Baader/Zeiss prism first light

[John]

The somewhat featureless face it is presenting isn't helping, but it is wobbling around making it difficult to pick features out. The cap is clear enough, and I can see the dark feature running under it. Is there a white cloud at 3 o'clock ish, if the cap is 12?

All rather frustrating, one of those nights where you question the scope but I know it is the skies.

Stu

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I noticed 3/4 other bright areas apart from the N polar cap. 2/3 of them seemed in a cluster near the w limb and another was near the E limb. With the exception of the dark areas framing the N and S polar zones, the central area of the disk seemed mottled with the moments of good seeing allowing the mottling to distill into quite a number of small dark markings, some slightly elongated. The contrast differences and sharpness of definition between these areas come and go with the seeing though hence my description of the overall effect as being mottled.

I'm having to work hard at picking these features out though and 265x is showing better definition than 318x due to the conditions. The best eyepiece on Mars this evening has been the Vixen SLV 6mm - it's a cracking planetary eyepiece   

[Stu]

Well I'm all packed up now, afraid the conditions weren't good enough to do anything much in terms of assessing the prism, other than to say it looker sharper than my normal diagonal on Algieba when I did a quick swap.

John, the seeing improved a little towards the end, and I picked out most of the features you describe, but it was hard going. I've seen Mars look far better in this scope so it will have to wait for another chance, soon I hope.

Stu

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[jetstream]

Good try Stu,not much we can do when the sky doesn't co operate.Last night I went to a dark site,the forcast was good.....the Aurora Borealis ended up covering 1/3 of the whole sky-very beautiful-but it actually kept my sky at 20.8mag and on the Aurora itself only 20, I lost a mag.On top of this there was no contrast,poor transparency and frost.....But the sky will clear and then the Atlux will be giving amazing views for you!

[alanjgreen]

TS have them "in stock"

Mine has been dispatched today - after a 4 month wait

[Stu]

Thanks Alan, have just ordered one, hopefully they have some remaining! I gave up and took a 2" but always wanted a T2 aswell.

Stu

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