Posts Made By: Kim Colter

Ed
I have seen the Horsehead, Barnard 33, in 20 inch, 30 inch, and 40 inch Dobs. I have seen it twice in the last week in a 20 inch Starmaster using an H-beta filter from my house, where on really transparent nights the Cygnus rift in the Milky Way is visible. I think really transparent nights are necessary to see the Horsehead. I have seen it without H beta filter in the 40 inch, but I would say to not bother looking for it without an H-beta filter. I cannot answer what the minimum necessary in the way of dark skies is for the Horsehead. Every location I have seen it from is one in which the Milky Way is visible to the naked eye. The H beta will be useful in a smaller aperture wide field scope to see the California nebula in Perseus which is usually visible the same evening as the Horsehead. I would use low power for the Horsehead in the largest aperture scope you have access to. You will find the flame nebula which is very close by much easier to find. I often tell folks who are seeing the Horsehead for the first time to think of a completely black silhouette laid atop an almost black background. When you see the Horsehead you will be glad you've seen it, but you won't be overwhelmed, it is not like your first glimpse of the Orion nebula or anything.
M78 is much easier to find and visualize than the Horsehead. The Horsehead is just below Alnitak, the eastern star of the three in Orion's belt. M78 is above this star.

I had a 20 inch Starmaster and a 7 inch refractor set up early this morning. The horsehead was seen nicely in the Starmaster with H-beta filter in 31 Nagler. I took the 31 Nag and H-beta filter over and put it in the 7 inch refractor. With great difficulty I could see the horsehead with averted vision. I would not have seen it if I hadn't had the larger scope to "imprint" its position and orientation on my cortex. I think with my eyes and my skies that more than 7 inches of aperture is needed to convincingly see the horsehead. I did not try the Horsehead without the H-beta filter in the Starmaster. My observing cap is tipped to those who are seeing the Horsehead in modest apertures without a filter.

Wes
Will the tracking system on your 18 inch Starmaster keep the planet on your chip at a focal length of 42 feet!? I greatly enjoy the drive system on my Starmaster, but during visual use notice some significant drift of the object in the field, sometimes more than others. Did you have to keep "re-acquiring" the planet to image at this focal length? Thanks for posting your astonishing images.
Best
Kim

Gregg
I am a badly obsessed visual astronomer and may have as bad a case of aperture fever as anybody I know. I own a 40 inch f5 Dob in a roll off roof at a dark site. I have several premium refractors and equatorial mounts to put them on. The scope I use the most is a 20 inch Starmaster that sits fully assembled in my garage (the car stays outside,it is worth much less to me than my 20 Starmaster.) I envelop the whole scope in a tarp which keeps the mirror clean. I can roll the scope out on the driveway, initialize on two stars, engage the GoTo system, and be observing before the 4 minute timer turns off the garage light. It is ironic that the largest scope I have at my house is the quickest set up, and the one I use the most. When the medium and deep blue seeing on the clear sky clock are present, the best planetary and lunar images I get are from this 20 inch Starmaster, better than can be had in Zeiss and AP refractors that are sitting side by side with this 20 inch. The Zambuto optics in the Starmaster scopes are absolutely superb. Deep sky images are amazing. I have seen Pease 1, the planetary in M15 from my driveway in mag 5.2 skies with this scope. Look through the CCD forum at the planetary and lunar images that Wes posts that are taken in Oklahoma using a 14 inch Starmaster and now an 18 inch Starmaster. I have personally visually seen a view of Mars during the last opposition that looked like the Mars image he has posted on the Starmaster web site.
I don't think for a minute that you should hesitate to go for the 20 inch aperture. I would encourage you to acquire a scope that is as easy to use as my 20 inch Starmaster is. I cannot compare the ease of use and images in an Obsession to the ones I see in my Starmaster. I can tell you that you would never be disappointed with an 18 or 20 inch Starmaster.

Dmitri
Your perseverance in the cold was well rewarded. Your post reminded me of my first look at the more distant Coma cluster of galaxies centered around NGC 4889, NGC 4874, and NGC 4886. With a 31 Nagler in a 40 inch Dob it is possible to count sixty galaxies in a single eyepiece field, much like the image on the Astronomy Picture of the day archive for Feb 3, 2002. I know what you mean about such nights constituting near religious experiences, and providing a glimpse of the structure of the universe.

Michael
I don't know that TON 490 would be the most distant object seen visually through a telescope, but it's a good start. See Maurice's Clark excellent web article and finder charts at http://www.acad.carleton.edu/curricular/PHYS/Faculty/MClark/dsc.htm. If the link doesn't work just type "TON 490 quasar" in the google search engine and it should come up at the top of the list. I have seen TON 490 with the 40" f5 Dob using Maurice's excellent finder charts. There may be quasars with even larger red shifts that can be picked up visually in large aperture amateur instruments. There is something a tad overwhelming about staring in the eypiece and realizing the significance of the dim fuzzy you are seeing. I used to say I was seeing very "old light" but then got to thinking about what happens to time at the speed of light and I'm not sure I can sell the idea of "ancient photons" to anybody who is up on their relativity physics. Good (quasar)hunting.

Dave
Thanks for the "heads up" on this one. Tonight's clear sky clock looks like a cloud out but the clear sky clock for midnight and beyond on Thursday looks very encouraging. I hope to get a chance to have a look at this supernova. Thanks again.

The Starmaster is an excellent idea. I would buy as much aperture as you can afford in a Starmaster and save a little for a washcloth to wipe the drool off your chin and your shoes that will inevitably occur as you stand open mouthed at the eyepiece on those nights of Pickering 8 and 9 seeing you get in south Florida. If your part of Florida has seeing anything like what I have experienced at WSP you are a lucky man to live where you live. You must learn to collimate these fast scopes very well. Look at the images Wes Higgins takes through his Starmasters. You see things like that at the eyepiece in exceptionally good seeing.

Bill
In really excellent seeing conditions I will end up using 50X per inch of aperture in premium apos on Saturn, and rarely more than 250 to 300X on Jupiter regardless of aperture (including in a 20 inch Starmaster with Zambuto mirror.) On lunar detail I may approach the mags used on Saturn.

With the first quarter moon in the sky and medium aperture I would pick some of the brighter deep sky objects. You may still get a decent look at M42 when it first gets dark if your observing site allows it. I think the Eskimo nebula will hold up pretty well in moonlight. M46 with planetary nebula might be worth looking at. M81 and M82 should be OK in spite of the moonlight. A bright globular cluster should get their attention--I suppose M3 will be the first one you'll have a shot at as the evening progresses. You may be able to get M5 and M13 by the end of your evening. I don't know if bright double stars would interest the kids or not. They certainly can be well seen in spite of the moonlight.