An impromptu session

[Hadron]

A newbie post so give me some leeway I hadn't planned on going out with the scope tonight due to the perpetual cloud cover and wind that seems to plague us at the moment, however around 7.30ish the garden seemed to catch the sun a little and as a result a plan was hatched. I'm in the fortunate position that as a farmer I have access to plenty of good, dark places to set my kit up and as a result I had a nice clear view from east to west looking in a southerly direction if that makes sense (can you tell I'm not a natural public speaker ?). Getting to the point (eventually I hear you say!) my first target was Jupiter, I could tell through the celestron Omni 25mm it was going to be a cracker so I switched to my new x cell 7mm and was blown away by the banding. Next I swung around to Mars which was a bit of a disappointment due to the poor seeing at the low altitude but even then I could have sworn I saw the odd dark patch on the disc for occasional moments. Saturn was my next aquisition as its slightly dimmer shape rose above the horizon (this was the sight that got me hooked on astronomy and astrophysics twenty odd years ago) and even with the  looking through waterfall style seeing conditions the rings blew me away again. This was my first good planetary session with the 200p and it certainly impressed, I rounded the evening off as the mist rolled in by splitting Polaris and Mizar/Alcor (not much of an achievement for you seasoned veterans of sgl but it made my night). All in all I had a thoroughly enjoyable evening and all that's left to do now is dry my kit out 

[laudropb]

Very nice report. The Celestron X-cel LX 7 mm is an excellent planetary ep.

[Hadron]

38 minutes ago, laudropb said:

Very nice report. The Celestron X-cel LX 7 mm is an excellent planetary ep.

Thanks. I must admit I couldn't believe the superiority of the X-cel over the standard eyepieces supplied with the scope (I think a few more may be on the shopping list). I think my next addition however is going to have to be a diy dew heater for the Telrad (I seemed to spend as much time drying it out as observing last night! )

[ronl]

Good report, here's a template for making a dew shield for your telrad, should make it easier,

http://www.homebuiltastronomy.com/downbino/HomeBuiltAstronomy-TelradDewShield.html

[Hadron]

Thanks for that. I've got some neoprene off cuts so I might give it a whirl. I'm awaiting delivery of a few bits and pieces to make a heater using plans I found on an sgl post from a few years back but I'm thing having more than one line of defence against the wet stuff can only be a good thing.