Excellent 2nd Light - Sumerian Canopus 16"

[Scooot]

No wind last night so it was much more like normal observing conditions and I was ready to start looking at 9.30pm. Due South of me is my Neighbours house, about 200 yards away, they don't have curtains and I can just about see their main ceiling light if it's on over my garden wall. It's not always on but like last night it was on again and it's a very bright 2/3 light spot of some kind. Tonight I decided to set up a couple of paces down so our cistus bush blocked it from my eyes. When I looked at the mirror I could still see there was quite a bit of surrounding light.

Orion was well placed high above their house so before I aligned the Nexus I thought I'd just use the finder to have a look at this first. Still using my 17.3mm I could see immediately the conditions were much better and more stable. I'd forgotten to bring out my Paracorr so the mag was 104 not 120. I decided to try my 10 mm. As I switched eyepieces I noticed the light had gone out. The mirror just looked darker. Everything was in my face and as I stared I could see masses of swirls in the gas which was spilling out all over the view. The 4 stars of the trapezium were large and spaced out as I'd never seen them before. They were in perfect focus, and I could see a faint star to the right I'd never seen before. As I stared two other faint stars in the trapezium became obvious, one next to the bottom left and one next to the top left. They were very obvious and because of the image scale were well separated from the others. I could barely tear myself away and was busy relaying this to my brother by text. He wanted me to tell him what Jupiter was like because he was deciding whether to image it.

So with my 10mm still in place I moved around to Jove. When I first looked I immediately stepped away again it was so bright. Back at the eyepiece I immediately noticed the size of the moons which were all perfect discs and I could tell that some were different sizes. On the planet itself I could see everything clearly and as I looked spells of incredible clarity showed tremendous detail in all the bands including the smaller ones either side of the main belts.

Eventually I decided it was time to set up the nexus and move on but I needed to go in to get my paracorr so I decided to have a coffee break.

After I came out again I had a great session until about 12.30am when I took the opportunity to look at many clusters. The Auriga clusters were much better tonight and I spent a long time on m37 picking out many more tiny jewels next to the central coloured star.

One of my most memorable views was of the 37 cluster which has become a favourite. At 120x the double, struve 848 within it was sharp and clear but when I increased it to 204 it was lovely.

I finished off the evening looking at the double cluster at 120x but I could only fit one of them in at a time. By sheer coincidence of timing, as I left the scope still looking at NGC 869, NGC 884 slowly drifted into view like a sort of slow motion movie.

I came in feeling very happy with my new scope. I still think the contrast isn't as good as it could be and a shroud will help but it's not as bad as I first feared without one. The seeing wasn't perfect by any means but I now know I'm going to have a lot of fun with this.

[John]

Great stuff Richard

I found that I did need a shroud with my Lightbridge 12" and it did improve contrast. I also use a half moon type light shield at the top end of the tube to keep unwanted light out of the top of the tube and away from the secondary. I still use one of those with my solid tube 12" now. I have a few neighbour / familiy lighting issues to contend with

Sounds like you spotted E & F Trapezium. M42 was looking particularly splendid last night as was Jupiter

[Paul73]

Great report. glad that the scope is living up to expectations.

You'll be able to go a lot deeper into the fainter open clusters. A whole new world! If you swing across a couple of degrees from the bright little 37 cluster to NGC2194 you will see what I mean.

Looking forward to more reports.

Paul

[Scooot]

Great stuff Richard

I found that I did need a shroud with my Lightbridge 12" and it did improve contrast. I also use a half moon type light shield at the top end of the tube to keep unwanted light out of the top of the tube and away from the secondary. I still use one of those with my solid tube 12" now. I have a few neighbour / familiy lighting issues to contend with

Sounds like you spotted E & F Trapezium. M42 was looking particularly splendid last night as was Jupiter

Thanks John, I have a light shield opposite the secondary,but I have wondered whether a dew shield would help as well as it would encircle the whole of the uta.