beano

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I was thinking on trying to set it up with one of the brighter stars or waiting for another wee while until Saturn is a bit further up (no idea how bright it will be as I've never had a clear sky this late to look!!) and trying to set it up again. Other than that if the Boss (wife) is finished with the laptop I might go out with the computer and set up the web cam for a trial run/mess about.

I'm not too sure if this relates but:

January 2008:

Saturn can be found in the constellation Leo all year long. Youll easily spot the pale golden planet rising in the east-northeast by mid-evening towards the end of the month. The south side of the rings faces Earth. This month Saturn shines at magnitude +0.7, its equatorial diameter is 19.1 arc seconds, and the ring inclination is - 6.7 degrees.

Taken from here:

Saturn Observation Campaign

I'm pretty sure the magnitude of it from back then will be the same now so it should be easy to spot.

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Beano

Beano

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Thanks for that, I just need to wait for it to clear all the other buildings around the house.

Well it's at about 9 degrees in the east at the min. By 1:30 it will be at 20 degrees in the south east. It peaks at around 4:15. It will be about 34 degrees and in the south.

I hope that helps you. I'm going to go back out around 2:10 and get looking.

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