12025 replies to this topic

[Bomber Bob]

Thanks!  I hope other 838 owners will take theirs out and report on the views, too.

 

I haven't done a SxS with the 838 and a 60mm in a while, but it's surprising how much that 10mm makes.  Not so much on nebulae, but star clusters are richer.

 

Royal, Swift, Unitron and others put real effort into 40mm & 50mm refractors -- put them on EQ mounts.  Seems kinda crazy now with giant Dobs & such.  But when the optics & mechanics are first-rate, it makes sense.  You can't see a lot, but what you do see is sharp.  Mars really surprised me.

 

After a busy week at work, no way I could tote heavier gear around the yard in the smothering heat & humidity.  It's good to have an ultralight option with a great lens.

[wfj]

Pulled a shoulder muscle, so scaled down in favor of walking up the southern ridge to "walk the planets" with Orange Astro C90 with CCM30 gelatin filter cut out and inserted into an 0.965 holder. Didn't expect anything given jet stream overhead. Kind of an astro "hail mary" more out of habit than thinking anything would be there.

 

Kind of like a lucky "sucker hole", the jet stream appeared to part for me like Mose's Red Sea. Saturn and Mars were crystal with a 6mm, but Venus, Jupiter, and the Moon were in the "wriggly" soup.

 

Definitely magenta works better than orange for dusty Mars albedo features. Cassini and four moons around Saturn (Titan, Dione, Rhea, Tethys).

[Bomber Bob]

Lots of fantastic views tonight; but sadly, no Classics -- had a shoot-out between my APM 152 ED APO and my Vixen VMC200L Field Maksutov.

 

Actually, I did have one:  the Pentax J60 that rides with the APM152.  Kept the diagonal aligned with the big scope's so I could easily compare views.  No surprise, its views of the planets were sharper than the VMC's, too -- though not as rich with colors & details.

Edited by Bomber Bob, 16 September 2018 - 08:15 AM.

[shredder1656]

Went to bed early, roughly 2130ish. Woke up at 0200 for some reason, and couldn't get back to sleep. Too many irons in the fire, so I've been knocking around the house for awhile.

Gorgeous morning, but a little damp. Fought the urge to try hunting for something new, because I thought I'd be able to get bored watching t.v. and fall back asleep. Finally gave in.

Took the C102F out for a quick workout. I think I saw every Messier object that was visible tonight. Or, should I say every object that's visible within shouting distance of Andromeda.

Using my Sky Safari I tried in vain to zero in on Andromeda. I know my noobness is showing, but where is that mess? LoL. As fun as it was cruising through, what I hope is, it's neighborhood, I thought I picked an easy one. I hate giving up, and being defeated, but my scope was really dewing up. I hate that more. Had to get it back inside to dry it out.

So, the stars were gorgeous through the C102F. I Used a 26mm Silver Top plossl, and for a brief minute I used my Vixen 10mm lanthanum. The Silver Top was very nice.

I was able to get a peek at Orion and Pleiades, since I can recognize this two. Pleiades was breathtaking to me. I should have been satisfied to just take in every gorgeous detail. I still stayed there long enough to let at least a pleasant aftertaste to linger throughout the day today. Obviously, words cannot describe such a rapturous view. So, I will stop. But, it was astounding.

Orion was great too. Still learning the intricacies of both of these sites, but as always Orion provided a lovely vision. It was a little low, so not perfect or as solid as Pleiades, but phenomenal nonetheless.

I can't identify what else I looked at, but it was all so purty. I will keep hunting for Andromeda. Now that the planets aren't cooperating, it's time to get to learnin'.

Any way to turn my GP mount into a go-to?

[DMala]

Unitron 152 night yesterday, .965" visual back. The evening started nicely with a cute pic with the moon in the background. But even before dark settled in, there was already a lot of dew covering everything. I marched on and started with familiar targets, to further become familiar with what the telescope can do. On Mars, a light blue filter did not do too much but with an orange filter I was able to see the polar cap way better than previous times. A sharp white spot at 1 o'clock, like a circle partially hiding behind the planet's horizon. In the hemisphere of the polar cap, dark areas with low contrast, but again better defined than I have seen before, could be noticed. The opposite hemisphere seemed more barren. 

 

The view of Saturn, that by the time I got to it was quite low, initially disappointed me. Drab colors instead of the usual vivid ones, with somewhat lower contrast. Then I realized that actually there was a lot of detail, with an especially pleasant coffee color of the outer ring, very well defined inner rings and some hint of planet banding. But almost looking like a nice sepia-tone photography. Can anyone guess why this time I got such different view? Just unusual seeing conditions or a different color rendition tone of the lenses, which I had not noticed before?

 

I then was planning to find some DSO, but I was called inside by family duties and once back it was too late and damp, so I gave up, a bit disappointed for not completing my observation plan, but satisfied for the two new views achieved.

 

I enjoyed the fact that with the long focal length of the telescope, I did not need to go beyond my very good Celestron 12mm OR at 125X.  I actually briefly used the Takahashi 4mm OR, but with no gain. I found the two metal rods for the Ascension control especially convenient to reach. I did not like the lack of tripod legs adjustable for height, which made polar alignment a PITA. 

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Edited by DMala, 16 September 2018 - 08:12 AM.

[steve t]

Shredder and Dmala,

Thanks for the great reports.

Steve T 

[Terra Nova]

Viewing was pretty good last night at ScopeOut in spite of being in an urban setting. Comparatively speaking anyway, as overall this summer has sucked weatherwise, both here and on Mars. I had the Televue Genesis SDF and was very pleased with how well it handled Mars, Jupiter, and the Moon. I just brought some simple eyepieces given that it was an outreach with lots of visitor-viewers. I had a 30mm Ultrascopic, Vixen LV 24mm-8mm Zoom, 19mm Edge On-Flat Field eyepiece, 26mm and 9.7mm Meade Super Plossls, and an 8mm Carton Plossl. I just wanted to stick with all 1.25” for the evening so there would be no re-balancing issues and they all worked quite well. The barlowed Carton Plossl produced some very nice views of Mars and Jupiter. Nice to see the dust storm settling down and some albed features visible along with the polar cap. The moon was very nice, with the unbarlowed Carton, nicely filling the field with a little room to spare. Jupiter showed multiple bands beyond the NEB and SEB. Later in the evening, it was fun to renew acquaintances with M31. My first view of it each Fall is always like meeting up with an old friend. It looked great with the 30mm and 19mm. These busy outreaches always remind me of trick-or-treats with the kids lined up to take a peek, and then saying thank you. I’m glad that I remembered to bring a box for them to stand on. I absolutely love this scope on the Gibralter mount. It handles so well! Al Nagler knew what he was doing when he put this package together. It’s a real keeper!

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Edited by terraclarke, 16 September 2018 - 11:12 AM.

[wfj]

Comparatively speaking anyway, as overall this summer has sucked weatherwise, both here and on Mars.

Too true. Out here it was one thing or another. In looking at Solis Lacus ("eye of Mars"), poor Mars seems to need something to "get the red (dust) out".

[Garyth64]

Last month I attended a public outreach put on by the Farmington Community Stargazers at Heritage Park.  There were only about 20 scopes set up, and we had some pretty good crowds.

I took my Sears 3" 6339a refractor:

 

 

(I see I've been having too much beer!)

 

People were getting in lines and it wasn't even dark yet!

 

Edited by Garyth64, 16 September 2018 - 06:23 PM.

[miketxcap]

First post / on mobile so please forgive my grammar/ formatting. 

 

Hello everyone. I recently acquired a used / non-working 10”, 18V LX200 Classic from Craigslist. After taking it apart today to clean some spiderwebs inside the OTA and clean & grease the gears, I decided to go outside and verify the collimation of the scope. It was still daylight, the moon was out (7:36 PM CDT) and to my surprise saw a bright star just below and to the right.  Thinking it was Jupiter I setup the scope and focused onto it, only it looked odd. It was large and perfectly circular. I thought I was out of focus so just as I started focusing I saw an orange spot just under the blob, with what looked like a line and a shimmering white dot at the end of it. Well after a few seconds it hit me, I was looking at a weather balloon. I decided to follow it for about five minutes, had the wife look at it and then “POP”. It was cool to see it burst and then seeing the hundreds of pieces seem to float down slowly. I lost the sonde after a few seconds so I did not follow it down, but was still in awe of witnessing the burst. Later we saw Venus, Jupiter it’s moons, Saturn and it’s moons, The Moon and Mars. This scope was for sure the best money I have spent. 

 

Mike

 

LX200 10” Classic

Celestron 1.25, 26mm eyepiece w/ 2X barlow

 

 

Edited by miketxcap, 16 September 2018 - 10:33 PM.

[miketxcap]

First post / on mobile so please forgive my grammar/ formatting. 

 

Hello everyone. I recently acquired a used / non-working 10”, 18V LX200 Classic from Craigslist. After taking it apart today to clean some spiderwebs inside the OTA and clean & grease the gears, I decided to go outside and verify the collimation of the scope. It was still daylight, the moon was out (7:36 PM CDT) and to my surprise saw a bright star just below and to the right.  Thinking it was Jupiter I setup the scope and focused onto it, only it looked odd. It was large and perfectly circular. I thought I was out of focus so just as I started focusing I saw an orange spot just under the blob, with what looked like a line and a shimmering white dot at the end of it. Well after a few seconds it hit me, I was looking at a weather balloon. I decided to follow it for about five minutes, had the wife look at it and then “POP”. It was cool to see it burst and then seeing the hundreds of pieces seem to float down slowly. I lost the sonde after a few seconds so I did not follow it down, but was still in awe of witnessing the burst. Later we saw Venus, Jupiter it’s moons, Saturn and it’s moons, The Moon and Mars. This scope was for sure the best money I have spent. 

 

Mike

 

LX200 10” Classic

Celestron 1.25, 26mm eyepiece w/ 2X barlow

Just an update on yesterdays post:

 

I contacted the local NWS and verified the sighting, and also was able to verify that the balloon burst we witnessed occurred at 30,599m or 100,390ft.

 

Also I have restored the LX200's functionality and have it fully working.

 

 

Mike

[memento]

In the last few weeks I did not get around to observe much. Lots of clouds and when it was (rarely) not overcast I just didn't have any opportunity.

 

Today I was at least able to do a short "first light" with my latest two acquisitions (30mm silver top Plössl and 7mm volcano top Ortho) on the Moon. Also took a pic of the Moon, nothing special. Conditions were not good, the Moon was very low and the sky a bit foggy in that direction. Scope was my "newest" Vixen SP-90M.

But no matter how short ... even those 15 minutes watching are already a really nice treatment for the soul! Thomas

 

[rolo]

Had a rough night tonight, got up around 4:00 am and decided to look for Comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner. First I tried hand holding a pair of 10x50's then 11x80's but no luck. Transperancy was as good as it gets so I set up the TV102, my observing chair and grabbed the 20mm & 11mm Naglers. Looked at M35 first and what lovely cluster, can never get tired of viewing this one! Did a slight south scan and there it was, 21P. Pretty small with a bright core and a short detectable tail extending upwards in the fov.

 

Spent about 30 min on Orion looking at M42 the Trapezium and afew doubles and multiple stars. One in particular Sigma Orionis which is one my favorites.

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Edited by rolo, 17 September 2018 - 05:47 PM.

[memento]

Lots of fantastic views tonight; but sadly, no Classics -- had a shoot-out between my APM 152 ED APO and my Vixen VMC200L Field Maksutov.

The VMC200L is almost a modern classic in my book. Came out around 2000? That's 18 years already ... how is the result of the shootout?

[Bomber Bob]

The APM 152 beat the VMC on all 3 planets - Jupiter, Saturn, & Mars -- but the VMC ripped open M13, and won on all the other DSOs, too.  Can't wait to have a shootout between them with M42 in the sights.

[Garyth64]

This past weekend was AATB.  We had a lot of people there over the two day event.

I saw Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Mars and the Moon.  Many DSOs were also shown by some of the big Dobs there.

I had two scopes set up.  My 5" Apogee on a CG5 mount, and a little homemade 60mm (with a Manon lens) on a Unitron mount, (with my homemade CD).

I made a solar filter for the 60mm but no sunspots were seen.  Later, I switched targets, to whatever people wanted to see. Saturn, Mars, or the moon.   I really wowed some people with that Manon lens, even some veteran astronomers.  ("That's a 60mm?")

The Apogee was performing great.  All the planets looked great even being low in the sky.

 

(you can see how tall the wooden tripods are)

 

(the 60mm set up for the sun)

[DMala]

(...)decided to look for Comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner. First I tried hand holding a pair of 10x50's then 11x80's but no luck. Transperancy was as good as it gets so I set up the TV102, my observing chair and grabbed the 20mm & 11mm Naglers. Looked(...)

Rolo, what document did you post? Your own notes or info from some book or program? Interesting. Thx

[Paul Sweeney]

Last night we had scattered clouds and haze, but when I saw Mars shining in a big hole, I grabbed (rather lugged) the Vixen 80L out for a look. The turbulence was sooo bad, that Mars actually looked like it was on fire. I could see a hint of white on the top, and some faint grayish markings, but nothing close to a goo view. The moon was nice, if bouncy, and I spent some time there. Then I went north to check out the sights near Vega. There, the air was pretty stable and I had some nice views of the double double, and one of Vega's companions. I also noticed that, although I get a diffraction ring, there is some light radiating away from the star. Not as a haze, but as spikes pointing away from the star, and these overpowered Vega's companion stars. Is this normal for a scope like this? I tried different EPs, and tried with and without my glasses, but it was always there.

[DMala]

No my 80-ish mm refractors do not produce spikes on stars (Swift 831, Meade 320 and Tasco 10 TE-5) . Could it be due to poor viewing conditions? 

[Terra Nova]

Last night we had scattered clouds and haze, but when I saw Mars shining in a big hole, I grabbed (rather lugged) the Vixen 80L out for a look. The turbulence was sooo bad, that Mars actually looked like it was on fire. I could see a hint of white on the top, and some faint grayish markings, but nothing close to a goo view. The moon was nice, if bouncy, and I spent some time there. Then I went north to check out the sights near Vega. There, the air was pretty stable and I had some nice views of the double double, and one of Vega's companions. I also noticed that, although I get a diffraction ring, there is some light radiating away from the star. Not as a haze, but as spikes pointing away from the star, and these overpowered Vega's companion stars. Is this normal for a scope like this? I tried different EPs, and tried with and without my glasses, but it was always there.

Were the rays radiating in one direction? If so, it’s astigmatism. If you move your head and the orientation of the rays move, the astigmatism is in your eye. If you ratate the eyepiece and the rays rotate, it’s in the eyepiece, the diagonal and objective will behave similarly, so you can track down where the astigmatism lies. If the rays are radial and in all directions and reddish in color it’s atmospheric dispersion, if they are twinkling it’s scintillation due to turbulence.

[Terra Nova]

Rolo, what document did you post? Your own notes or info from some book or program? Interesting. Thx

Another reason that I am finally leaning towards getting a smallish go-to mount.

[Paul Sweeney]

Thanks for the feedback, Terra. I would call it scintillation: rays in all directions, twinkling a bit, mostly blue and red, some white. Very fine, thin lines.

[Karl Fabian]

Took a look at Saturn about 9pm this evening with the B&L 4000.  Cassinis division easily resolved over a substantial portion of the ring at 133x so seeing was pretty decent for the 18 degree elevation . Figured this would be a good opportunity to try Mars so waited an hour for it to clear the blocking trees. Seeing was surprisingly good for the approximate 24 degree elevation. Used a Carton 8mm for 150x and a 7mm B&L ASP for 171x..  Syrtis Major was on the central meridian and Sabeaus Sinus and Mare Tyrrhenum on either side  creating a Y shaped albedo feature above the tiny SPC that appeared to have a thin collar around it.. Made a rough sketch at the scope and tidied it up a little once I was back indoors .The date on sketch should read 9-23 not 9-22 since it is UT.time 

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Edited by Karl Fabian, 23 September 2018 - 12:24 AM.

[Paul Sweeney]

Good sketch! I saw the "Y" the other night, too, but the seeing has been poor so it just blinked in occasionally. Never got a goov view this year!

[Karl Fabian]

Good sketch! I saw the "Y" the other night, too, but the seeing has been poor so it just blinked in occasionally. Never got a goov view this year!

Thanks Paul. Mars can be a tough target with this low elevation. I got lucky with some decent seeing for a change and Mars is still fairly large at 17" so doable with smaller apertures. Mars seeing conditions for Northern observers should improve as it climbs higher later in the apparition. But that will require larger apertures to take advantage of it due to the smaller disk.