Jupiter and the Moon

[F15Rules]

I've been frustrated lately by the continual cloud, with the odd clear night falling when I couldn't get out.

At last, we had a good clear sky last night..unfortunately the sky was still dominated by the waning Moon, still at around 3/4 full, so I decided just to spend my couple of hours looking at the Moon and Jupiter.

I got my Evo 6" F8 and Lomo 6" F14 Mak out to cool (didn't take long as they live in the garage anyway:)). I've recently moved to 2" eyepieces and have a nice mix of Celestron Axiom and Ultima LX's from 7mm to 32mm. They all barlow well and with my 2x ED barlow I can get down to 3.5mm on my 7mm Axiom - great for high power in the F8 Evo, around x320, but a bit high on the Mak with it's long FL..7m is about x300, so I barlow my 13mm Ultima to get around x320 when conditions allow.

The first up was the Moon with my brand new 13mm Ultima LX. One of the things I love about these eps is the real heft they carry, great for helping to balance what is a very front heavy OTA. This ep gives around x90 in the Evo, and what a superb, sharp image it was too. Achromats get panned sometimes for CA, but I personally think this characteristic is overplayed.. my Evo gives just a slight yellow or violet tinge at the limb on the Moon and Jupiter, but it doesn't stop the image from being extremely crisp and sharp. And the wide 70-82deg field of these eps means that even at high powers, the view is spectacular.

In the Lomo the new 13mm gives about x180, which is a great relatively high power for Moon and Planets. The contrast last night was badly reduced by the proximity of the Moon to Jupiter, but nevertheless the image was very pleasing..seeing was good, and at around 1am I could see the GRS emerging into view as Jupiter's fast rotation came into play. Each of the 4 main moons were resolved as tiny, but distinct disks. Irregularities in the two main bands were evident, and several fainter bands were suspected in moments of good seeing - I am sure that when the Moon has left us with dark skies, these bands will be much plainer to see.

So, all in all a satisfying couple of hours, with two 6" scopes, both of high performance, yet so different. The Moon in the Lomo is just jawdropping..absolutely zero CA, just a leaden, black and grey world which revealed an amazing amount of detail at the terminator, and with Copernicus and his rays dominating the rest of the view.

I'd highly recommend the Axiom and Ultima EPs with these scopes, with big wide fields and yet great high power capabilities.

clear skies

Dave:)

[faulksy]

good review mate.nice read

[Astro Imp]

That was a great report, really enjoyed the read.

[F15Rules]

Thanks for the nice comments guys, glad you enjoyed it..:-)

Dave