James4

Every two years there's a hullabaloo about Mars coming. As usual, I set up the scope and get my sketchpad (cameras now) ready, only to find a large orange blob in the eyepiece! But last February 14th, there was a high haze in the sky. This was dimming the stars but I wondered if it might improve planetary images by reducing brightness like a filter. I set up the C8, used a Celestron Ultima LX 13mm 2" eyepiece for 150x and within about 10 seconds I could see the polar ice cap - plain as day. Then the dark surface features were visible. Visually, in moments of good seeing, these features were sharper than my image. I almost fell of my observing chair. I used a 1.6x 2" Barlow for 254x and had a great image at that magnification. I used a point and shoot Pentax Optio E30 to shoot video through the eyepiece. Mars showed good surface detail for the next few days from my location. I observed it for hours and tried sketching it too. I found a ND 13% filter was the best at bringing out detail. My friend offered me his two Mars Filters to try. I tried them both and still found the ND filter worked better for me.

I don't sketch often, but Mars was so good I gave it a go. Later I got the camera out and imaged The Red Planet too. My Mars image is from the same session.

Must say I don't like standing in 35 degrees squinting into the eyepiece, but thought I should see what I was missing. This was with a full aperture white light solar filter and Nikon D5000 in video mode.

Imagine the scene. I'm standing in Jack Newton's Observatory in Osoyoos with several other visitors. Jack walks in (in his slippers), asks me for my old Canon 300D and attaches it to the 7" Apo Refractor riding piggy back on his 16" SCT. Then he hands me the controler to about 1/2 ton of telescopes and imaging gear (hanging from them) and tells me to steer onto the Moon while he fetches a cup of tea. All for the price of bed and breakfast at The Observatory Bed & Breakfast. April 2006

One of my first sessions on the driveway with my HEQ5-Pro and Antares 200mm Newtonian. Alas me and the HEQ5-Pro soon parted because of SW failures. Was fun while it lasted. I had to shovel snow off the driveway for this session. Jan 2009