8 March 2014 - Collimation

Since even before I bought the scope collimation has always been on the mind. Like most newbies the thought of tampering around with the mirrors is not a welcoming job. However in my quest to get the best out of my budget scope I thought the least I could do was try and check it. Even before I had bought a collimator I had watched a couple of videos on how to do it, well it was more than a couple as there were several covering the Cheshire and the Laser. My scope doesn't have a centre spot on the primary so that was another hurdle to get over. Fortunately I got some advice over the phone from Alan at Scopes and Skies who gave me a work around that didn't entail pulling the scope apart. Yes it's not as quick as having a centre spot, but for a newbie it was by far the preferred way of doing this for the first time.

Rather than going in to the whole details I did create a forum post in the Beginners section that can be found below.

http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/210348-first-collimation-newbie/

10 March 2014 - Clear Skies

The forecast and weather for Cumbria (like most of the country) has finally changed. No more dodging cloud and having viewing sessions ranging from a few minutes to a couple of hours. So with the first night of clear skies forecast all night the plan was to head off to the local dark sky site being only a 10 minute drive away.

After getting home from work and having tea, my 10 year old daughter who often attends the local society with me wanted to come along. So the car was loaded up and the sky was still fairly light from the sun, so we decided to wait a while until the effect of the sun subdued a bit. It wasn't long and after a 10 minute drive arrived in the car park for where we were going to setup. By now most of the effects of the sun has gone from the sky. However with a moon only being a few days before reaching a full moon, it was a very bright night. You could clearly see to setup the scope from scratch, only requiring extra light to see the spirit level.

With the night sky so bright it was far from what I had been hoping to see with only the very brightest of stars visible in any direction. However this didn't stop me and I was soon hunting for objects and experimenting with the DSLR and a wide angled lens. After only a couple of images I soon decided that anything with the DSLR was not going to work on this night with the camera on a tripod, so I spent the next couple of hours at the scope and with my binoculars. My daughter did venture out of the car a couple of times, but she was more than happy being in the car with my other pair of 10x25 binoculars I keep in the car and playing on her phone.

Not too many objects were viewed on such a clear night. However I did get a few images of the moon prime focus. It's quite amazing that with such a small amount of objects to look at, just how long you can still spend outside. I knew it was time to pack up when my feet were getting cold.

Here is one of the images I took of the moon on the night.

Although I didn't achieve anything near what I had hoped, I still do not think that it was a wasted night. After all I had only ever been to the location once before and that wasn't with a scope or binoculars, so in fact the bright skies helped me with the first visit. Strangely though when I got home I could probably see more in the sky than when I was out in the open and I had street lights to contend with. Must have been down to the fact that you could shelter up against a hedge or wall and cut out portions of the sky.

11 March 2014 - Clear Skies Day 2

After the previous night I wasn't keen to head back to the dark sky site with such a bright sky. So this time it was back out in the back garden on the decking as I was only going to be primarily looking at the moon and Jupiter.

First up it was time with the moon. Initially just viewing and this time slipping in the ND filter that I had bought. Certainly made things a little easier on the eye. The DSLR captured a few images while I was concentrated on the subject and then moving over to the xBox webcam.

Moon with DSLR

Moon with WebCam and stacked with Registax

After an enjoyable time with the moon is was a small pan over to Jupiter. The best as usual I could get visually was to get the two atmosphere bands flickering every now and then. With a couple of failed attempts with the webcam not being able to capture any detail I had another try. This time I left the ND filter in to see if I could get any more detail. To my surprise I could start to get something a bit more on the laptop screen. Now it may also have been better viewing conditions or better focusing but at least more was being shown. Recording the video I was more hopeful that when I processed the video there would be more showing.

Well there was as below, a quick go at it and I know it's very pink but there was detail there.

I then did a little more on this the following night to take out some of the pink.

With the main two objects seen it was starting to get late, so a lot of the gear was taken back indoors left to air in the warmer air when it was soon covered in condensation and left to slowly clear. I then just spent time at the scope looking for something, more like attempting yet again to try and find M81 and M82 which I haven't been able to find. The scope was pointed to the rough direction and the RA axis locked with the MD still running. Slowly sweeping the scope along the Dec axis, I would then just unlock and move the RA axis over an EP width, lock again and then sweep back along the Dec. Looking for anything that wasn't a star. After a few minutes I spotted a very faint smudge, concentrating on the smudge I was sure that I had found one of the objects I had been looking for. Back in the house to grab the laptop again and fired up Stellarium fixed on M81 and M82 and changing the view to what I should be seeing with my EP. Now what I could see was no where near as bright as what Stellarium was showing, more than likely some of the moon was having an effect. However what I was seeing was one of the shapes. So looking for some nearby stars as a guide I could work out where I was. Now if someone could have seen me I had the laptop turned at all angles to get my bearings with what was in the EP. After deciding where I was, a little nudge and I had both in the EP.

At last I had found M81 and M82 and a great end to a nice evening.

Wednesday and the fog had moved in, the same for Thursday and Friday has seen us back with cloud again for what seems the foreseeable future.