Newbie Log of the sights

[ZeroID (Brent)]

Hi all, been posting in the beginners forums but starting to use my little 114 f8 EQM Newt and search out some of the sights. Located in Auckland, NZ I'm lucky enough to have a light sheilded area in my back yard with a flat concrete base to set up on. Gives me good views of the Sth Eastern to Sth Western skies with some views to the North West and North. I'll trim a few trees soon and improve that range. I have a 12mm Plossl and 20 mm GSO Wideview with a 2 x Barlow giving me reasonable range to use.

I have a 10" Truss Dob started in the workshop but in the meantime I am starting to find my way round the skies. Finding that it's relatively easy to identify the Constellations by naked eye ( thanks to Stellarium ) but gets dang confusing when all them extra stars appear in the eyepiece !!!

So working my way out from the Crux, an easy reference over last week or two have observed the following. Been a bit cold but thermal top, gloves and a cap help.

Mimosa and the Jewel Box nearby and the Southern Pleiades.

Within the Crux or nearby:
NGC 4349, using averted vision.
NGC 4439, central Crux area
NGC 4337,

Further afeild
NGC 5316
M7, magnificent show in 20mm, scary with the Barlow.

Think I've spotted few others but have been unable to identify them positvely. Going to use the monthly list to find more as it gives such useful hints. I'm prechecking with 10 x 50 bins to point me into a region before I aim the scope.

I have been logging these against an NGC listing but not sure about the ratings of 'seeing' and 'transparency' and how they are qualified.
In the meantime I'm learning heaps and enjoying the night air. Wait till I complete the 10". The backyard works amazingly well despite the LP but I have several darksites available within a half hours drive and the Legnum wagon will hande a 10" in the back easily.

And the weather has been very cooperative lately ...amazing !

Clear Skies !!

[astroron (Ron)]

Hi Brent, it's good to see you are enjoying your observing sessions
May I suggest you write down your observations so that in the future when you go back and look at those objects again yo can see how much you have improved
Keep up the good work

[Liz]

Sounds great Brent - there is so much to see and find out there, virtually a neverending list. You have made a great start .... and a 10" waiting in the wings!!
Keep up the good work, and as Ron says, keep a recording of what you see etc. Am not sure how to rate skies either, but it all comes with time.
Clear skies.

[Suzy]

Hi Brent, glad to see you're having a wonderful time exploring the skies. If you think M7 is amazing, have a look at the Wishing Well cluster in Carina (NGC 3532),it's one of my favourites .
Also, have you spotted Omega Centauri (NGC 5139 - the largest glob) & M22 glob in Sagittarius yet? They are amazing as well.
Keep a log book - you'll be glad you did. The more you look and push your eyes on these objects, the more you will see. I had a 6" dob and it was amazing what my eyes could eventually pull out in detail, and now I've got my 10'' dob, it confirms nicely what I pushed my eyes to see. You can add notes into your log of what details you see - dark lanes, shapes, resolving clusters etc. As Ron said, the more you see, the more you can add to your log as you're eyes improve. Log books are a great journeys to reflect back on.
There are books available to help with observing (explains what details to look for). I have a couple at the moment that I won't part with for quids.

Here is a link to understand seeing and transparency
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/63-196-0-0-1-0.html

Enjoy!
Suzy.

[ZeroID (Brent)]

Thanks folks, I appreciate all the info that has been provided by everyone here. Awesome site and very encouraging.
I've added your suggestions to my planning list Suzy, going to take me a while to find them all along with the months suggestions. Hope the weather holds out and I might do a run up to one of my dark sites.
The link to seeing and transparency was perfect thank you. Looks like I am getting 5-2(II) according to that scale. Not bad for light polluted Auckland.

I will also run up Astroplanner as a guide and log. Been trying ObManger and Astrobytes but they are not very user friendly for the newbie.

[ZeroID (Brent)]

Back with questions.

Astroplanner looks excellent BUT....!!!

My intention was to install to my big grunty home PC, create a nights planned viewing then export/copy/move the plan to my Laptop to another instance of Astroplanner which could then be run next to the scope.

But it has no facility to export/copy the plan to another instance.
I checked the website to see if this was a limited version lacking some functionality that would be available on purchase but as far as I can tell that is not the case. It states it is 'fully functional' although lacking a lot of catalogs. Fair enough, it's worth paying for it.

I couldn't even copy/read the astrodata rtf file it creates when you save. It does not have a file extension so format is unknown ( rtf is misleading, no data there for a 'word' app to use.)

I don't want to run it only on the laptop, not the most convenient device to work on and I do want to be able to use and save the acquired data for my own uses.

And I missed the last clear night for a week or so ( rain arriving tonight ) while I attempted to find a solution.

Any suggestions or clarification anyone ?

Otherwise it's an excellent piece of software.

[Suzy]

I had troubles with this great looking bit of software too. Hubby tried (and he's no dill) but after we couldn't get it going, he concluded perhaps that it was maybe software to run with some goto device or something . I'm glad you brought this up Brent. I really want to get it going myself too.

[Liz]

Originally Posted by Suzy

I had troubles with this great looking bit of software too. Hubby tried (and he's no dill) but after we couldn't get it going, he concluded perhaps that it was maybe software to run with some goto device or something . I'm glad you brought this up Brent. I really want to get it going myself too.

I thought it was just me, and didnt want to say anything, but I cant get it working at all!! Maybe an issue with the new Win 7 I have on my laptop??
Have downloaded it about 4 times, and is a ~ 10 megabyte DL but no astronomy stuff - just keeps coming up with some esobi newsreader, unless I REALLY am doing something stoopid.

[ZeroID (Brent)]

OK, I'll get on to the website and make some noises, see what they have to say. Nice sw but it needs to deliver the goods. Have you paid for the full version ?
I am running XP sp3 and it runs ok although the installation is not conventional. It just creates an exe file and you click on it. Also doesn't seem to save the last list so you can't go back to the list once you close the sw down. Nup, not working properly at all.

UPDATE:
Email sent off querying the apps status. I noticed the site's last update was early 2008 so possibly the company or whatever has gone under. Soon see.

[Rex]

Hi Brent, nice work on your observations, there is so much to see out there that it is amazing.

On the sw problem, you said it creates a file as an .rtf but you also said there is no file extention??? You may have already tried this, but if you just rename it and add the rtf extention on the end, Word will then open it, and you can see if it works. I have done this sort of thing before, someyimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Worth a shot anyway. Let us know how you get on.

Liz, I just did a search and there is a seperate version for Windows 7 link to download site is here:

http://www.windows7download.com/win7.../jmcnzbap.html

This may be the version you have already downloaded.. but since I saw it I thought I would let you know.

[Liz]

Originally Posted by Rex

Liz, I just did a search and there is a seperate version for Windows 7 link to download site is here:

http://www.windows7download.com/win7.../jmcnzbap.html

This may be the version you have already downloaded.. but since I saw it I thought I would let you know.

Hallelujeh!! That worked Rex, thanks.

[Rex]

Sweet Liz Glad I could help.

I must say I have downloaded this program and its actually a little tedious but very good. Took me a while but I have it working pretty good now.

Brent I have worked out how to export to an excell file, and the search capability is very customisable. Brent if you let me know where your at with it I can guide you from there.

Suzy As I said its a little tedious but if you let me know how far you got I can get you started in the right direction, and will help in any way I can.

I can't attach an Excell but I have PDF'd the Excell and attached it to give an idea of what this sw can do.

[Rex]

Wow guys this program is awesome. Once you set it up (the tedious part I mentioned) it saves that info and you just choose your search criteria via tick boxes and within 2 minutes yo can export an Excell spreadsheet. I can't beleive I've never heard of it. I have only found one function so far that isn't available unless I buy the progarm. That is the catalogue management. Because I'm only using the free version I'm not sure what you get in that part but I presume it would allow you to download and install more catalogues and keep them updated. The catalogues that come with the free version seem to be doing great. Another great function of this sw is you can prepare Double star lists, a type of observing I love to do, especially when the moon is around. Anyway, just thought I would let you know what I have found so far. As I said previously, once know where you guys are up to with it I can help if required.

[Liz]

Thats great Rex!! Will have a play with it andsee what I can come up with.

[ZeroID (Brent)]

Hi Guys, got an answer back from the developer. He reckons it should run ok with some provisos as you seem to have found. Well done Rex, thanks for your offer. Mine sems to have settled down now after a reboot. I can export and also transfer .apd files between computers which suits my requirements. Didn't feel like lugging a big UPS and the PC up to some remote dark site.

Re the rtf issue, it seesm that it doesn't naturally select the .apd extension and there was an rtf file in the same folder so it offered that as an option. Now the first apd file is in there it seems happy to offer that format, reboot probably helped I'd say.

For my current scope the catalogs are more than adequate and the only nag I've found so far is the 10 second wait to export. I'll get happy with the app and build the 10" truss Dob then look at getting other catalogs. Feel I owe the developer something for the good work for sure.

Now if the weather would just cooperate ....

[Rex]

Glad you worked it out Brent. Thank you for putting me onto this sw, like i said its pretty damn good. Hope the weather cooperates for you really soon, I know what its like to be months with nothing but cloud.

[Rex]

Hi Suzy, here is the documents we discussed earlier.
Thanks.

[Rex]

Information file 1 of 3 Suzy as discussed.
Thanks

[Rex]

File 2 of 3,
Thanks

[Rex]

File 3 of 3. As discussed place all files in the same folder once unpacked or the links won't work.
Thanks