Had a lovely evening Saturday night, Full Moon but excellent seeing (FWHM 1.4"-1.8") for most of the night. Looked back and snapped these shots of the Tinderry's when leaving on Sunday, another beautiful day ...but work the next day
Beautiful- wow that’s a lot of sky! I don’t think I’ve been under 3” for months
Yeah I had FWHM around 3" initially, until around 11pm, which I hadn't seen up there before and I thought hmm?..ok, this site is human after all ...then it rapidly improved around 11pm'ish and stayed that way all night, it was great
Fiiiinally got around to commissioning the 18" F4.1 GOTO Dob on Saturday night and it didn't disappoint. I shared the special occasion with my life long astro partner and the telescopes owner, Attila Horvath. Attila and I shared a dream back when we were teenagers (almost 40 years ago), to have an 18 inch telescope. We actually started building one for astrophotography all those years ago (that looked more like the Hale 200" in engineering terms! way over engineered ) and still have the primary and secondary mirrors that have never seen starlight but we never finished it...
Anyway...what a fabulous night!
The scope is definitely a keeper! After a two star alignment, goto pointing was good enough to land everything in the 11mm Nagler and 18 inches of aperture is more than capable, no sign of any optical issues, stars were sharp and we noted great contrast, it gave incredible views. We checked out the green comet, was easy to find right next to the planet Mars, could just make it out with the naked eye. Under such a dark, high contrast and transparent sky, we were floored by seriously obvious spiral structure in galaxies, including NGC1365 and NGC1566 but the big surprise was we could both see subtle rose/brown and green in the Orion Nebula! As Carina culminated in the early hours, we saw amazing detail in the bright orange Homunculus around Eta Carina too, colour in stars generally was particularly vivid and we both commented on this. So amazing, happy days, was great to share the first light for this scope with my life long mate, very special and to finally realise our dream we had as teenagers ...we could never have imagined back then, doing it in such a location though
One ominous sign though, was watching bright satellite after bright satellite in the wee hours, flaring on like Iridium flares used to, low in the southern sky, every minute or so, was rather eeriy, bloody Starlink satellites can only imagine what they and other super constellations are going to eventually do to our dark skies when low Earth orbit is full of them!
Mike
Last edited by strongmanmike; 13-02-2023 at 11:17 AM.
Mike great to see all those dreams realised in these days of wonderful accessories.As for all those satellites I to wonder about the future of the sky.
Derek
I've noticed now that I'm picking up lots of dashes on my various subs, especially nearer the pole. With my luck, they'll be the ones with the perfectly sub arcsec resolution...
Mike great to see all those dreams realised in these days of wonderful accessories.As for all those satellites I to wonder about the future of the sky.
Derek
Quote:
Originally Posted by LonelySpoon
Cooled Ilford HP5!
That brought back some memories!
Lovely beast to play with in the 18".
I've noticed now that I'm picking up lots of dashes on my various subs, especially nearer the pole. With my luck, they'll be the ones with the perfectly sub arcsec resolution...
Neville
LSO
Cheers guys ...yeees, the satellite thing is worrying, it was quite ominous to watch such an unexpected spectacle, at 1am in the morning!! You can get timings for these things too. There were so many satellites visible throughout the night, Attila kept exclaiming "there's another one!" and we saw half a dozen instances of a satellite travelling through the eye piece view of the 18" too, once upon a time, this was a rare occurrence
Cheers guys ...yeees, the satellite thing is worrying, it was quite ominous to watch such an unexpected spectacle, at 1am in the morning!! You can get timings for these things too. There were so many satellites visible throughout the night, Attila kept exclaiming "there's another one!" and we saw half a dozen instances of a satellite travelling through the eye piece view of the 18" too, once upon a time, this was a rare occurrence
Mike
Set up specifically to watch for satellites and you probably will never see one
Now as far as I am concerned I would love to see a satellite or one of those things..what are they called again? Yes a star even...
One clear night and too crook to bother so...please keep the wonderful accounts coming ...
Ha ha, not since the weekend before last...but I'm on my way up again today, so who knows what the weekend will bring (gota do some mowing and weed spraying )...definitely a burger, chips and gravy at the Michelago General Store on the way up at least
Ha ha, not since the weekend before last...but I'm on my way up again today, so who knows what the weekend will bring (gota do some mowing and weed spraying )...definitely a burger, chips and gravy at the Michelago General Store on the way up at least
Mike
I like it.
Please send a photo of the burger.
I had perhaps the best burger ever on Thursday at St Vincent's Hospitals little coffee shop in Lismore...although you have to pay for parking this is where I will eat in Lismore from now on as it was a superb burger...AND strangely the meals at the various pubs in Casino are first class and given their claim to being the "Beef Capital" of Australia you could think one could get a decent steak...well yes there is one place so far but until I have completed my survey I will hold back comments at this stage.
I had one but didn't get a photo of it, sorry...?..so, here is dinner , prawn, olive, mini Roma tomatoes, capers, chilli, garlic, basil and parsley, cooked in oilve oil and garlic butter, spagettini with lots'a Parmigiano Reggiano and a glass of Merlot
Your burger sounded great and what an unusual place to find such a great version. A few years ago, I had one of the best ever authentic home made style pastas in my life, at Le Meridian resort in Thiland!
Quote:
Clear or not enjoy the experience.
Trying, was a beautiful afternoon but at the moment there is lots of high cloud, all over the sky, in varying thicknesses, so now the Moon has set and at such a dark sky location, it is hard to directly see it, the sky looks kinda like a suburban sky, faint Milky Way and less stars, dim LMC/SMC, can only tell the cloud is there because stars and Milky way are missing or dim...cant really image or observe anything...frustrating and raaaather annoying
Mike EDIT: T'is after midnight now and same frustrating conditions ...so, calling it a night. Of course, I'm sure I'll get up in a couple of hours, to get a drink of water or go to the dunny and I will look out and it will be crystal clear....
Last edited by strongmanmike; 26-02-2023 at 12:13 AM.
Was pretty happy with the addition of the 18" Dob and housing to Eagleview Observatory....buuut, doh! I now have aperture fever ...uncanny resemblance!! . So for a laugh, I showed my wife and said how about it, just need a welder, a lick of paint, done!! ???.. she was not impressed, even with the little joke
Can only imagine the views capable from Eagleivew with something like that!
Was pretty happy with the addition of the 18" Dob and housing to Eagleview Observatory....buuut, doh! I now have aperture fever ...uncanny resemblance!! . So for a laugh, I showed my wife and said how about it, just need a welder, a lick of paint, done!! ???.. she was not impressed, even with the little joke
Can only imagine the views capable from Eagleivew with something like that!
Mike
Mike I think you are way overcompensating for something.
but it was worth it 
but excellent seeing (FWHM 1.4"-1.8") for most of the night. Looked back and snapped these shots of the Tinderry's when leaving on Sunday, another beautiful day 
)...definitely a burger, chips and gravy at the Michelago General Store on the way up at least 
. So for a laugh, I showed my wife and said how about it, just need a welder, a lick of paint, done!! ???.. she was not impressed, even with the little joke 
