Guest Posted December 1, 2018 Share Posted December 1, 2018 November was a poor month, due to weather and a bad back restricting my viewing and photography. I managed a few Sun photos in hydrogen alpha light but the Sun was very quiet. I took some more Perseus shots but did not finish my mosaic. I'm hoping to complete it in December or January. I caught two meteors on "film". Here is the full report: https://sungazer127mak.blogspot.com/2018/11/november-2018.html I did not make a video as I did not have enough images. Hopefully, I will have enough to do a November/December one at the end of the year. My annual summary will be available on Amazon Kindle during January. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Bino-viewer Posted December 1, 2018 Share Posted December 1, 2018 Will you be trying to spot the comet in another week or so Phil ?? It will be well placed for us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tweedledee Posted December 1, 2018 Share Posted December 1, 2018 Nice images. ? You certainly can't get enough of number 20 in Melottes catalogue aka number 39 in Collinders. ? I'm planning this for one of my first AP attempts with a wide angle lens. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted December 1, 2018 Share Posted December 1, 2018 10 hours ago, Bino-viewer said: Will you be trying to spot the comet in another week or so Phil ?? It will be well placed for us. Spot it? More like post so many pictures I'll bore you all to death! Weather, permitting, of course. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted December 1, 2018 Share Posted December 1, 2018 1 hour ago, Tweedledee said: Nice images. ? You certainly can't get enough of number 20 in Melottes catalogue aka number 39 in Collinders. ? I'm planning this for one of my first AP attempts with a wide angle lens. Well I'm astounded that every forum I visit, everyone talks about APs meaning long exposure deep sky. Don't get me wrong, I love seeing images of DSOs that have been carefully planned and constructed and I'll keep hitting the Like button in the Imaging section but there's loads you can do without it. Melotte 20 is one of my fave DSOs. I've been overdoing it lately because I'm trying to complete my big stack and stitch of Perseus. It is also a great object to start with. There's no great trade secrets, I'll post them if you wish. The main point is to take at least 10 dark frames. Also in the same constellation, you have the Double Cluster and M34, although M34 is a bit more tough. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tweedledee Posted December 2, 2018 Share Posted December 2, 2018 18 hours ago, Sunny Phil said: Well I'm astounded that every forum I visit, everyone talks about APs meaning long exposure deep sky. Don't get me wrong, I love seeing images of DSOs that have been carefully planned and constructed and I'll keep hitting the Like button in the Imaging section but there's loads you can do without it. Melotte 20 is one of my fave DSOs. I've been overdoing it lately because I'm trying to complete my big stack and stitch of Perseus. It is also a great object to start with. There's no great trade secrets, I'll post them if you wish. The main point is to take at least 10 dark frames. Also in the same constellation, you have the Double Cluster and M34, although M34 is a bit more tough. I've been observing visually for many years. Doing visual you tend to see at least 50 clusters to one nebula, as nebulae are very difficult visually. Star clusters are naturally the main DSO for visual, so I have grown to love star clusters and see all manner of interesting patterns in them. I'd love to see more clusters imaged on EMS but as you say, the DSO section is mostly full of amazing gas clouds which seem to need an immense amount of time, skill and patience. Hopefully clusters will be a bit less challenging for me to image initially, so I hope to put a few interesting clusters in the DSO section. As with most objects, framing is important with star clusters, which is why I have numerous different binoculars telescopes and eyepieces. For AP, I now have a wide range of focal lengths to work with in order to frame just about anything. Really big clusters are often ignored, but with the right framing can look spectacular, such as Melotte 20, Hyades, Coma Berenices Cluster, Collinder 70 and a few others. An image of Mel 20 would never be seen as a cluster at a focal length of say 1000mm, you'd see a few random stars in a tiny portion of it. A 50mm lens with say a 15 degree FOV should make it look spectacular. The opposite would be true if imaging something like cluster NGC2169. At 50mm you won't even spot it looking like anything much more than a double/triple star because it is so tiny, but the 1000mm will really show off this little gem. I think clusters are great. There are so many of them that are easy to find, and they come in all shapes and sizes. ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Bino-viewer Posted December 9, 2018 Share Posted December 9, 2018 I saw the one up near the Double Cluster the other night : the one with the '2 eyes'. I forget its name. That would make a nice target, its in a very star rich area of the sky too Tweedledee 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tweedledee Posted December 9, 2018 Share Posted December 9, 2018 Perhaps you mean Stock 2 or the Muscle Man cluster. That is really big and right next to the Double Cluster. It is bigger in size than the double cluster but fainter, I love to see that one on a really good night. Or did you mean the Owl Cluster in Cassiopeia that has two prominent eyes? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Bino-viewer Posted December 9, 2018 Share Posted December 9, 2018 Yes Pete, that was it.....it was the 'Owl Cluster' NGC 457 It was pretty close to the Zenith when i looked at it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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