Jump to content

Narrowband

  • entries
    15
  • comments
    5
  • views
    1,225

17/07/10 More without training wheels


crowlord

399 views

Coming home from work it seemed like it would be a clear night and i set up the big scope, only to have heavy clouds roll in. As the EQ5 takes a greater effort then the goto to set up I decided to wait it out, cover was broen enough to polar align so that was a bonus and was quickly and easily achieved I plant to place markers on my lawn (little slabs or something). To act as a hardstanding for the tripod and a ref point for orientation. With this in place polar will rarely be needed at all.

One difference between thunderchild and suki is the collimation. Suki barely needs touching but Thunderchild has needed a tiny tweak every session. I say needed. I'm sure that to anyone but a perfectionist its collimation drift would be wholly undetectable.

I decided to have a bit of a play with my P and S camera on the piggyback taking some largely unsuccessful 8 second shots. Had i waited longer i could probably have had a better result... next time i should get some before i pack up.

With the skies suddenly becoming gloriously clear I decide to have a stroll through the heavens, after taking a look at Mizar and splitting it again i swung around to vega. It was obvious just how much the sky washes out in summer. However i managed to just make out Lyra and was sure i had a glimmering of the milky way to the left of it (stellarium confirms this, its the first time ive actively noticed this!). For the first time i consulted a book as i knew the double double was in lyra, but wasnt sure where. Pinning it down to episilon lyr, i then struggled to spot the target, with the finderscope view significantly more detailed then the sky I struggle to determine that i am viewing the right thing.

After a while i settled on what i thought was the target and was clearly a binary split under 50x mag. Taking the mag up the double double was brilliantly clear with both binaries in different orientations. I should really have more confidence in my pointing skills! stellarium confirmed the target this morning.

My book indicated that Hercules was a close neighbour to lyra so my next task was to locate this massive constellation. I finally made out the keystone asterism and began casting about for M13 which i am sure i saw in the early days with suki and was a diffuse smear of light.

Scanning scanning, OMG. It leaped from the eyepiece at me! The great globular cluster in Hercules was truly great. With a massive number of specks of light in view I must have watched it for a good 30 mins, with each second seeming to note more and more in its densely packed field. I really cannot wait for darker skies if this is what washed out DSOs look like. M13 ticked off my list.

The question was do i now look for another target while i wait for Jupiter or pack up and get some sleep. A quick check on stellarium cleared that one up for me. It wasn't due to appear over my house for a good hr at least. I decided to try for the Dumbell Nebula as i could set my circles on m13. As the coordinates neared however the control knobs on the mount clashed and i still haven't worked out how to read RA on the opposite side. As I had no other target in mind I decided to pack up rather then ruin the night with fustration.

A great unexpected session given the truly dire recent weather and very enjoyable.

0 Comments


Recommended Comments

There are no comments to display.

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue. By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.