Astralstroll

Sunday night saw a surprisingly clear sky with very little i the way of cloud cover. Started with M31, as I had unfinished business there. Firstly, worked out a foolproof way to starhop quickly to M31, then set about hunting for M32. My first thought was that tis was the best view of M31 I have had to date with the new Dob. From there, M32 was very small in comparison, but relatively easy to spot. The previous time I was out in this part of the sky, there was no sign of M110. This time, however, I managed to spot the faint blur of M110 with a lot of inverted vision. Also spotted my first ever pair of satellites in close formation. All in all, a god night out with the scope.

Weather and conditions too indifferent to get the Dob out, so opted for the binoculars instead. Despite the not too dark skies, still managed to see a pair of my perennial favourites, namely M31 and M13. Tried to see a couple of other Messiers (M51 and M101) in the vicinity of Ursa Major. I thought I was pushing my luck more than a bit as Alcor and Mizar werent really that separated with naked eye observation. As suspected, no joy on this occasion, which is a pity as my neightbours house is rather inconveniently in the way from where I view with the Dob.

Finally added version 1 of the setting circle. Printed out onto about 8 sheets of A4, cut to size, sellotaped together and then covered in sticky backed plastic. Total cost was 64p. Spray mounted onto the top of the upper base board. Made a pointer from two pieces of metal. Time for the moment of truth! Base was level to about +/- 0.5 degrees. Used Altair and Polaris to check the setting circle. Not spot on when switching between the two, but mostly within about a degree or so. I am assuming it would be beter with a totally flat base. Managed to use the Wixey, the setting circle and the co ordinates from Star Walk on my iPhone to find the following: M13, M31, M57, M56, M27 and eventually with a lot of squinting M32. Moonrise made everyting even more washed out. Should have staed up to see moon and Jupiter clear the neighbours garden, bu it was already geting light. Looking forward to the moon in a better viewing position soon. Nowhere as satisfying as star hopping, but less frustrating Im sure if time is limited. Nest time, I need to have a much more level base Then time for version 2 with a better printed / laminated seting circle as well as maybe a PDA with astro software. The iPhone is OK, but you have to constantly update to get the latest co ordinates. After that, version 3 is a digital encoder, but thats for later in the year. Also got so see a fair few Perseids as well as what looked like two passes of the ISS. Looking forward to working on some levellers next.

Seemed to be nowhere near as dark the second time around. Still, it was a good excuse to work on my star hopping skills. First job was to align te RDF. Seemed easy enough to move left - right, but no joy with up - down. Finally got out the tools and took the RDF to bits and found a very badly placed spring. After replacing the spring and rebuilding, all semed well. Now I wasnt having to compensate for a misaligned RDF any more. Only managed two extra Messiers tonight, M27 and M71. Had a quick look at both M13 and M31 again, but both looked rather washed out. Still, looking forward to a lot of darker nights with better conditions.

Well, I guess Im not the only person who has been cusring the Rain Gods recently! Having ordered my new Dob far too many weeks ago, it duly turned up. My first impression when the delivery driver was unloading the two boxes was that there must be something missing. Thankfully, I was comforted by the words Box 1 of 2 and Box 2 of 2 on the delivery. Later that day, despite near deluge conditions outside I set about unpacking and assembling my new scope. As far as scopes go, it is rather a good looking beast. A couple of days later and the latest addition, a laser collimator from Hotech also arrived. After marevelling at the design of the Hotech laser collimator, for it is truly a wondrous piece of equipment, I set about learning the fabled art of colimation. I had watched numerous video clips, including the one by the designer of the Hotech colimating a Meade Lightbridge, and the legendary "men in black" video clip. After reading the instructions, I installed the laser. The secondary was almost perfect, and only required the smallest of adjustments to hit the doughnut. If only that was the end of the story!! The primary was well off. A lot of adjustment later and all appeared well. I then proceeded to move the scope around on its mount. After checking the collimation again, I was not amused to find that the primary was once again well off!! Adjustment the first time semed hard work, the second time around semed even worse. Something didnt feel right at all. In the midst of the adjustments I managed to totally unscrew one of the adjustment screws and lose the spring somewhere in the lounge! A few cursed mutterings later, well a lot of cursed mutterings later to be honest and the spring was located and reunited with the scope. From that moment on, it took literally seconds to collimate the primary! Not sure if something was amiss from the start, but all seemed well afterwards. Come the weekend, I had the chance of a darker garden than my own for the Dobs first outing. It was duly dismantled and packed into the car and transported to Somerset and reassembled. A whole sunny and glorious Friday and Saturday followed, with cloudy skies both evenings. Come Sunday, the scope was dismantled and loaded back intot he car without being usd in anger. Back at the ranch it was unloaded and reassembled once again. As the evening headed towards eleven pm and the latest episode of Wallander was but a dim and distant memory I spurned the lure of the German Grand Prix highlights as the sky was looking as clear as I had seen it in a long time. After all the dismantling, transport and rebuilding the collimation was still spot on, much to my surprise. It was time t head outside and see what I had been eagerly waiting for. Armed with a flask of strong coffee, my iPhone, torch and Turn Left at Orion, I was all set. Using my not yet adjusted red dot finder and compensating for the offset I had discovered after sighting it on Vega, I set about bagging a few Messier objects. The following were found with varying degrees of difficulty: M13, M92, M57, M56 and M31 (at long last!!!). By far the most spectaclar was M13.I found M31 was somewhat of a disappointment, but I was viewing it in competition with two street lights in the close vicinity. In addition to the modest haul of Messiers, I also saw several meteors, the local police helicoptor (thankfully without the bad guy chasing spotlight switched on) and a small frog who had decided to hide under the base of the Dob. After returning the scope indoors, I made a fresh coffee, grabbed the binoculars and had a peep at Jupiter and Venus. Unfortunately, they were too low to be visible using the Dob owing to a rather inconveniently located fence and garage. The following evening, the sky was nowhere as clear, but despite this I still managed to track down M27 and M71. Tuesday evening was a night out for curry (special Biryani) and beer (x3), so apart from watching the moon set on the walk home, it was a viewing free night. I have given my self a rule, no manhandling the scope whilst under the influence! Wednesday evening was very hazy and esentially a wash out. However, I took the opportunity to align the red dot viewer. This proved to be a lot of fun, as the elevation screw appeared to do nothing! After a small bit of dismantling and relocaing a spring that looked very out of place, all was well. Checked the alignment on a few stars that were visible. Then set about trying my newest gadget, the Wixey digital inclinometer. After checking the base was as level as I could get it, I found that the Wixey was within about 0.5 degrees of the Alt reading I got from Starwalk. All in all, after a bit of teething trouble, I am happy with my new scope. My only niggle is that if I could go back to the day I ordered it, I might have opted for the 12". However, even as I am typing this, I am thinking of what mods I can do to the scope I got. The next is likely to be a setting circle. I like the idea of a digital one, but am not sure there is enough clearance between the bottom of the scope and the dob base. Looks like it might have to be a paper setting circle to begin with. That, and saving up for some more eyepieces and filters. Then I need a case to keep the eyepieces in. And do I need to upgrade to a TelRad. Is there room to squeeze in a finderscope as well? I can see a long list for Santa coming along. So until the next clear night, I can flick through "Turn Left" and dream of more DSOs to hunt down.