Settling for reasonable targets.

[cotterless45]

Last night the Moon was bleaching out everything, very nice on the perimeteres, especially the Peaks of eternal light.Then I put Neptune and Uranus in the GOTO and had them centre spotted. After that a quick buzz up and down Cygnus and Cassiopeia for star clusters.

The I got thinking, this had been a most enjoyable time well spent , it was the first time that I'd put a small refractor on the GOTO. The stars were pin points and the Moon clear at x220. I'd spent hours under polluted skies with ever increasing aperture looking for faint fuzzies. Any detail unacheivable unless under the darkest skies. I recalled a lot of time spent birdwatching for the rare sight, when I should have been observing the common and reasonable targets.

I think I'll go that direction from now on, there's plenty clusters , globulars and stars easily findable with the smallest of equipment and input, what I might call bread and butter viewing.

Too often some are swayed by unobtainable sights and huge aperature, it's a refreshing excercise to have a thought about what is practical.

Nick.

[Capricorn]

Tend to agree that many times the intention seems simply to tick off that difficult faint object that cannot really be made out.

The simplicity of something easy and obvious gets lost.

Several posts about the full moon and all the problems it gives are active at present.

Not one post saying full moon get out and observe. Agreed it may be bright and the sun is direect on it but it is impressive, good for any webcam imagers, even a straight camera and lens would give a good image. But no everything is a complaint.

[Matt Scunthorpe]

The moon is one of my favourite objects to look at. Spent a bit of time with the binos look last night, was too cold to set up the scope on a work night though. Hopefully if its clear i can get some images tonight, last time it was a full moon and i tried i was dodging clouds.

[Qualia]

Doubles are also a joy to hunt out in troubled sky areas. They be can pondered upon just for their pure physical beauty and if one fancies with a little ingenuity one can try their hand at working out the binaries' position angle and seperation.

[Mike73]

Too often some are swayed by unobtainable sights and huge aperature, it's a refreshing excercise to have a thought about what is practical.

A bit of forward thinking and planning goes a long way which also helps to learn even before you go outside!

[Stu]

I do agree with the sentiment Nick, it's mainly how I observe. I have limited time available, and my skies aren't that dark, so I tend to stick to things I will get a decent view of. I want to expand the list of objects I've seen but will save this for times at dark sites. Doubles and open clusters, globulars and planets are all good.

Like you, I've never put my refractor on my Sphinx mount. I bet it would be very rewarding to do, much more stable than other mounts and no need for continual adjustment so you can concentrate on observing. Will give it a go soon.

Stu

[JamesF]

I spent ages observing the moon last night. Despite being full, I got a lot of detail out of it with the dob. Even after about three hours outside when I was starting to get cold and meant to come in to warm up I went through several iterations of "just one more thing..."

James

[umadog]

I agree. Was doing much the same yesterday. But what's you're exit pupil at 220x? Must be about 0.5 mm? I find I have too many floaters to go exit pupils that small:(

[Stu]

I've got a very annoying floater in my main observing eye which gets in the way when observing planets with my refractor, exit pupil around 0.5mm at x200.

I'm currently experimenting with a binoviewer again to see if I can get more relaxed high power views and avoid the floater. Will report back on progress.

[cotterless45]

I agree. Was doing much the same yesterday. But what's you're exit pupil at 220x? Must be about 0.5 mm? I find I have too many floaters to go exit pupils that small:(

Eye relief was quite pitiful, but it was good to see detail right on the rim. Usually x100 is sufficient. A Moon filter helped with the glare, mercifully I don't get floaters in the right eye.

We get few clear nights here, being in the very murky depths of Middle Earth, it's get out and look, if the sky clears!

Nick.

[Monty]

Must say the Garnet Star is my favourite celestial object. Knocks Andromeda into a cocked hat for me and as for the Pleiades, simply gorgeous.

[Dunkster]

I was just glad to get out there on Thursday night, and at least it made setting up/packing up easy

I adjusted my targets accordingly and after a few tips in other threads had some beautiful views of doubles... Mirach for example, such a delightful contrast between yellow(slightly orange) and what appeared to be blue/violet (in my ES82 11, hope the colours aren't out ). Had a good scoot along the terminator (need a lunar map) which gave some great bumpiness as it wasn't 100% full. Then over to the Double Cluster and a couple of other friends in the vicinity.

If only I could have one active night like that every week, I'd probably be happy

[Dunkster]

Doh! Still couldn't read my moonlit scribbling Meant Almach not Mirach

[jdrose]

I entirely agree. I've just gotten back in to observing with a backpack setup involving a Celestron c90 with a alt/az adaptor on a nice camera tripod. I must say that I've had much, much more fun with this setup than lugging around the behemoth 8"inch scope. Double stars, variable stars, clusters etc are all really fun to look for, as are the planets and moon. I can set up the whole thing in less than 30 seconds.

Truly, the old adage about the best scope being the one you use is true.

[Monty]

Cracking night with the SCT viewing Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune and the Moon. Venus was a little low and light cloud washed out the detail. Had a go for Vesta but I'm not sure so will try again and use the camera so I can compare.

[Dunkster]

I saw more detail than before on Jupiter last night... nice little shadow from Io too