Clear skies and some good viewing!

[Robbo2003]

Hello everyone, second big night out with the scope and wasnt a bad one at that. The moon was at 98% full so bright as a spotlight on my now "claimed" dark sky spot out in the sticks around fife.

Didnt see anything but the brightest stars but Jupitar, Mars and Saturn were still there shining bright as always to much enjoyment.

The moon however was spectacular. I found that the moon filter was taking alot of the detail away and hiding alot in shadows so opted to use a 90° angle mirror and a barlow coupled with a 20mm lens to give a duller picture and it was fantastic! Got a quick pic on my phone looking through the lens.

 

Dew wasnt a problem this time thanks to my new astrozap heat strip. Works very well - too well actually. Anyone have any hints on how to get the optimum temp on it as i was fiddling around with it abd no matter where i had the adjuster set i keep getting whats looks like thermal currents within the scope/dew shield distorting the picture occasionally.

Any help negating this would be good but although it did stave off the dew completely. Also on that note my main optic on the front of my refractor is very dirty from the last dew build up ... how do i go about cleaning it cause ive heard mixed opinions on cleaning the main apeture.

[Robbo2003]

Also forgot to mention i caught my first glimpse of the I.S.S blasting over and like mach 1 ! ... very damn hard to track on a telescop and if it wasnt for my friend with me id have been so engrossed in the moon/planets i would have missed it!! ... ps any of you who dont have these two apps (android anyway) should definatly get them.

One is called "Clear Outside" and is 90% accuarate with the weather also giving great info on sunset and sunrise and when viewing will be best aswell as letting you know when the iss is visable.

The second is "Night Sky Tools" which has a very good live star map to hold up that is very accurate and various other little do dahs that are fun and helpful as well as a nightly events page listing all the cool things to look out for ! 

Both are free so wire in !

[Paul73]

Great to get outside! Nice write up.

I switch my secondary dew heater off ten mins before doing any planetary / lunar work.

Paul

[Robbo2003]

Ahhh ok, i turned it right down when doing some viewing but the clouds were being a pain so was usually like "quick look over there!" Lol.

Hopefully get some clearer nights in the coming weeks for saturn etc ... just cant wait for it to start getting dark again

[Stu]

9 hours ago, Robbo2003 said:

Ahhh ok, i turned it right down when doing some viewing but the clouds were being a pain so was usually like "quick look over there!" Lol.

Hopefully get some clearer nights in the coming weeks for saturn etc ... just cant wait for it to start getting dark again

If I use a dew heater on my frac I leave it running on the lowest setting and don't seem to get any problems. Are you sure it wasn't just poor atmospheric seeing? That can cause pretty dramatic turbulent effects on the target.

[Robbo2003]

38 minutes ago, Stu said:

If I use a dew heater on my frac I leave it running on the lowest setting and don't seem to get any problems. Are you sure it wasn't just poor atmospheric seeing? That can cause pretty dramatic turbulent effects on the target.

That is a good point stu, it might have just been a coincidence then with the fact it was the first time using the dew heater so i assumed that was the issue. Will obviously be taking it out so will hope to see improvement the next time.

 

cheers for all the advice guys.