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I spent tonight observing the winter sky through my TeleVue Ranger. This is an excellent grab and go telescope and shows pin point stars. I started with the comet. Comet Machholz looked magnificent at x20. From this dark sky the comets dust tail was very obvious but I was still unable to see the Ion tail.

Located near the star Menkib in Perseus. NGC 1499 is a difficult nebula to see visually. Fortunately with Paul C’s H-Beta filter and my 24mm Panoptic (king of the 1 1/4 eyepiece's) NGC 1499 was easily visible, as a wisp of pale light located between the magnitude 6.39 star HD 18769 and magnitude 6.98 star HD 24747. This is the first time I have seen this nebula.

I was not able to see this nebula through my TeleVue Ranger. But it was an easy target through Kevin Thurston’s 12” Dobsonian. He used a high power eyepiece and Paul’s OIII filter. The nebula is a faint haze surrounding the open cluster NGC 2244, which I did manage to see through my own telescope.

I have seen M42 through this telescope before and tonight it was as clear as ever at x20. I then added my x2 Orion Optics Barlow that gave me x40. At this magnification the nebulosity seemed to grow. I could see the dark nebula known as the fish’s mouth, together with bright wisps of nebulosity stretching out from the Orion Nebula. Inside the Orion Nebula I could see the four stars of the Trapezium. I was also able to see the faint reflection nebula NGC 1980. This nebula surrounds the star Iota Orion. It is very similar to the Merope or Thumb Print nebula in the Pleiades. NGC 1980 is visible as bright patch of gray, light with a hint of blue color.

Through the little TeleVue both these galaxies fit nicely into my 24 mm panoptic eyepiece. Although small you can see detail in M82 and see the circular nebulous glow of M81.

I saw the faint glow of this huge nebula through my 24 mm Pan and Paul’s H-Beta filter. When you know where to look this nebula is clearly visible a ghostly white glow against the background sky.

This is one of the skies finest naked eye open clusters. Through the TeleVue and 24 mm Pan. M45 fills the FOV. You can see nebulosity surrounding the star cluster; and the brightest is of cause the Merope nebula. This surrounds the star Merope, and appears as a bright blue “Smudge”.

This is sparse open cluster in Cancer. It contains many faint stars, which were all visible through my 24 mm Panoptic.

M35 is always nice to observe in any instrument. At x20 you can see M35 and the near by open cluster NGC 2158. M35 is big and bright, and is situated near the star Eta Geminorum. The best views of M35 are when it is near the meridian, which at this time of year is around 23:00.

I also spent some time just looking through the telescope and using my 35 mm Celestron Ultima that gives me a low power (x13) and large field of view. I was fortunate enough, to see the messier star clusters M36, M37, M38, and M 48.

What made tonight’s observing session more enjoyable was the company. Paul Clark and myself were joined by further members of Altrincham Astronomical Society, who were.

Don Utton (80 mm Sky Watcher), Richard Bullock (Meade LX90), Kevin and Norman Thurston (12” Callisto), Mark Crossley (80 mm Megrez) and Nick D (Tal 1).

This was a short session tonight. I took the opportunity to catch a break in the clouds and traveled up to The Gradbach Observing site and join ADAS chairman Paul Clark. The reason for this was to see Comet Q2 Machholz under dark sky's. Despite bright moonlight, we were able to see Q2 Machholz with out optical aid. Through the TeleVue and Paul's Borg, the comet looked round and fuzzy with a tight bright nucleus. There was a one degree tail visible at 11 o'clock.

We also had a good look at M42 and I enjoyed comparing the views through my TeleVue Ranger with Paul's 4" Borg Apo and, the ADAS Bino's. The views were just superb. I was able to see the Fishes Mouth and the Trapezium Stars. NGC1980 and the open cluster CR 72 were very clear. I was also introduced to the running man with I have never seen before.

I was using a magnification of x20 and I was also able to see M1, M35, NGC 2158, M44, M78, M81/82, NGC 2244, (but not the Rosette nebula)

It was a really superb evening. Paul and I were able to trace the Milky Way from Cassiopeia up to the Zenith and down through Auriga and then Orion. This is the first time I was able to see the Galaxy at this time of the year. One reason why it was so visible was probably due to all the wet weather which has cleaned the air. I was very impressed with Paul's 4" Borg. Is a very nice piece of kit the stars were pin sharp which you would expect from an apo.

This observing site in Staffordshire is one of the darkest sites in my area. Typical N-L-M (naked eye limiting magnitude) can range between magnitude 5 and 6. Tonight the NLM was magnitude 5.2. This was because the air was misty which was causing light scatter from Macclesfield in the north and Buxton in the east. Despite this we could see the "Milky Way" stretching from Cassiopeia in the east through Cygnus and gradually descending through Aquila in the south. It was nice to see the stars of winter which are now becoming more and more dominant in the east as the weeks progress. I spent the evening observing "DSO's" (deep sky objects). My long time project is the Herschel 400 catalogue, which I have just started. The 12" is in Orion Optics for a mirror re-coat, I have opted for the Hilux coating which I am told will improve contrast and reflectivity. The telescope I used tonight was my Vintage Orion 8" f/6 which I last used in 2001 before the arrival of the 12". Below is a brief summary of the H400 objects I have seen so far.

Her 58 NGC 40 PN in Cephus Her 79 NGC 129 OC in Cassiopeia Her 35 NGC 136 OC in Cassiopeia Her 78 NGC 225 OC in Cassiopeia Her 64 NGC 381 OC in Cassiopeia

Her 64? NGC 436 OC in Cassiopeia Her 42 NGC 457 OC in Cassiopeia Her 48 NGC 559 OC in Cassiopeia Her 49 NGC 637 OC in Cassiopeia Her 191 NGC 651 PN in Perseus

Her 46 NGC 654 OC In Cassiopeia Her 65 NGC 659 OC in Cassiopeia Her 31 NGC 663 OC in Cassiopeia Her 33 NGC 869 OC in Perseus Her 34 NGC 884 OC in Perseus

Her 66 NGC 1027 OC in Cassiopeia Her 53 NGC 1501 PN in Camelopardalis Her 47 NGC 1502 OC in Camelopardalis Her 61 NGC 1528 OC in Perseus

Her 85 NGC 1545 OC in Perseus Her 44 NGC 2403 GX in Camelopardalis Her 242 NGC 2681 GX in Ursa Major

It was a pity that we didn't have Jupiter or Saturn visible tonight because the seeing was ANT 1. It was perfect. I was using my 4.75" OG and at high power stars were sharp pinpoints with out any undulations, you could drive a bus through Epsilon Lyrae "Double Double".

We arrived at the farm at 7:30 and finished our observing session at 23:10. So what did we see.

I arrived at the Farm at 19:30 and I begin to set up my DX300, at that time there was considerable cloud cover but myself and Chris H were able to watch the First Quarter Moon occult Theta Ophiuchi mag 3.26. It was still cloudy but I was able to do my three star alignment and collimation.

21:45 hrs. Clear sky's, the naked eye limiting magnitude was +5.5/6.0 with the Milky Way "in your face" I do not think I have seen it this bright

The Veil Nebula NGC-6992/6995. Through my 24-8 mm Vixen LV and OIII filter the Veil was just stunning, you could clearly see detail with in the nebula. In the brighter portions of the nebula we were able to see faint braids of nebulosity.

I also had a good look at M13 and M92. Both objects were resolved to the core.

I then had a look at NGC-6905 the Blue Flash nebula in Delphinus. With the OIII the nebula is round and quite large. When the filter is removed you do begin to see color.

Next was NGC-7320. This is the brightest member of Stephens Quintet. This magnitude 12.6 galaxy was clearly visible in my 24-8 mm (75x) with the other members just visible with averted vision.

Uranus. It was nice to see Uranus and at low power Mu Cap mag 5.06 was also visible. The view through the eyepiece at x150 was very pleasing.

The planet was a distinct green disk. Chris H thought he could see a couple of "MOONS" but I don't know?.

The moons have now been identified as GSC-5801-0693 mag 11.87 and GSC-5801-0493 mag 12.82

M31/M32/M110. I had a chance to view all three galaxies through my 35 mm Ultima eyepiece (x34) You could even begin to see the galaxy's dust lanes.

I also had a look at some PK planetary nebulae but they were very small with little detail visible. I did see PK 80- 6.1 the Egg Nebula but again it was dim with little detail visible. And M27 which is big and bright in any telescope.

During moments of steady seeing the detail visible was sharp and clear, at the time of observation the GRS was not visible. I did see both the NEB and SEB as well as various festoons.

I counted five moons. Tethys, Dione, Rhea, Titan, and Enceladus. At 450x I could see detail in the rings. The Cassini division was well defined but I could not detect the Encke gab.

These brief observations of Jupiter and Saturn are probably the best yet. And at 21:28 hrs we saw the ISS/Space Shuttle, fly over.

Comet I-Z. though the 35 mm and 12" was quite stunning. I can see a bright "Green-Blue" nucleus and a good fanned tail. With the naked eye the comet does not quite hit you but with averted vision you can see it.

Both galaxies fit into the fov of my 24-8 mm zoom ep (24 mm x50). They are both small round and bright. Unfortunately there was a lot of cloud in this part of Leo which made observations difficult. But when the clouds cleared both objects were visible. I could not see any of the fainter galaxies which are visible in larger scopes.

NGC 3193 and NGC 3190 were easily seen at 50x as well as NGC 3185 which is slightly above and to the right of NGC 3190. Chris thought he could see NGC 3187 but I am not sure . These galaxies differ in brightness, NGC 3193 and 3190 are bright but NGC 3185 was more of a challenge. At magnitude 13 I had to use averted vision to see it..

At 50x this Edge-On spiral galaxy is a gray needle of light which is slightly brighter towards the nucleus.

This is another Edge-On spiral galaxy and at 50x appears faint.. Higher magnification reveals more detail. I thought I could detect its kinked appearance.

Yet another Edge-On spiral galaxy. Which is bright in my 12" at x50. x100 and the galaxy looks like its name "The Silver Needle Galaxy".

This is one of my favorite globular clusters. At x50 M3 is resolved into thousands of stars. x150 you can see it to the core, It's a very nice spring globular

At x150 M82 blew my socks off. You can see the brighter HII reigns quite easily. This galaxy is mottled with the dust lanes very clear.

Despite the occasional gust we had a very pleasant nights observing. And it was nice to compare the views through my 12" with the views through Chris's Big Miyauchi 20x77 binoculars which are simply superb.

Observed the comet again, and it is now unmistakable to the naked eye. Through my 10x50 binoculars the comet is small but very bright, I estimate its magnitude to be + 3.00 with a +3.5 magnitude tail. I don't know how long the tail is but from a good dark sky it must be about 5 deg in length, I was observing from my home in Macclesfield.

I also saw it through the 4.75" "OG" and 35 mm eyepiece. It looks lovely with a bright condensed nucleus and clear tail you can begin to see detail in the nucleus when the seeing steady's, a series of tiny ripples are visible on and off, which suggest to me that the comet, like, Hale-Bopp is rotating and that we are seeing jets of material.

This has to be the best comet visible since Hale-Bopp in 1996/97. Over the next couple of days Comet I-Z will lie very close to M31 which should give astro imagers the chance to get some nice wide field shots of I-Z and the mighty Andromeda Galaxy.

This image of Comet Ikeya-Zhang was taken using an MX916 CCD and Meade LX200 10" SCT

The image was taken by Chris Heapy and Tom Coope at Tom's observatory in Chelford Cheshire.

Through the 4.75" OG at 41x this comet reminds me of how Comet Hyakutake looked before it reached its brightest in the Spring of 1996. It looks like a comet should, with a tight bright coma and a good 2 degree tail which is fanned.

I did try to see the Iron tail but the comet is still to low in the West. It is well worth keeping an eye on because it is climbing out of the haze, and personally I predict that it will be between mags 3.0 and 3.5 towards the end of March and beginning of April.

Had a very good view tonight from Siddington. Through the 35 mm "Ultima" eyepiece the comets nucleus is brighter than last Thursday, and also the tail is now over 3 deg in length. Magnitude estimates are still difficult but probably +4.0for the coma and 4.5 or possibly 5.0 for the tail?.

I have positively Identified the NEO 1998 WT24 at 21:45 hrs GMT on
Sunday December 16th.

Using my 12" DX300 GOTO I typed in the co-ords printed in the latest
BAA Circular and using a magnification of x150 slewed the scope to the
correct position. Then just to double check I was in the right area I
did a High Precision Pointing and centered the star Epsilon Persi
which is double in my eyepiece.
I was then able to go back to the area of WT24 and I noticed a bright
star in the center of my eyepiece.

After a couple of minutes observation I was able to detect WT24's
movement amongst the background stars. The NEO was also the brightest
object in the field.

To further confirm this was WT24, I placed my 5 mm Vixen LV in my
scope (x240) and placed the suspected WT24 just in the edge of the EP
field. After a couple of minutes WT24 was seen slowly moving into the
eyepiece field and was closing in a mag 10 orange star which was
stationary in my eyepiece. I do not know at present what this star is
called.

When I first began observing Jupiter, Io, was in the middle of a shadow transit (20:38hrs) and you could see a nice black dot moving across the face of this giant world. I was also able to view the GRS.

00:30 hrs GMT. Using a x240 the planet really is sharp and very clear. The SEB is very distinct and is the colour of rust. I noticed a large "Black" chevron in bedded in the SEB as well as couple of "Barges" also South-East of the SEB there are numerous white ovals visible. The planets SPR appears mottled and I can see both the SSTZ and SSTB. The STB is dark. The STropZ is very pale as is the NEB. I noticed also that in the NEB I could see several white ovals. Like the SPR, the NPR also appeared mottled. When the seeing became steady the view was stunning and I was able to increase magnification to x300 (x100 + 2x Barlow)

At x240 "WOW" the planet is clear and sharp the disk is very clear with noticeable cloud belts visible. You can drive a bus through the Cassini Division, I can also see a faint pale gap between the A ring and ring A2. Could this be the Encke Division?. I also thought I could detect markings in the B2 ring these appeared as a series of lines. At x300 I could make out the NEB and the darker NPR. Five of the Planets satellites were also visible, Tethys, Dione, Titan, Rhea, Iapetus.

In all I had a very good nights observing here in Macclesfield. And guess what it's snowing now as a I am writing this report.

Well despite getting my new telescope from Orion Optics today and expecting it to be cloudy tonight, I was pleasantly surprised when I noticed at 21:00 the sky clearing. So I went out side and set the DX300 up.

The DX mount is heaver than my old GP, but not to worry you need the extra weight for this size newt. I soon had the OTA mounted to my tube rings and after taking time to carefully balance the OTA and Mount I did a 3 star alignment using Capella Arcturus and Regulus and with my SS2K-Pc I was able to slew to a couple of favourite DSO's. Although the pointing accuracy was out the scope did manage to put the selected objcet in the field of my 10x50 finder .

Using my 8-24 mm Vixen LV zoom eyepiece I slewed the scope towards M3 and when it had stopped I found this lovely globular in the eyepiece field . I could see stars to the core something I've never seen before. I then found M51/NGC-5195 and again the galaxy was near the center of my ep. You could just make out M51's spiral arms and you could also see the connecting dust lane which connects NGC-5195 to M51. The galaxy was very sharp in the ep. I then did a preliminary star test and I am happy to say that every thing checks out stars are text book perfect I was even able to collimate the Mirror, I will make more adjustments when the weather is better.

So despite the near 1st quarter moon and cloud I am satisfied that I have a great telescope and mount, I did have a bit of trouble keeping Vega centered in the eyepiece, it started to drift and then stopped. This only started happening after I adjusted my tube so I could view M13, before that every thing was ok. I suspect that the balance my be a little out which would cause the R.A drift. Before the adjustment I had the scope balanced in both axis.

This morning I found out why my pointing was out. When you position the mount so that it is pointing East-West i.e. mirror cell pointed east. I noticed the DEC circle was not set properly. With the tube, level, in this position it read +90 and it should read +0 which now it does. If you have one of Vixens mounts and SS2K this is critical other wise you can loose valuable time when aligning on 3 stars only to discover that you only have 1/2 star alignment. Now all I need is another clear sky tonight..

Tonight I set my DX300 up at one of my local dark sky sites. It is a Lay By near the Village of Hendbury. Although the site is far from ideal. There is a lot of sky glow towards the North from Wilmslow and in the south from Stoke on Trent. It does have the advantage of only being five minutes drive from my home.

I arrived there at 21:00 and found Chris H setting up his 16" dob, and later in the evening we were joined by Paul Clark who had his OMC140 and Colin Henshaw.

I continued my observations of the Her 400 list, and I also found the Abell 1656 Galaxy cluster which is better known as Coma 1, this cluster was very difficult to see.

NGC-4631 her 400. Mag 10.0 Gal , Cvn. Elongated gray streak. There is a noticeable bulge towards the galaxies nucleus.

NGC-5033 her 400. Mag 10.0 Gal, Cvn. This galaxy is very fine and resembles a thin needle with a much brighter core.

NGC- 4214 her 400. Mag 10.5 Gal, Cvn. Very faint and difficult to resolve because the sky is so bright. I must try again when the sky's become darker.

Abell 1656 Galaxy cluster. NGC 4874 is one of the brighter members of this cluster. The galaxy is elongated and surrounding the field are a number of fainter galaxies which are difficult to see visually. Even with the "Car Blanket" and averted vision they appear as tiny "Fuzzy" dots .

NGC-4565. Mag 9.6 Gal, Com 150x 8.mm LV Zoom . The 12" Shows how big this galaxy is . It is long and very bright, the galaxy covers the entire width of field of the 8 mm eyepiece. An amazing sight.

NGC-6058. Mag 13.3 Pn, Her. LV Zoom O111 filter. I was surprised to see how bright it is. A clear round ball of nebulosity slightly brighter towards the middle.

M13. Mag 5.8 Glo, Her. 8. mm LV Zoom 150x. M13 in my 12" is just fantastic. It is very big and bright and is resolved right to the clusters core. The core is much brighter than the surrounding area.

When I used my 35 mm Ultima 34x. I had a really great view of M13 . The cluster was small and bright in a bright star field, it looks like a ball of cotton wool at this magnification.