Observing reports
Transit of Mercury - 11th November 2019 Stu
This event had been long anticipated, but the forecasts in the weeks running up to it were very poor, so none of us had high hopes of actually seeing anything but clouds. A number of us had the day off work especially, and much discussion was had about where to go to have the best chance of at least some clear sky. After much to-ing and fro-ing, we actually opted to stay in Esher and observe from the green. The cloud was very fast moving and there was a strong chance of driving for an hour only to be under cloud again.
So, with the Transit starting at 12.36pm, we started to assemble and setup from about 11.30am. Solar observing must be done with care and knowledge, and each of the scopes we used had special filtration in order to make them safe to observe with. We had a variety of kit from five of us as follows:
TS 72mm Refractor with a TS Herschel Wedge
Takahashi FC-100DC with Baader Coolwedge with Binoviewers
Takahashi FC-100DC with Baader Coolwedge
10" Home-build Dob with a sub-aperture front filter made from Baader AstroSolar film
These scopes gave views of the solar Photosphere in white light which at the moment are fairly plain.Some of the scopes used a green filter which brings out the surface detail better, but can be a little confusing to people if it is their first time viewing the sun!
Lunt LS60Ha 60mm Hydrogen Alpha scope
102mm Vixen F10 PST mod Hydrogen Alpha scope
These scopes show the much more dynamic Chromosphere in the Hydrogen Alpha wavelength of light which appears a deep red colour.
Despite the poor forecast, we actually had a decent clear spell at the start time of the transit. Gavin picked it up first in the Lunt 60mm, likely because it showed in the outer spicule line which extends further than the white light views. The rest of us picked it up very soon after in white light, and were able to watch it from first to second contact which is the point when the planet is fully on the solar disk. The image at the end of this report shows Mercury at around 12.39pm, soon after second contact.
Each of the scopes was giving different, but very nice views when the conditions allowed. Biggest surprise for me was the 10" dob. This home-built scope is excellent for traditional night time astronomy, but not necessarily one that you would think of as being suited to solar observing. However, using the solar film filter, the views even at high power were sharp, and very rewarding. My PST mod normally shows high power views in Ha using binoviewers, but the conditions just meant that it was soft and lacking contrast. Dropping back to a single eyepiece at lower power solved the problem, nice surface detail showed up, along with three very nice proms positioned around the edge of the disk. with careful positioning I was able to see the black dot of Mercury at the same time as one of the proms closest to it, a lovely view. Finally, despite the poor conditions, I was able to see granulation on the solar surface in white light during the early part of the transit, quite surprising given the conditions. Peter's TS 72mm is a lovely compact little scope, and was having its first run out with a new Herschel Wedge. Once we got the sun centred (not easy without a solar finder!) and focused we were able to switch to higher power and got a good sharp image showing. I think I missed out on viewing through Gavin's Lunt, and only had brief views through the other Tak, but all in all it was great to have a range of kit out and working well in challenging conditions.
We had a reasonable period of clear skies at the start of the transit, then over the next couple of hours the clouds started to dominate and we had ever decreasing gaps to observe through. Still, we were able to follow Mercury for a good while and had the satisfaction of witnessing this rare event as a group. The other great pleasure was being approached by a number of people out on the green to ask what we were looking at, and when the clouds allowed we were able to show most of them the views through the scopes which they all appreciated. Sharing the experience is a big part of what we get out of Astronomy so being able to show these views made the day all the more special.
Another successful WAG event :)
So, with the Transit starting at 12.36pm, we started to assemble and setup from about 11.30am. Solar observing must be done with care and knowledge, and each of the scopes we used had special filtration in order to make them safe to observe with. We had a variety of kit from five of us as follows:
TS 72mm Refractor with a TS Herschel Wedge
Takahashi FC-100DC with Baader Coolwedge with Binoviewers
Takahashi FC-100DC with Baader Coolwedge
10" Home-build Dob with a sub-aperture front filter made from Baader AstroSolar film
These scopes gave views of the solar Photosphere in white light which at the moment are fairly plain.Some of the scopes used a green filter which brings out the surface detail better, but can be a little confusing to people if it is their first time viewing the sun!
Lunt LS60Ha 60mm Hydrogen Alpha scope
102mm Vixen F10 PST mod Hydrogen Alpha scope
These scopes show the much more dynamic Chromosphere in the Hydrogen Alpha wavelength of light which appears a deep red colour.
Despite the poor forecast, we actually had a decent clear spell at the start time of the transit. Gavin picked it up first in the Lunt 60mm, likely because it showed in the outer spicule line which extends further than the white light views. The rest of us picked it up very soon after in white light, and were able to watch it from first to second contact which is the point when the planet is fully on the solar disk. The image at the end of this report shows Mercury at around 12.39pm, soon after second contact.
Each of the scopes was giving different, but very nice views when the conditions allowed. Biggest surprise for me was the 10" dob. This home-built scope is excellent for traditional night time astronomy, but not necessarily one that you would think of as being suited to solar observing. However, using the solar film filter, the views even at high power were sharp, and very rewarding. My PST mod normally shows high power views in Ha using binoviewers, but the conditions just meant that it was soft and lacking contrast. Dropping back to a single eyepiece at lower power solved the problem, nice surface detail showed up, along with three very nice proms positioned around the edge of the disk. with careful positioning I was able to see the black dot of Mercury at the same time as one of the proms closest to it, a lovely view. Finally, despite the poor conditions, I was able to see granulation on the solar surface in white light during the early part of the transit, quite surprising given the conditions. Peter's TS 72mm is a lovely compact little scope, and was having its first run out with a new Herschel Wedge. Once we got the sun centred (not easy without a solar finder!) and focused we were able to switch to higher power and got a good sharp image showing. I think I missed out on viewing through Gavin's Lunt, and only had brief views through the other Tak, but all in all it was great to have a range of kit out and working well in challenging conditions.
We had a reasonable period of clear skies at the start of the transit, then over the next couple of hours the clouds started to dominate and we had ever decreasing gaps to observe through. Still, we were able to follow Mercury for a good while and had the satisfaction of witnessing this rare event as a group. The other great pleasure was being approached by a number of people out on the green to ask what we were looking at, and when the clouds allowed we were able to show most of them the views through the scopes which they all appreciated. Sharing the experience is a big part of what we get out of Astronomy so being able to show these views made the day all the more special.
Another successful WAG event :)
A tale of Two veils in wales Stu
This is a (long!) report from a very good session I had whilst on holiday on the Pembroke coast in Wales recently.... make yourself comfortable.
The beauty of having a 14" Sumerian Alkaid is that it fits in the boot of the car, even with everything needed for a week away with the family, without any impact on being able to fit everything else in! I packed the 72mm TS and also the Heritage 130P too as it did not take up much room, but ended up only using the 14" and 72mm. I packed my Airport Accelerator case with a decent range of kit, the 72mm goes in there easily, but this is the full list.
- TS72mm
- Baader Zeiss Prism
- 30mm ES 82 degree
- 20mm APM 100 degree
- 24mm Panoptic
- 12.5mm Docter 84 degree
- 3 to 6mm Nag Zoom
- Various Baader Genuine Orthos to fill any gaps
- 6x30 finder
- Rigel Quickfinder
- SQM-L
- Lumicon UHC and OIII 2" filters
.......plus a few other bits and bobs. It was all I needed for either scope, I had an Ercole mount and tripod separately to take the refractor.
We were staying in Saundersfoot, so I did a quick web search and found a place within 20 mins, near Manorbier which looked very promising, better than mag 21 predicted and with a sea horizon. I negotiated a one night pass for the week with my dear lady, and despite the poor weather during the day, the satellite images and the Clear Outside App promised a very good clear spell from around 8 until 1 or 2am so I played my joker and plumped for Thursday (August 29th). I was hoping that the rain would have washed the skies clean and left good transparency.
I arrived at the site soon after 8pm, with the sun low in the West. I had a quick recce, and found a couple of likely places; the best one occupied by three ladies having a sunset picnic, so I pottered around until they left and then started to setup. I did not want too much kit out at once for safety reasons whilst alone, so opted for the 14" which went together relatively easily. Collimation was a bit of a challenge; the compact design requires the secondary to be removed every time but with my collimating eyepiece (which has concentric circles to make aligning the secondary easier) and a laser I soon got there. I refined it with a star test and whilst it was not perfect it was good enough for what I was after. I did find a problem in that at very low altitudes the mirror was flopping forward a little, giving very poor views obviously. I need to have a look at the clips which seem to be set much too far from the surface, but that is a job for home not at the edge of a cliff!
While I was collimating the scope, two local Special Constables arrived and came up for a chat. They had been debating what the scope was, with a lawnmower being one suggestion 🤣🤣. We had a chat about what I was going to look at and about the scope. They reassured me that it was a relatively safe place which put my mind at rest.
From messages I sent to Gavin and Peter during the evening, I can see that it was mag 20.5 at 9.45pm and then 21.16 by 10.15pm. That was as good as it got, but still close to the 21.5 prediction. I took a variety of readings and all were over mag 21 even down relatively low over the sea. The biggest negative of the night was the bank of low cloud on the horizon which didn't really shift, and obscured the best of the objects down in Sagitarius. Perhaps on this occasion another medium sized scope mounted on the Ercole would have been a better bet, but there were still plenty of higher targets to go after. Once fully dark, M31 was easily visible with the naked eye and looked large! The Double Cluster was also obvious, and I even got hints of M13, so these were decent skies.
Early on I picked up M57 and M27. The latter I'm always amazed by in the larger scope as it looks more like a large oval with the outer reaches easily visible.
I tried M13 at the same time and whilst good, I knew it would get better and indeed it did. Resolving right into the core once it was properly dark, with the Propeller showing clearly. M92 looked pretty good too, smaller obviously but with it's own merits. M15 and M22 were others viewed, although M22 was tricky due to the low altitude it is a lovely sight. The Double Cluster was pretty impressive, so many stars, although my preference is still a good refractor view. M11 was stunning, it's so much better at higher power under a dark sky, lovely Vs of stars with the mag 8.1 HD174512 shining brightly amongst all the rest.
I had been challenged by a friend to find the planetary nebula NGC40, so I spent a bit of time hunting that one down and eventually found it. Quite a tricky one, and small at 0.6 x 0.6 arc mins and mag 10.9. It seemed to have a brighter centre and dimmer halo around it but hard to pick up any detail.
M31 looked huge in the field of view of the 30mm ES, M32 was small fuzzy ball, and M110 an oval glow, clearly a galaxy. Both just about fitted into the field of view together.
This actually turned into a night of few objects but giving plenty of time to each of them. The two being my favourites the Veil and North America nebula. I'm not sure why, but somehow I find starhopping much relaxing with a refractor on an Alt Az mount than a dob, so I end up sticking to familiar territory. Anyhow, that was no hardship as these two targets were extremely rewarding.
I referred to a very good chart of the Veil which had been posted on the SGL forum (where a version of this report is also to be found). I did my best to keep my dark adaptation by closing my left eye when looking at my dimmed phone! It worked very well.
So, on the Veil I used the 30mm and 20mm eye pieces. The 30mm allowed me to view larger sections, easier to put in context and the 20mm gave that bit more detail. The Lumicon OIII was as good as ever, and it is not an exaggeration to say these were the best views I've ever had of these lovely objects. The combination of good transparency, dark skies and decent aperture is one I've not managed to get altogether before on the Veil.
I started, as usual at 52 Cygni with the Witch's Broom sweeping past it with its kink just before the star and found that the almost 3D tubular effect was beginning to be visible in the handle. Moving down to the brush end of the broomstick the split in the end was very evident, and also the fainter nebulosity to the East of this. Beyond the end of the broom, there was plenty going on in the region towards C and D on the chart below, it was a little tricky to identify discrete elements to it but lots of faint stuff there.
Moving to Pickering's Wisp, this was as clear as I've seen it, with good extension of the wider end of the triangle. The part marked E was clearly separated too. I then followed 'The Thin Thread' all the way across to where it effectively joined up with the areas C and D, something I've never done before. Moving past NGCs 6974 and 6979 and across to the brighter Eastern Veil, sweeping down this revealed some structure, and the very evident two hooks where the labels NGC6995 and IC1340 are on the diagram although I'm not sure they refer to these specifically. There was nebulosity beyond this, and the little knot marked H was visible too.
Overall I spent a couple of hours on the Veil, sweeping to and fro to pick up as much as I could, really rewarding stuff.
The NAN was, again, very obvious and well defined, particularly around the gulf region. The three roughly mag 10 stars marking the outer edge of what I suppose is Mexico are great to view, and overall this is the most interesting part I guess. The nebulosity extended up along way from this and I found it harder to keep track of the overall shape with the relatively narrow field of view.
Some cloud started coming in at this point, probably around 12.30am, so I decided to pack the dob away and head home. Once done however the skies were again lovely and clear, so I thought I would give the 72mm a chance, not expecting much because of the small aperture and the fact that I had let my dark adaptation go a bit whilst packing the dob away.
I was very pleasantly surprised I must say. With the 30mm giving over 5.5 degrees, the full Veil complex fitted in easily, with clear sky all around. East and Western Veil and Pickering's Wisp all visible. Far less detail visible obviously, for instance I could not detect the split in the broom, but seeing the whole object in context is a fabulous experience. I guess it was just the great skies, but I've not seen it this good before even in my previously owned Televue 76 or Tak 76.
The North America Nebula is another that benefits from the additional context, if anything more so than the Veil. Perhaps because it doesn't have as much going on internally, it is all about the overall shape. I didn't really focus on picking up the Pelican, so won't add this to the list, I think I got it but not sure.
During the evening a chap called Neil arrived in the same car park for a spot of widefield astrophotography. We had a couple of nice little chats, and he was kind enough to take an image of the MW with me silhouetted against the sky which he emailed me the day afterwards. Looks fabulous! Obviously the MW was not that bright but still the Cygnus rift was very marked visually and there was some structure particularly towards the south.
I got home at 2am, and it was very interesting to note that the Milky Way was still quite noticeable from near the town centre in Saundersfoot, and I measured the sky at 20.85. Pretty impressive!
I was introduced to the Veil by a fellow astronomer quite some years ago now, and have observed it once or twice a year from dark sites whenever I get the chance. It is my favourite object in the sky, and I don't suppose I will ever tire of it until the eyes give out finally!
Well done and thanks if you made it this far!! I couldn't seem to stop typing!
Images
1) Veil Nebula chart
2) Sumerian 14" Alkaid in the Mondeo boot
3) Above scope now hidden ;)
4) Thinktank Airport Accelerator packed with TS72mm and kit
5) Sea horizon looking south from near Shrinkle Haven beach
6) Sumerian setup
7) Observing location, Shrinkle Haven beach car park
8) Observing location, 20 mins or so from Saundersfoot where we are staying
9) Stu, Sumerian and the Milky Way. It doesn't get better than this :)
The beauty of having a 14" Sumerian Alkaid is that it fits in the boot of the car, even with everything needed for a week away with the family, without any impact on being able to fit everything else in! I packed the 72mm TS and also the Heritage 130P too as it did not take up much room, but ended up only using the 14" and 72mm. I packed my Airport Accelerator case with a decent range of kit, the 72mm goes in there easily, but this is the full list.
- TS72mm
- Baader Zeiss Prism
- 30mm ES 82 degree
- 20mm APM 100 degree
- 24mm Panoptic
- 12.5mm Docter 84 degree
- 3 to 6mm Nag Zoom
- Various Baader Genuine Orthos to fill any gaps
- 6x30 finder
- Rigel Quickfinder
- SQM-L
- Lumicon UHC and OIII 2" filters
.......plus a few other bits and bobs. It was all I needed for either scope, I had an Ercole mount and tripod separately to take the refractor.
We were staying in Saundersfoot, so I did a quick web search and found a place within 20 mins, near Manorbier which looked very promising, better than mag 21 predicted and with a sea horizon. I negotiated a one night pass for the week with my dear lady, and despite the poor weather during the day, the satellite images and the Clear Outside App promised a very good clear spell from around 8 until 1 or 2am so I played my joker and plumped for Thursday (August 29th). I was hoping that the rain would have washed the skies clean and left good transparency.
I arrived at the site soon after 8pm, with the sun low in the West. I had a quick recce, and found a couple of likely places; the best one occupied by three ladies having a sunset picnic, so I pottered around until they left and then started to setup. I did not want too much kit out at once for safety reasons whilst alone, so opted for the 14" which went together relatively easily. Collimation was a bit of a challenge; the compact design requires the secondary to be removed every time but with my collimating eyepiece (which has concentric circles to make aligning the secondary easier) and a laser I soon got there. I refined it with a star test and whilst it was not perfect it was good enough for what I was after. I did find a problem in that at very low altitudes the mirror was flopping forward a little, giving very poor views obviously. I need to have a look at the clips which seem to be set much too far from the surface, but that is a job for home not at the edge of a cliff!
While I was collimating the scope, two local Special Constables arrived and came up for a chat. They had been debating what the scope was, with a lawnmower being one suggestion 🤣🤣. We had a chat about what I was going to look at and about the scope. They reassured me that it was a relatively safe place which put my mind at rest.
From messages I sent to Gavin and Peter during the evening, I can see that it was mag 20.5 at 9.45pm and then 21.16 by 10.15pm. That was as good as it got, but still close to the 21.5 prediction. I took a variety of readings and all were over mag 21 even down relatively low over the sea. The biggest negative of the night was the bank of low cloud on the horizon which didn't really shift, and obscured the best of the objects down in Sagitarius. Perhaps on this occasion another medium sized scope mounted on the Ercole would have been a better bet, but there were still plenty of higher targets to go after. Once fully dark, M31 was easily visible with the naked eye and looked large! The Double Cluster was also obvious, and I even got hints of M13, so these were decent skies.
Early on I picked up M57 and M27. The latter I'm always amazed by in the larger scope as it looks more like a large oval with the outer reaches easily visible.
I tried M13 at the same time and whilst good, I knew it would get better and indeed it did. Resolving right into the core once it was properly dark, with the Propeller showing clearly. M92 looked pretty good too, smaller obviously but with it's own merits. M15 and M22 were others viewed, although M22 was tricky due to the low altitude it is a lovely sight. The Double Cluster was pretty impressive, so many stars, although my preference is still a good refractor view. M11 was stunning, it's so much better at higher power under a dark sky, lovely Vs of stars with the mag 8.1 HD174512 shining brightly amongst all the rest.
I had been challenged by a friend to find the planetary nebula NGC40, so I spent a bit of time hunting that one down and eventually found it. Quite a tricky one, and small at 0.6 x 0.6 arc mins and mag 10.9. It seemed to have a brighter centre and dimmer halo around it but hard to pick up any detail.
M31 looked huge in the field of view of the 30mm ES, M32 was small fuzzy ball, and M110 an oval glow, clearly a galaxy. Both just about fitted into the field of view together.
This actually turned into a night of few objects but giving plenty of time to each of them. The two being my favourites the Veil and North America nebula. I'm not sure why, but somehow I find starhopping much relaxing with a refractor on an Alt Az mount than a dob, so I end up sticking to familiar territory. Anyhow, that was no hardship as these two targets were extremely rewarding.
I referred to a very good chart of the Veil which had been posted on the SGL forum (where a version of this report is also to be found). I did my best to keep my dark adaptation by closing my left eye when looking at my dimmed phone! It worked very well.
So, on the Veil I used the 30mm and 20mm eye pieces. The 30mm allowed me to view larger sections, easier to put in context and the 20mm gave that bit more detail. The Lumicon OIII was as good as ever, and it is not an exaggeration to say these were the best views I've ever had of these lovely objects. The combination of good transparency, dark skies and decent aperture is one I've not managed to get altogether before on the Veil.
I started, as usual at 52 Cygni with the Witch's Broom sweeping past it with its kink just before the star and found that the almost 3D tubular effect was beginning to be visible in the handle. Moving down to the brush end of the broomstick the split in the end was very evident, and also the fainter nebulosity to the East of this. Beyond the end of the broom, there was plenty going on in the region towards C and D on the chart below, it was a little tricky to identify discrete elements to it but lots of faint stuff there.
Moving to Pickering's Wisp, this was as clear as I've seen it, with good extension of the wider end of the triangle. The part marked E was clearly separated too. I then followed 'The Thin Thread' all the way across to where it effectively joined up with the areas C and D, something I've never done before. Moving past NGCs 6974 and 6979 and across to the brighter Eastern Veil, sweeping down this revealed some structure, and the very evident two hooks where the labels NGC6995 and IC1340 are on the diagram although I'm not sure they refer to these specifically. There was nebulosity beyond this, and the little knot marked H was visible too.
Overall I spent a couple of hours on the Veil, sweeping to and fro to pick up as much as I could, really rewarding stuff.
The NAN was, again, very obvious and well defined, particularly around the gulf region. The three roughly mag 10 stars marking the outer edge of what I suppose is Mexico are great to view, and overall this is the most interesting part I guess. The nebulosity extended up along way from this and I found it harder to keep track of the overall shape with the relatively narrow field of view.
Some cloud started coming in at this point, probably around 12.30am, so I decided to pack the dob away and head home. Once done however the skies were again lovely and clear, so I thought I would give the 72mm a chance, not expecting much because of the small aperture and the fact that I had let my dark adaptation go a bit whilst packing the dob away.
I was very pleasantly surprised I must say. With the 30mm giving over 5.5 degrees, the full Veil complex fitted in easily, with clear sky all around. East and Western Veil and Pickering's Wisp all visible. Far less detail visible obviously, for instance I could not detect the split in the broom, but seeing the whole object in context is a fabulous experience. I guess it was just the great skies, but I've not seen it this good before even in my previously owned Televue 76 or Tak 76.
The North America Nebula is another that benefits from the additional context, if anything more so than the Veil. Perhaps because it doesn't have as much going on internally, it is all about the overall shape. I didn't really focus on picking up the Pelican, so won't add this to the list, I think I got it but not sure.
During the evening a chap called Neil arrived in the same car park for a spot of widefield astrophotography. We had a couple of nice little chats, and he was kind enough to take an image of the MW with me silhouetted against the sky which he emailed me the day afterwards. Looks fabulous! Obviously the MW was not that bright but still the Cygnus rift was very marked visually and there was some structure particularly towards the south.
I got home at 2am, and it was very interesting to note that the Milky Way was still quite noticeable from near the town centre in Saundersfoot, and I measured the sky at 20.85. Pretty impressive!
I was introduced to the Veil by a fellow astronomer quite some years ago now, and have observed it once or twice a year from dark sites whenever I get the chance. It is my favourite object in the sky, and I don't suppose I will ever tire of it until the eyes give out finally!
Well done and thanks if you made it this far!! I couldn't seem to stop typing!
Images
1) Veil Nebula chart
2) Sumerian 14" Alkaid in the Mondeo boot
3) Above scope now hidden ;)
4) Thinktank Airport Accelerator packed with TS72mm and kit
5) Sea horizon looking south from near Shrinkle Haven beach
6) Sumerian setup
7) Observing location, Shrinkle Haven beach car park
8) Observing location, 20 mins or so from Saundersfoot where we are staying
9) Stu, Sumerian and the Milky Way. It doesn't get better than this :)
Partial Lunar eclipse meeting - 16th july 2019 Stu
Well, we had an excellent evening on 16th July, starting at around 9pm and finishing well after midnight. The weather gods were kind, and a beautiful and very orange Moon rose above the trees at around 10pm, giving us lovely views right through the fullest extent of the eclipse and up until the finish of the umbral phase.
Jupiter and Saturn were also well positioned, and looked good once they had risen high enough for the seeing to stabilise as much as can be expected at their current low altitudes.
Seven of us made it there, with six scopes if my memory serves me right, all giving great views, but I think I enjoyed Jupiter through John's custom made 10" f6.4 dob and the Moon through Ian's lovely 4" Lyra Optics f11 the best. The Moon also looked fabulous through 8 x 42 binos. The high power views through my Mewlon were good, but the eclipse is much better when viewed in a wider context at lower power.
During the evening, we also had several passers by from the Village show an interest in what we were doing. All seemed to appreciate the views through the scopes, and to be interested in the detail of what they were viewing.
Scopes used were:
Custom build 10" f6.4 Dobsonian
Tak Mewlon 210
Celestron Astromaster 130EQ
Lyra Optics 102mm f11
William Optic GT71
William Optics 66mm Petzval
Some shots of the evening and of the Moon can be found here.
Jupiter and Saturn were also well positioned, and looked good once they had risen high enough for the seeing to stabilise as much as can be expected at their current low altitudes.
Seven of us made it there, with six scopes if my memory serves me right, all giving great views, but I think I enjoyed Jupiter through John's custom made 10" f6.4 dob and the Moon through Ian's lovely 4" Lyra Optics f11 the best. The Moon also looked fabulous through 8 x 42 binos. The high power views through my Mewlon were good, but the eclipse is much better when viewed in a wider context at lower power.
During the evening, we also had several passers by from the Village show an interest in what we were doing. All seemed to appreciate the views through the scopes, and to be interested in the detail of what they were viewing.
Scopes used were:
Custom build 10" f6.4 Dobsonian
Tak Mewlon 210
Celestron Astromaster 130EQ
Lyra Optics 102mm f11
William Optic GT71
William Optics 66mm Petzval
Some shots of the evening and of the Moon can be found here.
Club Dark Sky Meeting Report Gavin
At last complete clear skies for our dark sky trip to the South Downs. A good turn out of 6 people and 4 scopes including two big dobsonians (Stu's 14 inch and my 16 inch).
It was only my third session with the 16 inch dob so it took me a while to get the set up completed (including goto aligned) but once done, it was lovely to zip around looking at the dark skies with the dob and night vision combo (a First for me! 👍). Unfortunately transparency was quite poor with some murkiness in the sky but it did get nice and dark (sqm 21.2).
First up was Orion and the mighty M42. I did a comparison between normal glass (ethos 21mm) and night vision (with panoptic 41mm). Great extended views with the ethos but WOW with the night vision it looked amazing - very much like a mono long exposure image. The nebulosity was extremely detailed, an imposing fish mouth, and then amazing extension of the nebula behind, most I’ve ever seen with pretty strands of delicate nebulosity. M43 was a bright comma!
Then onto the Flame and Horsehead. The notch of the Horsehead was clear and steady but with maybe less detail than I have seen it due to the poor transparency. The Flame showed the clear black middle lane but not too much other detail. Great image scale though and definitely benefited from examination.
Out when the nebula filter and in went the stars and galaxy filter. Some really good results here. M13 was the best globular cluster that I have seen - the Propellor very clear (once Stu had told me to look for it 😀). I did a comparison with normal glass (ethos) and m13 was clearly better resolved and in your face with NV the propeller standing out much more obviously. The normal glass views were more of a bright smudge with my eyes needing to adjust to bring out the resolving stars.
Went for a few other globs including m92 - all very nice.
Due to the poor transparency galaxies did not come out that well. But I got great structure in M82. Also M51 (Whirlpool) did show its north spiral quite clearly but the bridge to its companion galaxy was not visible. The Needle galaxy was great, lots of extension which filled the fov and the nice dark lane. Sombrero galaxy also good. Leo triplet was there but the third galaxy was disappointing - I saw it much better a few weeks ago on the Isle of Wight with my c11 - shows how important transparency is. Whale galaxy nice and lumpy.
Open clusters were lovely particularly the Auriga m36,37 and 38. The NV showed great tight stars and brought out the fainter ones really well.
It was great to share the views with Dean and Sascha.
So all in a great club visit and nice to stretch the legs of the 16" dob! 👍😀👍
It was only my third session with the 16 inch dob so it took me a while to get the set up completed (including goto aligned) but once done, it was lovely to zip around looking at the dark skies with the dob and night vision combo (a First for me! 👍). Unfortunately transparency was quite poor with some murkiness in the sky but it did get nice and dark (sqm 21.2).
First up was Orion and the mighty M42. I did a comparison between normal glass (ethos 21mm) and night vision (with panoptic 41mm). Great extended views with the ethos but WOW with the night vision it looked amazing - very much like a mono long exposure image. The nebulosity was extremely detailed, an imposing fish mouth, and then amazing extension of the nebula behind, most I’ve ever seen with pretty strands of delicate nebulosity. M43 was a bright comma!
Then onto the Flame and Horsehead. The notch of the Horsehead was clear and steady but with maybe less detail than I have seen it due to the poor transparency. The Flame showed the clear black middle lane but not too much other detail. Great image scale though and definitely benefited from examination.
Out when the nebula filter and in went the stars and galaxy filter. Some really good results here. M13 was the best globular cluster that I have seen - the Propellor very clear (once Stu had told me to look for it 😀). I did a comparison with normal glass (ethos) and m13 was clearly better resolved and in your face with NV the propeller standing out much more obviously. The normal glass views were more of a bright smudge with my eyes needing to adjust to bring out the resolving stars.
Went for a few other globs including m92 - all very nice.
Due to the poor transparency galaxies did not come out that well. But I got great structure in M82. Also M51 (Whirlpool) did show its north spiral quite clearly but the bridge to its companion galaxy was not visible. The Needle galaxy was great, lots of extension which filled the fov and the nice dark lane. Sombrero galaxy also good. Leo triplet was there but the third galaxy was disappointing - I saw it much better a few weeks ago on the Isle of Wight with my c11 - shows how important transparency is. Whale galaxy nice and lumpy.
Open clusters were lovely particularly the Auriga m36,37 and 38. The NV showed great tight stars and brought out the fainter ones really well.
It was great to share the views with Dean and Sascha.
So all in a great club visit and nice to stretch the legs of the 16" dob! 👍😀👍
March 29th on the South Downs - a mixed night under the stars Stu
In many ways I should be, and am, grateful that the skies cleared all night for my club's dark sky trip this month to the South Downs. At best we saw mag 21.2 skies which is pretty impressive, but the transparency was poor and it stopped the galaxies from giving their best, and us from going as deep was we would have hoped. There was quite a glow from Bognor Regis to the South, worse than I had seen previously, presumably because of muck or moisture in the atmosphere. The faintest galaxy I reached was mag 12.5 I think and brighter ones lacked the contrast I would expect from these skies.
I work just outside Dartford and it takes 1.5 hours to get to the site from there. An extended (but good!) meeting with my boss made me about 35 mins later than expected and I ended up setting up in the dark rather than the leisurely daytime process I was hoping for. A bit of phaffing around with the laser and the 14" Sumerian was collimated. The various adjustments I've made to it recently have made life easier. The primary collimation had got very stiff, a simple tweak of a few nuts sorted that after contacting Sumerian for advice. I also rounded the secondary collimation bolts to stop it twisting the secondary when adjusting. Lastly, whilst still tight, attaching the alt bearings is now loosening up a bit.
We had a good turn out, 6 members and 4 scopes including Gavin's Skyvision 16" Goto dob, my 14" Sumerian Alkaid and John's 72mm TS on an AZGTi.
M42 was the obvious first target. Magnificent as usual, it had a clear green tint to it even when viewed unfiltered. Adding a UHC boosted the contrast nicely, really lovely structure visible with the arcing Bat wings. Whilst in the area I had a look to see if I could detect the Flame nebula but despite being well dark adapted there was nothing there.
I had a trawl around the normal brighter targets to see how they looked in the 14" ie DC, M36, 37, 38, 67, all looking good, but galaxies were looking fairly washed out due to the poor transparency. In fact, what I had intended to be as a purely visual outing turned into a visual followed by NV in order to see what it added and to allow us to see some of the fainter targets.
Visually M51 actually showed quite nicely, two bright cores, one with a much larger halo around it and showing a darker zone within it representing the gap between spiral arms I assume. The bridge between the two galaxies was not visible.
M101 was a large, ghostly oval, brightening towards the centre but with no detail visible. A shadow of the galaxy I observed in my 16" at Lucksall some years ago.
M81 and 82, nice as ever. M82 showing a faint bit of structure to it in the central portion. The Leo triplet likewise were visible but not amazing, NGC3628 was very faint. Given that I can't see these chaps from home though, they were still great to get.
Moving on, I had really wanted to have a good look at Markarian's Chain, and having found M49 I began a fun galaxy hop via NGCs 4469, 4442, 4429, 4371 until I reached the triangle of galaxies including M84 and M86. I was able to follow the chain down to NGC4477 although I could not see 4458. Whilst in the area I caught M87, 88, 89 and 90.
Moving over to Coma Berenices, M53 was easily found, but try as I might, NGC5053 was nowhere to be seen. Must be a tough one, will try again on a better night. The Needle Galaxy showed some extention into the edge on spiral arms, although nothing like the intensity I've seen it before, whilst the whale was quite distinct, although not particularly whale-like - someone had a good imagination for that I think!
M1 looked surprisingly large, although featureless. I've not seen it that often and this was probably the best yet.
So, after about as much as I was going to get visually, what difference did adding the Photonis NV make?
Well, the answer varied alot depending upon the object type. Galaxies showed the smallest improvement, probably unsurprisingly, whilst globular and open clusters were significantly improved. Emission nebulae showed the most dramatic improvement, as expected, due to the heavy filtration used to observe them.
All comments from here on refer to observations made with the Photonis NV monocular fitted to the 14" Sumerian via 55mm Plossl and 6nm nebula filter or 642nm Galaxy filter.
Having tried and failed on the Flame earlier, it was now immediately obvious. The central lane plus other detail was there to be observed. Moving to IC434, this appeared as a relatively bright line with the Horsehead Nebula clearly visible, showing the difference the additional aperture and dark skies make vs the view in my Genesis from home the other night. The snout of the horse was not quite separated from the rest of IC434, but very nearly. A very nice view of an object otherwise impossible to view on the night.
M42 was dramatically enhanced, way more structure visible within the nebula and it was more extensive. M43 showed very distinctly, I often struggle to get a decent view of this one but it appeared like a comma, or even a circle with one quarter missing.
The Rosette was a little to large to fit comfortably in the field of view, so the overall was a little hard to observe, but there was some good petal-like structure visible. California was similar in that it would not fit in the fov, but at least was now visible and again, structure was visible in terms of the brighter outer edges.
The Globs viewed were all enhanced significantly as mentioned, much better resolution of stars, even if the stars themselves were not quite as nice to view. M13 was quite muted under these conditions without NV, but pop the magic device in and there was the Propeller, plain as day. Similarly M92, M3 and M5 all looked much better.
Finally galaxies. The structure in M82 was significantly improved, much better contrast in the central areas. M81 was brighter and larger but did not show any further detail.
M51 was a good one, enhanced halo and more defined structure within the halo. Similar type detail to the visual view, just brighter and better contrast.
Makarian's Chain was again just brighter and with more contrast between the background and galaxy, presumably from the filtering. I was able to spot a number of fainter galaxies which were not there without the NV such as NGCs 4402 and 4425. I think, if I recall correctly, that NGC 4461 also split from 4458.
I hope this has been a useful indication of the differences in what could be observed visually vs NV under the same conditions. The benefit ranges from a small increment in detail visible and being able to spot slightly fainter galaxies, through much improved resolution of globular to showing you the virtually invisible with the likes of the Horsehead. There will have been some impact on my night vision from using the monocular, though I tried to make sure I looked at everything just through the eyepiece first to avoid that as much as possible.
A fun night out, great to get some clear skies for once and good confirmation that mag 21 plus skies are available within 1.5 hours of London. Shame about the transparency but still, some lovely targets seen.
I work just outside Dartford and it takes 1.5 hours to get to the site from there. An extended (but good!) meeting with my boss made me about 35 mins later than expected and I ended up setting up in the dark rather than the leisurely daytime process I was hoping for. A bit of phaffing around with the laser and the 14" Sumerian was collimated. The various adjustments I've made to it recently have made life easier. The primary collimation had got very stiff, a simple tweak of a few nuts sorted that after contacting Sumerian for advice. I also rounded the secondary collimation bolts to stop it twisting the secondary when adjusting. Lastly, whilst still tight, attaching the alt bearings is now loosening up a bit.
We had a good turn out, 6 members and 4 scopes including Gavin's Skyvision 16" Goto dob, my 14" Sumerian Alkaid and John's 72mm TS on an AZGTi.
M42 was the obvious first target. Magnificent as usual, it had a clear green tint to it even when viewed unfiltered. Adding a UHC boosted the contrast nicely, really lovely structure visible with the arcing Bat wings. Whilst in the area I had a look to see if I could detect the Flame nebula but despite being well dark adapted there was nothing there.
I had a trawl around the normal brighter targets to see how they looked in the 14" ie DC, M36, 37, 38, 67, all looking good, but galaxies were looking fairly washed out due to the poor transparency. In fact, what I had intended to be as a purely visual outing turned into a visual followed by NV in order to see what it added and to allow us to see some of the fainter targets.
Visually M51 actually showed quite nicely, two bright cores, one with a much larger halo around it and showing a darker zone within it representing the gap between spiral arms I assume. The bridge between the two galaxies was not visible.
M101 was a large, ghostly oval, brightening towards the centre but with no detail visible. A shadow of the galaxy I observed in my 16" at Lucksall some years ago.
M81 and 82, nice as ever. M82 showing a faint bit of structure to it in the central portion. The Leo triplet likewise were visible but not amazing, NGC3628 was very faint. Given that I can't see these chaps from home though, they were still great to get.
Moving on, I had really wanted to have a good look at Markarian's Chain, and having found M49 I began a fun galaxy hop via NGCs 4469, 4442, 4429, 4371 until I reached the triangle of galaxies including M84 and M86. I was able to follow the chain down to NGC4477 although I could not see 4458. Whilst in the area I caught M87, 88, 89 and 90.
Moving over to Coma Berenices, M53 was easily found, but try as I might, NGC5053 was nowhere to be seen. Must be a tough one, will try again on a better night. The Needle Galaxy showed some extention into the edge on spiral arms, although nothing like the intensity I've seen it before, whilst the whale was quite distinct, although not particularly whale-like - someone had a good imagination for that I think!
M1 looked surprisingly large, although featureless. I've not seen it that often and this was probably the best yet.
So, after about as much as I was going to get visually, what difference did adding the Photonis NV make?
Well, the answer varied alot depending upon the object type. Galaxies showed the smallest improvement, probably unsurprisingly, whilst globular and open clusters were significantly improved. Emission nebulae showed the most dramatic improvement, as expected, due to the heavy filtration used to observe them.
All comments from here on refer to observations made with the Photonis NV monocular fitted to the 14" Sumerian via 55mm Plossl and 6nm nebula filter or 642nm Galaxy filter.
Having tried and failed on the Flame earlier, it was now immediately obvious. The central lane plus other detail was there to be observed. Moving to IC434, this appeared as a relatively bright line with the Horsehead Nebula clearly visible, showing the difference the additional aperture and dark skies make vs the view in my Genesis from home the other night. The snout of the horse was not quite separated from the rest of IC434, but very nearly. A very nice view of an object otherwise impossible to view on the night.
M42 was dramatically enhanced, way more structure visible within the nebula and it was more extensive. M43 showed very distinctly, I often struggle to get a decent view of this one but it appeared like a comma, or even a circle with one quarter missing.
The Rosette was a little to large to fit comfortably in the field of view, so the overall was a little hard to observe, but there was some good petal-like structure visible. California was similar in that it would not fit in the fov, but at least was now visible and again, structure was visible in terms of the brighter outer edges.
The Globs viewed were all enhanced significantly as mentioned, much better resolution of stars, even if the stars themselves were not quite as nice to view. M13 was quite muted under these conditions without NV, but pop the magic device in and there was the Propeller, plain as day. Similarly M92, M3 and M5 all looked much better.
Finally galaxies. The structure in M82 was significantly improved, much better contrast in the central areas. M81 was brighter and larger but did not show any further detail.
M51 was a good one, enhanced halo and more defined structure within the halo. Similar type detail to the visual view, just brighter and better contrast.
Makarian's Chain was again just brighter and with more contrast between the background and galaxy, presumably from the filtering. I was able to spot a number of fainter galaxies which were not there without the NV such as NGCs 4402 and 4425. I think, if I recall correctly, that NGC 4461 also split from 4458.
I hope this has been a useful indication of the differences in what could be observed visually vs NV under the same conditions. The benefit ranges from a small increment in detail visible and being able to spot slightly fainter galaxies, through much improved resolution of globular to showing you the virtually invisible with the likes of the Horsehead. There will have been some impact on my night vision from using the monocular, though I tried to make sure I looked at everything just through the eyepiece first to avoid that as much as possible.
A fun night out, great to get some clear skies for once and good confirmation that mag 21 plus skies are available within 1.5 hours of London. Shame about the transparency but still, some lovely targets seen.
Night Vision Observing report, with a learner nv driver in charge Stu
Gavin has very kindly leant me his Photonis NV monocular to try for a little while. Fortunately I have had a couple of clear nights this week and the opportunity to give it a spin, so, here is my report on what happened and my thoughts so far.
The Kit I have borrowed consists of the Photonis NV monocular, a 55mm Plossl, a 32mm Plossl, an adaptor to connect the monocular to the eyepieces and one to connect 2” filters to the monocular for x1 viewing. Finally, there are two Astronomik filters, an Ha 6nm for viewing nebulae and a 642nm ProPlanet for viewing galaxies.
The main intention was to try this with my Televue Genesis which is a 100mm, f5 scope with a flat field of view. In theory, very good for NV as it is fast. I also wanted to try x1 observing just handheld for scanning the skies, and also then considered using the Takahashi Mewlon 210 for galaxies and clusters. This is a 210mm f11.5 Dall-Kirkham scope with high quality optics. Over the last two nights I’ve achieved all three of these objectives, so here goes.
On Sunday 24th March, I used the NV handheld at x1 with the 6nm filter in place. Orion was pretty low by this time, but I saw M42 albeit not very impressively. Moving on, the Rosette was clear, bright and quite large. From there I moved along the bottom of Gemini, and found a small bright patch of nebulosity which turned out to be the Monkeyhead nebula, I had never really known where it was before, and certainly hadn’t seen it visually. Scanning through Auriga, I noticed a patch of nebulosity with some form of structure to it. Again, I didn’t know at the time but it was the Flaming Star Nebula, another than I had not seen before. Next up, the California Nebula. This one was bright with an obvious elongated shape, one of the better targets. Finally, the Heart and Soul nebulae. This is in a bad area of sky for me at the moment but still I managed to detect both of these nebulae. So, overall a good start. Targets that I just never see from home, or even have never seen before became quite obvious.
Monday night, 25th, I negotiated a couple of hours observing between 8 and 10pm with my better half because we both had early starts in the morning. I got the GP-DX up and running with Skysafari early on with the Mewlon on top, but must have messed up the alignment because the Gotos were way off. M42 looked ok, but the scope was still showing quite a bad tube currents, so I decided to switch to the Genesis and get going with the main event; nebulae hunting. I had to quickly change the dovetail on the Genesis because it would not fit on the new, longer ADM dual saddle I fitted recently. Once fixed, a fresh alignment sorted the gotos and for the rest of the night they were very accurate, although it needed a quick re-align after I switched to the Mewlon.
The skies were clear, but the transparency was only average I would say. I was too occupied with working out what I was doing with this unfamiliar kit to take an SQL measure or even assess the NELM, but normally my skies are mag 19.1 at best, around mag 5 NELM. I suspect it was a little less than that last night. The Genesis was theoretically giving around 4.4 degrees field of view, but in reality it felt like 4 degrees max, possibly a little less.
My first target was the Rosette, and I will confess to being a little disappointed with the view. It was more like a poorly defined oval with a central hole than anything defined. In hindsight I think this was down to sky brightness – it was still not Astronomical twilight when I started observing, and also dark adaptation. This is a controversial point which I will address with my thoughts at the end of this post. Later on I returned to the Rosette and it was much better, even though it was lower in the sky. Clear structure to it and much better definition.
I moved on to the California Nebula, NGC 1499. This was better immediately; the long axis very nearly filled the field of view, and I could see both the overall shape, plus the brighter edges and slightly darker inner regions. I viewed this one several times over the course of 2 hours, and it generally got better each time, more definition and detail visible.
The Flaming Star nebula was a disappointment. Very poorly defined, although I did also identify IC417 nearby which stood out quite clearly. The Monkeyhead was a good one, the shape was clearly identifiable, and I got hints of the internal structure which made the ‘monkey’ association clearer. Onto the Heart & Soul nebula next. The Soul, I found quite soulless… 😉 Not much definition, just a sort of squared off long oval shape, if that makes sense. The Heart on the other hand was much more interesting. I could follow the loop of nebulosity dropping down from beside the embedded star cluster, and also hints of the ‘arm’ stretching out. Bearing in mind these two were in my worst direction, towards London and Heathrow I was surprised to see anything. Lastly with the Genesis, I went for the Pacman Nebula which I enjoyed. Clear shape, with the Pacman mouth plain to see.
Actually, lastly was incorrect, I noticed just before I took the Genesis off the mount that Orion had cleared the annoying (but very nice) tree which blocks the view of Orion at a certain time and was still visible above the neighbour’s house. Not expecting anything, I tapped IC434 on Skysafari and sent the scope off to find it, which it did, bang on. The Flame Nebula, NGC 2024 was immediately obvious, with the central lane well defined. There wasn’t much more detail to be seen to be honest, but it was reasonably bright, particularly given the transparency and altitude. IC434 was visible more faintly, and initially I didn’t think I was going to be able to see my prize! However, with some averted vision, and flicking my eye from the target away, I was able to see the notch in the nebula that was the HorseHead Nebula. It wasn’t obvious, or always there, but reference to Skysafari showed that the object I was detecting was in exactly the right place, so I will put that down as a win! The Horsey from a suburban sky with a 20 year old 4” scope and a bit (lot) of help from technology, not too bad!
I’m hoping to get a chance under better conditions, as I think the nebulae will show better with improved transparency. It will be interesting to put the Genesis side by side with Gavin’s Baader 95mm to see which gives best results. I’m hoping the veteran Genesis will at least give a good account of itself next to the young pup Baader.
Time to switch to the Mewlon for some Galaxies and clusters. The Goto drifted a little after the switch, but I aligned on nearby bright stars with Skysafari to get it back on track.
The Leo Triplet didn’t quite fit in the field of view which I would estimate at around 0.7 degrees. I guess I would say this was a good view, but not overwhelming. M65 and M66 were there, had shape and showed in their correct orientation. NGC 3628 was visible, although much fainter. I’ve seen far better views in a large dob under dark skies, but this was a 4” scope under poor skies, so I can’t really complain! These targets are all but invisible in this sized scope from here normally.
The Whirlpool Galaxy showed as two bright cores, little or no halo detected. I did a whirl (😉) around a few more galaxies; M95 & M96, M83 and M106. All were clearly visible as galaxies but with little to see other than their basic shape. More rewarding was Bode’s and the Cigar Galaxy. Bode’s showed as a bright core and the faint oval shape of the spiral arms (no spirals visible though obviously). The Cigar Galaxy was great, lovely elongated shape, and dark mottled structure in the centre. A really nice view and probably the best galaxy of the night. Finally on the Galaxies I went for the Needle. This showed clearly as the core, with its fine needle-like arms extending from it. They showed better with averted vision, growing in length each time I moved my eye away.
Last stop were the clusters which turned out to be great targets for this combination of Scope and NV. The Double Cluster was fabulous. Lacking the fine pin point starts that you get visually normally, but made up for with the sheer number and brightness. I couldn’t quite fit both in comfortably at once, but taking each on its own was more than enough. M44 was too big for this combo really, but M67 was ideal, resolving clearly in a fine, small cluster. Lovely one.
M36, M7 & M38 all benefited from the NV, showing far more stars and with more definition than visually. Each has its own character, very different and they show the variety that you can get with what are apparently similar sized cluster.
And finally, as Mr McDonald used to say…. M3. A great way to finish. Bright and resolved to the core, it would have benefited from some addition mag but I could not face changing eyepieces at that point so that is one for another night. It seems that globs respond well to NV too, so definitely worth trying for more of these.
I wish I had had the time to move on to the Virgo cluster of galaxies, and hope to be able to do that at some point before this lovely kit has to go back home!
So, my thoughts?
I very much enjoyed using the NV gear in both scopes. Very different setups giving good results on different targets. Fast scope for the faint nebulae, and larger aperture for the galaxies and clusters. Despite being electronic in nature, using NV feels very natural and does not necessarily serve objects up to you on a plate. You still have to put some effort in to get the best out of the kit.
Two questions….
Do you need to be dark adapted to get the best out of NV?
In my short experience yes, some level of dark adaptation is required because looking at my phone on even on half brightness still significantly reduced the amount of detail I could see afterwards. Setting my phone to low brightness and red really helped. The NV display is not that bright, so I think you have to adapt enough to maximise what you can see. The precise biological mechanism in this instance I have no idea about! In my view using NV does affect your night vision for really faint objects so I would tend to stay clear of mixing NV and traditional visual astronomy in the same session if you want to see the most visually.
Is AV useful for NV viewing?
Again, I would say yes to this. Specifically for the Horsehead and the Needle Galaxy, AV was a clear benefit to detecting the Horsey and seeing the further extension of the galaxies arms. Like dark adaptation, I am unclear of the mechanism at work, but it does seem to be a factor.
I hope that has been useful. This kit is very expensive, and without selling much of my kit, and quite possibly a kidney I won’t be in a position to own an NV monocular myself. I believe I will always be a committed, traditional visual astronomer, I have a large element of masochism in me which leads me to take the harder route to achieving my observing goals, so I will always enjoy being under a dark sky and observing with just optical aids. That said, I am in the very fortunate position of being in one of the few (only?) clubs in the country with two NV owners (and a possible third around soon), so I have been able to enjoy the technology without the sizeable investment!
The Kit I have borrowed consists of the Photonis NV monocular, a 55mm Plossl, a 32mm Plossl, an adaptor to connect the monocular to the eyepieces and one to connect 2” filters to the monocular for x1 viewing. Finally, there are two Astronomik filters, an Ha 6nm for viewing nebulae and a 642nm ProPlanet for viewing galaxies.
The main intention was to try this with my Televue Genesis which is a 100mm, f5 scope with a flat field of view. In theory, very good for NV as it is fast. I also wanted to try x1 observing just handheld for scanning the skies, and also then considered using the Takahashi Mewlon 210 for galaxies and clusters. This is a 210mm f11.5 Dall-Kirkham scope with high quality optics. Over the last two nights I’ve achieved all three of these objectives, so here goes.
On Sunday 24th March, I used the NV handheld at x1 with the 6nm filter in place. Orion was pretty low by this time, but I saw M42 albeit not very impressively. Moving on, the Rosette was clear, bright and quite large. From there I moved along the bottom of Gemini, and found a small bright patch of nebulosity which turned out to be the Monkeyhead nebula, I had never really known where it was before, and certainly hadn’t seen it visually. Scanning through Auriga, I noticed a patch of nebulosity with some form of structure to it. Again, I didn’t know at the time but it was the Flaming Star Nebula, another than I had not seen before. Next up, the California Nebula. This one was bright with an obvious elongated shape, one of the better targets. Finally, the Heart and Soul nebulae. This is in a bad area of sky for me at the moment but still I managed to detect both of these nebulae. So, overall a good start. Targets that I just never see from home, or even have never seen before became quite obvious.
Monday night, 25th, I negotiated a couple of hours observing between 8 and 10pm with my better half because we both had early starts in the morning. I got the GP-DX up and running with Skysafari early on with the Mewlon on top, but must have messed up the alignment because the Gotos were way off. M42 looked ok, but the scope was still showing quite a bad tube currents, so I decided to switch to the Genesis and get going with the main event; nebulae hunting. I had to quickly change the dovetail on the Genesis because it would not fit on the new, longer ADM dual saddle I fitted recently. Once fixed, a fresh alignment sorted the gotos and for the rest of the night they were very accurate, although it needed a quick re-align after I switched to the Mewlon.
The skies were clear, but the transparency was only average I would say. I was too occupied with working out what I was doing with this unfamiliar kit to take an SQL measure or even assess the NELM, but normally my skies are mag 19.1 at best, around mag 5 NELM. I suspect it was a little less than that last night. The Genesis was theoretically giving around 4.4 degrees field of view, but in reality it felt like 4 degrees max, possibly a little less.
My first target was the Rosette, and I will confess to being a little disappointed with the view. It was more like a poorly defined oval with a central hole than anything defined. In hindsight I think this was down to sky brightness – it was still not Astronomical twilight when I started observing, and also dark adaptation. This is a controversial point which I will address with my thoughts at the end of this post. Later on I returned to the Rosette and it was much better, even though it was lower in the sky. Clear structure to it and much better definition.
I moved on to the California Nebula, NGC 1499. This was better immediately; the long axis very nearly filled the field of view, and I could see both the overall shape, plus the brighter edges and slightly darker inner regions. I viewed this one several times over the course of 2 hours, and it generally got better each time, more definition and detail visible.
The Flaming Star nebula was a disappointment. Very poorly defined, although I did also identify IC417 nearby which stood out quite clearly. The Monkeyhead was a good one, the shape was clearly identifiable, and I got hints of the internal structure which made the ‘monkey’ association clearer. Onto the Heart & Soul nebula next. The Soul, I found quite soulless… 😉 Not much definition, just a sort of squared off long oval shape, if that makes sense. The Heart on the other hand was much more interesting. I could follow the loop of nebulosity dropping down from beside the embedded star cluster, and also hints of the ‘arm’ stretching out. Bearing in mind these two were in my worst direction, towards London and Heathrow I was surprised to see anything. Lastly with the Genesis, I went for the Pacman Nebula which I enjoyed. Clear shape, with the Pacman mouth plain to see.
Actually, lastly was incorrect, I noticed just before I took the Genesis off the mount that Orion had cleared the annoying (but very nice) tree which blocks the view of Orion at a certain time and was still visible above the neighbour’s house. Not expecting anything, I tapped IC434 on Skysafari and sent the scope off to find it, which it did, bang on. The Flame Nebula, NGC 2024 was immediately obvious, with the central lane well defined. There wasn’t much more detail to be seen to be honest, but it was reasonably bright, particularly given the transparency and altitude. IC434 was visible more faintly, and initially I didn’t think I was going to be able to see my prize! However, with some averted vision, and flicking my eye from the target away, I was able to see the notch in the nebula that was the HorseHead Nebula. It wasn’t obvious, or always there, but reference to Skysafari showed that the object I was detecting was in exactly the right place, so I will put that down as a win! The Horsey from a suburban sky with a 20 year old 4” scope and a bit (lot) of help from technology, not too bad!
I’m hoping to get a chance under better conditions, as I think the nebulae will show better with improved transparency. It will be interesting to put the Genesis side by side with Gavin’s Baader 95mm to see which gives best results. I’m hoping the veteran Genesis will at least give a good account of itself next to the young pup Baader.
Time to switch to the Mewlon for some Galaxies and clusters. The Goto drifted a little after the switch, but I aligned on nearby bright stars with Skysafari to get it back on track.
The Leo Triplet didn’t quite fit in the field of view which I would estimate at around 0.7 degrees. I guess I would say this was a good view, but not overwhelming. M65 and M66 were there, had shape and showed in their correct orientation. NGC 3628 was visible, although much fainter. I’ve seen far better views in a large dob under dark skies, but this was a 4” scope under poor skies, so I can’t really complain! These targets are all but invisible in this sized scope from here normally.
The Whirlpool Galaxy showed as two bright cores, little or no halo detected. I did a whirl (😉) around a few more galaxies; M95 & M96, M83 and M106. All were clearly visible as galaxies but with little to see other than their basic shape. More rewarding was Bode’s and the Cigar Galaxy. Bode’s showed as a bright core and the faint oval shape of the spiral arms (no spirals visible though obviously). The Cigar Galaxy was great, lovely elongated shape, and dark mottled structure in the centre. A really nice view and probably the best galaxy of the night. Finally on the Galaxies I went for the Needle. This showed clearly as the core, with its fine needle-like arms extending from it. They showed better with averted vision, growing in length each time I moved my eye away.
Last stop were the clusters which turned out to be great targets for this combination of Scope and NV. The Double Cluster was fabulous. Lacking the fine pin point starts that you get visually normally, but made up for with the sheer number and brightness. I couldn’t quite fit both in comfortably at once, but taking each on its own was more than enough. M44 was too big for this combo really, but M67 was ideal, resolving clearly in a fine, small cluster. Lovely one.
M36, M7 & M38 all benefited from the NV, showing far more stars and with more definition than visually. Each has its own character, very different and they show the variety that you can get with what are apparently similar sized cluster.
And finally, as Mr McDonald used to say…. M3. A great way to finish. Bright and resolved to the core, it would have benefited from some addition mag but I could not face changing eyepieces at that point so that is one for another night. It seems that globs respond well to NV too, so definitely worth trying for more of these.
I wish I had had the time to move on to the Virgo cluster of galaxies, and hope to be able to do that at some point before this lovely kit has to go back home!
So, my thoughts?
I very much enjoyed using the NV gear in both scopes. Very different setups giving good results on different targets. Fast scope for the faint nebulae, and larger aperture for the galaxies and clusters. Despite being electronic in nature, using NV feels very natural and does not necessarily serve objects up to you on a plate. You still have to put some effort in to get the best out of the kit.
Two questions….
Do you need to be dark adapted to get the best out of NV?
In my short experience yes, some level of dark adaptation is required because looking at my phone on even on half brightness still significantly reduced the amount of detail I could see afterwards. Setting my phone to low brightness and red really helped. The NV display is not that bright, so I think you have to adapt enough to maximise what you can see. The precise biological mechanism in this instance I have no idea about! In my view using NV does affect your night vision for really faint objects so I would tend to stay clear of mixing NV and traditional visual astronomy in the same session if you want to see the most visually.
Is AV useful for NV viewing?
Again, I would say yes to this. Specifically for the Horsehead and the Needle Galaxy, AV was a clear benefit to detecting the Horsey and seeing the further extension of the galaxies arms. Like dark adaptation, I am unclear of the mechanism at work, but it does seem to be a factor.
I hope that has been useful. This kit is very expensive, and without selling much of my kit, and quite possibly a kidney I won’t be in a position to own an NV monocular myself. I believe I will always be a committed, traditional visual astronomer, I have a large element of masochism in me which leads me to take the harder route to achieving my observing goals, so I will always enjoy being under a dark sky and observing with just optical aids. That said, I am in the very fortunate position of being in one of the few (only?) clubs in the country with two NV owners (and a possible third around soon), so I have been able to enjoy the technology without the sizeable investment!
Mercury 24th February 2019 Stu
With a clear sky, and Mercury approaching maximum elongation on 27th Feb, I thought I would have a decent attempt at spotting it in a scope for the first time; I've seen it with the naked eye and binoculars a few times before but never a scope.
Needing a low horizon, I wandered down the lane and up onto the highest part of Molesey Heath, finding a spot where the trees were lowest in the West. I had my little 72mm refractor with me, on a manual alt az mount, and started scanning the skies with a 24mm Panoptic giving a 3.8 degree field of view. I was setup by around 5.45pm, and could not see it with the naked eye, or through the scope. I then checked the location with Skysafari, and it was higher and further West than I expected, so a reset of the search area soon had it in the field of view, time was around 5.55pm. Even at low power (x18) it was clearly a planet, and was showing a faint phase, but upping the power to x72 made it far more obvious, matching the current 59% phase which is showing in Skysafari. I did up to x 144 which increased the image scale, but there was alot of atmospheric chromatic abberation so the lower power was better. I also took a couple of images, but seeing a faintly red dot against a black sky won't excite anyone I don't think, so I won't post them up here.
By the time I was heading home at about 6.20pm, Mercury was clearly visible with the naked eye, and I managed to spot it low down between the houses from home. Let me know via e-mail if you spot it, getting up high with a good western horizon certainly makes it easier. Good luck!
Stu
Needing a low horizon, I wandered down the lane and up onto the highest part of Molesey Heath, finding a spot where the trees were lowest in the West. I had my little 72mm refractor with me, on a manual alt az mount, and started scanning the skies with a 24mm Panoptic giving a 3.8 degree field of view. I was setup by around 5.45pm, and could not see it with the naked eye, or through the scope. I then checked the location with Skysafari, and it was higher and further West than I expected, so a reset of the search area soon had it in the field of view, time was around 5.55pm. Even at low power (x18) it was clearly a planet, and was showing a faint phase, but upping the power to x72 made it far more obvious, matching the current 59% phase which is showing in Skysafari. I did up to x 144 which increased the image scale, but there was alot of atmospheric chromatic abberation so the lower power was better. I also took a couple of images, but seeing a faintly red dot against a black sky won't excite anyone I don't think, so I won't post them up here.
By the time I was heading home at about 6.20pm, Mercury was clearly visible with the naked eye, and I managed to spot it low down between the houses from home. Let me know via e-mail if you spot it, getting up high with a good western horizon certainly makes it easier. Good luck!
Stu
lunar eclipse Monday 21st january Stu
With a very uncertain forecast for Monday morning, we decided on an 'Every person for themselves' approach, and a number of members observed from their gardens. Please see the Photo Section for images taken by the group using a variety of equipment.
For me it was a frustrating morning, up at 3am to clear skies, and was able to watch the beginning of the umbral shadow moving across the moon, but cloud moved in soon afterwards and I lost sight of it in the scope for the rest of the eclipse. Others in the group had more luck, capturing the lovely orange colour visible when the moon was fully eclipsed.
For me it was a frustrating morning, up at 3am to clear skies, and was able to watch the beginning of the umbral shadow moving across the moon, but cloud moved in soon afterwards and I lost sight of it in the scope for the rest of the eclipse. Others in the group had more luck, capturing the lovely orange colour visible when the moon was fully eclipsed.
Meeting report Thursday 17th January 2019 STU
Place: West End Park, West End Village, Esher
This was the first meeting of the year, and it was great to see six new attendees along, several with new scopes wanting some help on how to setup them up; great to see a good response and that the website is being found more often now! Typically the forecast was for clear up until about 8pm, with high cloud coming in around that time so we met up in the pub promptly, had a relatively quick chat to introduce everyone and then headed out to the green. Even by then it was quite hazy, so other than a few of the brighter stars earlier on, the only thing seen was the moon which at least gave us something to point the scopes at. One nice benefit though was a 22 degree halo clearly visible around the moon.
Scopes brought along were a little compact, table mounted 76mm National Geographic starter scope. I managed to get the somewhat hazy moon in the field of view just by hand holding to start, but once Bryon supplied a table I think more success was had. We also had a Celestron 4SE and 5SE, one a 4" Mak-Cass and the other a 5" SCT, both on very handy self contained goto mounts. The 4SE got up and running and tracking the moon relatively easily, but the 5SE did not want to play. Initialisation would work, but as soon as a slew was attempted, error code 16 or 17 was displayed. This was suggested as being power related, and sure enough, checking these on the Celestron site says the first thing to do is check power. Hopefully a set of new batteries will do the trick!
Wanting to at least get some observing in, a couple more scopes were also set up, Gavin's very nice, and rare AstroPhysics Stowaway on an AZGTi mount, and I set my Tak FC-100DC up on my Ercole mount. Peter's pair of 15 x 70 (I think!) binoculars on a mono pod with trigger grip was also in action. Through increasingly challenging skies, and temperatures below freezing, we persevered until most people had looked through most scopes and had as good a view as was going to be obtained. A shame that for some who it was their first time looking through a scope the views lacked that wow you normally get when looking at the moon, but be assured that sooner or later we will get some decent clear skies, so do stick with it! Astronomy is a hobby which requires patience as much as anything else!
You will see below, two very poor images taken with my Samsung S9 through the eyepiece of my scope. The contrast is poor because of the cloudy conditions, the images have been processed in an app called Snapseed to bring out a little more detail. They do show what we were contending with though!
Frozen feet (apart from Peter in his artic boots!) and hands, plus a distinct lack of anything to look at drove the survivors back into the pub soon after 10pm, and we had a warm up pint in there with further chat.
Note that the dates published for the next meeting have changed, my mistake. They will now be 7th Feb and 7th March to keep them on a Thursday. The moon will still be very new by then so if clear we can observe some deep sky objects. Depending upon the weather, and take up in the group, we may observe on the green for the lunar eclipse. I will confirm if I'm going to be there on the Sunday night so you know whether to turn up or not.
Either way, I hope to see you all at the next meeting on 7th Feb. We should also consider a dark sky trip fairly soon, I will discuss and confirm any plans.
Thanks to all for your fortitude coming out to observe in such poor conditions! WAG are made of stern stuff ;)
This was the first meeting of the year, and it was great to see six new attendees along, several with new scopes wanting some help on how to setup them up; great to see a good response and that the website is being found more often now! Typically the forecast was for clear up until about 8pm, with high cloud coming in around that time so we met up in the pub promptly, had a relatively quick chat to introduce everyone and then headed out to the green. Even by then it was quite hazy, so other than a few of the brighter stars earlier on, the only thing seen was the moon which at least gave us something to point the scopes at. One nice benefit though was a 22 degree halo clearly visible around the moon.
Scopes brought along were a little compact, table mounted 76mm National Geographic starter scope. I managed to get the somewhat hazy moon in the field of view just by hand holding to start, but once Bryon supplied a table I think more success was had. We also had a Celestron 4SE and 5SE, one a 4" Mak-Cass and the other a 5" SCT, both on very handy self contained goto mounts. The 4SE got up and running and tracking the moon relatively easily, but the 5SE did not want to play. Initialisation would work, but as soon as a slew was attempted, error code 16 or 17 was displayed. This was suggested as being power related, and sure enough, checking these on the Celestron site says the first thing to do is check power. Hopefully a set of new batteries will do the trick!
Wanting to at least get some observing in, a couple more scopes were also set up, Gavin's very nice, and rare AstroPhysics Stowaway on an AZGTi mount, and I set my Tak FC-100DC up on my Ercole mount. Peter's pair of 15 x 70 (I think!) binoculars on a mono pod with trigger grip was also in action. Through increasingly challenging skies, and temperatures below freezing, we persevered until most people had looked through most scopes and had as good a view as was going to be obtained. A shame that for some who it was their first time looking through a scope the views lacked that wow you normally get when looking at the moon, but be assured that sooner or later we will get some decent clear skies, so do stick with it! Astronomy is a hobby which requires patience as much as anything else!
You will see below, two very poor images taken with my Samsung S9 through the eyepiece of my scope. The contrast is poor because of the cloudy conditions, the images have been processed in an app called Snapseed to bring out a little more detail. They do show what we were contending with though!
Frozen feet (apart from Peter in his artic boots!) and hands, plus a distinct lack of anything to look at drove the survivors back into the pub soon after 10pm, and we had a warm up pint in there with further chat.
Note that the dates published for the next meeting have changed, my mistake. They will now be 7th Feb and 7th March to keep them on a Thursday. The moon will still be very new by then so if clear we can observe some deep sky objects. Depending upon the weather, and take up in the group, we may observe on the green for the lunar eclipse. I will confirm if I'm going to be there on the Sunday night so you know whether to turn up or not.
Either way, I hope to see you all at the next meeting on 7th Feb. We should also consider a dark sky trip fairly soon, I will discuss and confirm any plans.
Thanks to all for your fortitude coming out to observe in such poor conditions! WAG are made of stern stuff ;)
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Thursday 13th December 2018 STU
Place: West End Park, West End Village, Esher
The group met soon after 8pm in the pub for a drink and catch up chat, and then headed out to observe at around 9pm. It was already chilly, and got colder through the evening, ending with iced up scopes and frozen toes around midnight. The Green in West End Park is a little darker than other areas in and around Walton so is about as good as it gets without travelling an hour or so south. When the lights dim later on it improves appreciably.
There were five of us, with four scopes in total:
72mm Apo refractor on a Skywatcher AZGTi mount
Intes Micro 715D Maksutov on an Ercole mount
Baader 95mm Apo and a Tak 130mm Epsilon on AZGTi mount using Night Vision
The main targets for the night were Comet 46P/Wirtanen and objects in and around Orion which is well placed at the moment. The comet was found after a little searching around (unlike the others I wasn't using Goto but will do in future). I managed to forget the finderscope for the Mak which has a very small field of view so was a bit of a challenge, but worthwhile; the comet showing as a bright, round fuzzy patch at x89. Shielding my eye from the streetlights definitely helped improve the contrast and the moon had set by this point too. Views in the other scopes were different but equally nice, lower power with a wider field of view giving a better context to where the comet is currently.
M42 in Orion is always a favourite, and again the different scopes gave different perspectives on it. The Baader showed the Trapezium beautifully, lovely pin point perfect stars surrounded by nebulosity. At higher power in the Mak, there was lovely structure and much more brightness to the nebulosity, the 'fish mouth' clear and bat wings sweeping around, brought out even better with an OIII filter.
The 37 Cluster (NGC2169) and ET cluster (NGC 457) are two old favourites which were nice to revisit, as was Sigma Orionis, a lovely quadruple star system, the fourth component being quite faint but clearly shown in the Mak.
The little 72mm, once problems with aligning the mount had been resolved was showing some nice targets too, surprisingly capable for small aperture under a light polluted sky. The open clusters M35, 36, 37 and 38 were resolved nicely, but star of the show was probably M45, fitting the field of view perfectly and showing so many pin point stars, somewhat disproving its 'Seven Sisters' name!
Night Vision brings a whole new perspective to observing, particularly under light polluted skies. With both the Baader and even more so in the Tak Epsilon, the Night Vision showed the Flame Nebula and Horsehead Nebula, remarkable for this location and with such small scopes; you would normally need a 16" under pristine skies to observe these targets well. The Rosette and California Nebulae were equally clear, although the cold, damp air meant regular defogging of the eyepiece to keep the contrast there. Later on, we also observed Barnard's loop using the NV at x1, taking in the whole of the Orion constellation with M42 and the Rosette included in the view, quite amazing.
During the evening we saw a number of bright Geminid meteors which were great to see, an added bonus and nice coincidence with clear skies and our club night. Frozen scopes and toes were packed away sometime around midnight, good to get some observing in after all this horrid weather. Next date is set for 17th Jan 2019, with a potential Lunar Eclipse session early morning of the 21st Jan if the weather is clear. See you there!
The group met soon after 8pm in the pub for a drink and catch up chat, and then headed out to observe at around 9pm. It was already chilly, and got colder through the evening, ending with iced up scopes and frozen toes around midnight. The Green in West End Park is a little darker than other areas in and around Walton so is about as good as it gets without travelling an hour or so south. When the lights dim later on it improves appreciably.
There were five of us, with four scopes in total:
72mm Apo refractor on a Skywatcher AZGTi mount
Intes Micro 715D Maksutov on an Ercole mount
Baader 95mm Apo and a Tak 130mm Epsilon on AZGTi mount using Night Vision
The main targets for the night were Comet 46P/Wirtanen and objects in and around Orion which is well placed at the moment. The comet was found after a little searching around (unlike the others I wasn't using Goto but will do in future). I managed to forget the finderscope for the Mak which has a very small field of view so was a bit of a challenge, but worthwhile; the comet showing as a bright, round fuzzy patch at x89. Shielding my eye from the streetlights definitely helped improve the contrast and the moon had set by this point too. Views in the other scopes were different but equally nice, lower power with a wider field of view giving a better context to where the comet is currently.
M42 in Orion is always a favourite, and again the different scopes gave different perspectives on it. The Baader showed the Trapezium beautifully, lovely pin point perfect stars surrounded by nebulosity. At higher power in the Mak, there was lovely structure and much more brightness to the nebulosity, the 'fish mouth' clear and bat wings sweeping around, brought out even better with an OIII filter.
The 37 Cluster (NGC2169) and ET cluster (NGC 457) are two old favourites which were nice to revisit, as was Sigma Orionis, a lovely quadruple star system, the fourth component being quite faint but clearly shown in the Mak.
The little 72mm, once problems with aligning the mount had been resolved was showing some nice targets too, surprisingly capable for small aperture under a light polluted sky. The open clusters M35, 36, 37 and 38 were resolved nicely, but star of the show was probably M45, fitting the field of view perfectly and showing so many pin point stars, somewhat disproving its 'Seven Sisters' name!
Night Vision brings a whole new perspective to observing, particularly under light polluted skies. With both the Baader and even more so in the Tak Epsilon, the Night Vision showed the Flame Nebula and Horsehead Nebula, remarkable for this location and with such small scopes; you would normally need a 16" under pristine skies to observe these targets well. The Rosette and California Nebulae were equally clear, although the cold, damp air meant regular defogging of the eyepiece to keep the contrast there. Later on, we also observed Barnard's loop using the NV at x1, taking in the whole of the Orion constellation with M42 and the Rosette included in the view, quite amazing.
During the evening we saw a number of bright Geminid meteors which were great to see, an added bonus and nice coincidence with clear skies and our club night. Frozen scopes and toes were packed away sometime around midnight, good to get some observing in after all this horrid weather. Next date is set for 17th Jan 2019, with a potential Lunar Eclipse session early morning of the 21st Jan if the weather is clear. See you there!
