Last week in Ulverston

[The Warthog]

I had taken my 65mm Konus Mak with me, and Wednesday night was clear, and how clear! I could see more stars than I've seen since the last time I went camping. To see all the stars in the Little Dipper is wonderful to me, and I could see all that and much more.

This was partly a test of the mini-Mak as an astronomical instrument, and it failed. I got the Pleiades in it, which was OK, and then moved over to M42, which was visible, but less than satisfactory. The trapezium resolved as a single, fuzzy star, but it was enough to amaze my cousin and her husband, who hadn't seen it at all before. I got Saturn in the scope, and was able to resolve the rings very nicely at about 40x, and see one moon, undoubtedly Titan.

I tried to get the Leo triplet, but couldn't find it, as the photographic tripod I was using was too short and too fiddly. I had mounted a red-dot finder with double sided tape, which was fairly accurate. I looked around with binoculars at things like M44, and generally gawked about, as I hadn't seen so many stars in so long. I had some difficulty identifying Corona borealis, as it had so many stars around it.

Lesson learned - get a decent travel scope, spotting scopes are for the birds.

[Andrew]

Nights like that when you can see so many more stars are special. Thanks for sharing.

I also need to get a travel scope - at the moment I plan to tell my wife that half our gear needs to stay at home when we go camping so that I can get the 12" dob in the car

[barkis]

Make the most of your remaining time WH, it may be some time before you return to Ulverston.

I hope you are enjoying the holiday, and you have managed a bit of astronomy at least. An ED80 would be a nice G&G for you, although you may already have one. Anyway, pack as much as you can into the next week.

All the Best Ron.