Starwave Raves Again!

[Nightspore]

Starwave date - 21/8/24 - 01:00-04:30 BST. The Starwave rides again! Although everything didn’t totally go to plan (does anything?). The original plan was to view Saturn and the waning gibbous 96.7% illuminated Moon (Aquarius) with the binoviewer, switch to mono mode for a while, then back to the BV for an early morning Mars and Jupiter. So, potentially a long session planned. There are some interesting lunar features at this phase where the terminator allows some detail to be seen. 

 

 

The mostly mendacious MET site claimed a clear night until the early hours of the morning. So, of course, almost everything went ‘teats up’. Firstly, the seeing wasn’t brilliant because of the jet stream. Although it actually seemed clear and cloud free to the naked eye. Well, until I’d set-up, which took some time. At about 01:40 the Starwave was all ready to go, unfortunately the sky wasn’t, as it had clouded over. I could see some clear sky in the east though, and as the clouds seemed to all be buggering off to the west, I decided to wait it out. The overall conditions were dry with little humidity. This may have been because of the light winds which eventually died down. Not before lifting my tarp off the rarely used EQ5 mount/tripod virtually permanently stationed in the extreme north of my garden however. Note to self: replace rotten bungee ropes.

 

 

I had to change the mono eyepieces I had originally used with the Starwave. Due to vibration return issues with the Vixen TL-130 tripod I stopped using 2” accessories. I’ve gone a bit Baader and decided to swap the TV aluminium diagonal with a 1.25” Baader BBHS prism. It’s small, compact, lightweight, and silver coated, not to mention the twist lock. Silver really brings out the red and orange hues of the spectrum. It took some thought to simplify the gear I would take out. I swapped the 7mm Nagler for a 7mm TMB clone. I’m losing some field but I still get about 100x and a 1mm exit pupil. For highest mag I went with the 7mm TMB and the dinky little Baader 2.25x Q-Barlow. A 4.5mm TMB would give about 160x. All very lightweight and vibration proof. 

 

 

For mid range and a 2mm exit pupil (51x) I chose the Baader 14mm Morpheus. It was a close call between that, the 13mm Nagler and the 14mm ES. In the end I decided the Baader was ‘badder’. Its 76° AFOV is admittedly 6° narrower  than the smaller housed Nagler and ES, but the Baader is truly badder (in a good way). Its huge eye lens is dope and honestly panoramic in a way the Nagler and ES can only dream (Morpheus is the god of sleep according to Ovid’s Metamorphoses). The 14mm Morpheus is not particularly heavy considering it’s virtually as big as a dalek. I’ve owned it for a long time and although it doesn’t get out as much as I’d like, it’s always worth it. Plus I’ve swapped the original annoying batwing eyeguard for a conventional one. 

 

 

Which left the low power choice; I originally considered the 24mm Tele Vue Panoptic, which would give about 30x, although I’m not happy with the Panoptic and twistlocks. Also I wanted a lower power than 30x. The 32mm TV Plossl was a contender as was the 32mm Takahashi orthoscopic. In the end, as I was getting all Baader bad, I went with the 35mm Eudiascopic. These are possibly Masuyama designed and manufactured by Ohi. The field is less than 50° but the acuity, contrast and field flatness is a joy to behold. It yields barely 20x but that’s what I wanted for rich field. 

 

 

Anyway, I digress, back to the session. The clouds eventually went although it was still a little hazy. I started off with the BV in a Baader Amici prism. The first eyepiece pair were the TV 15mm Plossls giving about 95x. I easily found the Petavius Rille, which was fairly well defined. Messier A was not far above Petavius and was almost as well defined. Mare Crisium and its wrinkly ridge were astounding. The bright Proclus crater stood out spectacularly.

 

 

Picard (make it so … lol) and the 10 km Yerkes E craters were easily viewed, including the ghost craters to their immediate south. Further north the 122 km Endymion crater was particularly stunning with superb crater wall and shadow detail. I tried other eyepieces including 12mm GSO Plossls for 119x.

 

 

I was quite impressed with the GSO’s overall acuity and they compared very favourably with the 15mm TV’s. I went for 178.5x for a short while with the 8mm TV Plossls, but thermal interference around the Moon at only about a 24° altitude was a tad swirly. So I gave the 10mm SvBony aspherics a bit of a spin (142x).

 

 

Their 62° field was panoramic but I detected a tiny amount of chromatic aberration. I’ve seen this false colour before with the plastic fantastics. I finished off at about 71x with the WO SWAN’s. Even at 71x it was an astounding view.

 

 

Saturn was a little bleached out with its proximity to the bright Moon. I could see Titan quite clearly and I’m pretty sure I could see Iapetus again. The Saturnian surface detail I could make out was intriguing. I tried other magnifications but 95x-119x was the best I could really do.

 

 

I was going to raise the tripod height and go cyclops mode until Jupiter and Mars were visible from my observing position. Of course, we all know what happens to plans. The clouds didn’t seem to be dissipating so I went inside for a while. When I returned to the scope I realised that by slightly moving the tripod south a metre or so I would be in a position to view Jupiter in only a few minutes. This was more encouraging and I chose the 15mm TV Plossls again to start. This was when another problem arose.

 

 

The Tele Vue 15mm Plossls have odd end caps. All TV dust caps are either too loose or too tight. Try as I might I could not get the end caps off.

 

 

I’m guessing this was a combination of the weather conditions and my own paralysis. In the end I used the 15mm Altair (GSO) SuperViews. As the EP was fatter than a Plossl I could hold it between my knees and pull the barrel end caps off with my left hand. The SuperViews have at least 68° field and the BV allows 66° of that.

 

 

I don’t know why the SuperViews are demeaned so much, they’re incredibly lightweight and as long as you don’t expect Tele Vue Panoptic like performance, they’re more than fine. I was impressed with Jupiter anyway at 95x. The 102mm Starwave’s excellent glass showed a wealth of surface detail. The Galilean moons were all strung out in a row and I could detect surface colour in each of them. Mars was OK at 178.5x (8mm TV’s) but I also tried the 6mm SvBony WAE’s (238x). Unfortunately the conditions were not what I would have liked. I thought I got a glimpse of the NPH but eventually I decided to call it a night.

 

 

As I sat there contemplating the cosmos for a while I realised I could see the ‘Big Subaru in the Sky’ (Pleiades). The 32mm Baader BCO’s give around 45x, so with some difficulty viewing through the reflex sight due to it physically being low, I found the Seven Sisters. Even with the limited field of the BCO’s the sisters were beautiful. No sign of Billy Meier, flying saucers or Semjase though. Perhaps the night’s grand plan wasn’t completely fulfilled but I got some totally dope binoviewing in. All’s well that ends well, I suppose. 

 

 

[+Bino-viewer]

Didn't you wait up for the occultation ?? 😦

[Nightspore]

34 minutes ago, Bino-viewer said:

Didn't you wait up for the occultation ?? 😦

 

There was an occultation?  🤯

[+Bino-viewer]

I’m sure i remember posting it somewhere !!

You mentioned your session time was 01:30-04:30. Well, the occultation happened at 04:29 !!! It was the highlight of the night !!

[Nightspore]

4 hours ago, Bino-viewer said:

I’m sure i remember posting it somewhere !!

You mentioned your session time was 01:30-04:30. Well, the occultation happened at 04:29 !!! It was the highlight of the night !!

 

Yeah, I knew about it Rob, but Saturn was so bleached out by the virtual supermoon that I was more interested in Jupiter and Mars by then. I did notice Saturn had disappeared though. In fact, trying to observe Jupiter and Mars was hard work with the devil's searchlight over my right shoulder lol. 

 

 

Plus the Moon would have been a tad low by the time the occultation ended.

[+Bino-viewer]

It was heading that way, but still more than ok, and my SW skyline is not a good one.

The thing that amazed me most was the fact it was crystal clear for the entire event here in Derby.

And yes, turning the other way you had the nice conjunction of Mars / Jupiter as well.

 

Reappearance of Saturn was much easier visually.

It reappeared more or less in the 4 o'clock position, on the little bit of the moon that wasn't sunlit,

and the morning twilight seemed to dim the brightness of the moon a bit so a lot less dazzling.

 

I loved watching it. One of my astro highlights of the year.

I think there are some other Saturn occultations coming up, although not all will be visible here, and some that are may be daylight events, but still worth a look.

 

 

 

 

[newtyng5]

I knew i shoulda done a post about the occultation 😉 But you all are all-seeing all knowing 🙂 , i felt i was stating the obvious. Next time i will.

[Nightspore]

I would have been way too tired to watch the occultation all the way through anyway. I've watched occultations of some of Jupiters moons in the past. It can go on a bit though, a bit like watching an eclipse lol.

[+Bino-viewer]

I must be the EMS occultation geek then.

Transits, eclipses and occultations have always fascinated me, perhaps more than anything else in astronomy.

 

Recounting my half four in the morning endeavours to family and friends, i get the feeling they all think i'm slightly insane.

 

 

[Nightspore]

18 hours ago, Bino-viewer said:

I must be the EMS occultation geek then.

Transits, eclipses and occultations have always fascinated me, perhaps more than anything else in astronomy.

 

Recounting my half four in the morning endeavours to family and friends, i get the feeling they all think i'm slightly insane.

 

 

 Maybe you're a closet astrologer lol. You might find this site interesting.