Last Night

[blinky]

Well yesterday has to be the first time everything has worked out perfect :shock: When I got home from work it was very cloudy but it has been so long since I have looked through the scope that I just set it all up and aligned the RDF and the piggy backed ZS66. Had a wee look at a few of the local pylons etc out of desperation :oops:

Anyway as evening came on the skies suddenly started to clear and by 9PM it was a lovely summer evening sunset :sunny: This was too good a chance to miss so I washed the dishes, put the kids to bed and got setup again

I had to wait for about 15mins before it was dusky enough to see Jupiter. Last night was the first time I have seen it with the Newt and not a pair of Bino's. I could see (amongst the heat ripples) 2 pinkish bands. I had not done a polar or drift alignment last night, I was only intending to do some visual but I did have a tip-ex mark on my mount head and a corresponding one on the pier, so I lined these up and retired inside to let the sky darken and left the mount tracking Jupiter with a 10mm EP.

When I came out 40mins later I was very happy to report that Jupiter was still bang in the middle of the EP . Now it was a good bit darker/cooler and the view was much more stable. I must also say this is the first time I have used my homemade stepper motor focus unit and it worked a treat, very accurate with a good range of speed as well, another one to tick off my check list!

I eventually ended up viewing Jupiter with a 5mm EP and my Neo filter. Could really see 2 distinct bands accross the planet as well as 4 moons, the missus was less excited about the view mind....Oh yes I see it....not as good as Saturn is it?

After a while I thought this night is too good to spend purely on visual and as it was still a little light there were not many stars around, time for some planetry imaging me thinks Out came the trusty ToUCam and I think I captured some decent data but I have not yet had time to process it.

The sky was now nice and dark and I have been really wanting to find and image the Ring Neb, so in went my 2" 30mm EP (I use it as a finder as well as for nice wide, open views) and pointed the scope between the 2 stars that seperate the ring (Dont know the names of them though :oops: ) anyway, yet another surprise as I looked in the EP. There was the Ring Neb nice and visible in the EP 8) Very small and a pale Blue/Green coulour (Very faint). I upped the magnification and popped in my UHC filter for a nice view.

It was around 11:30 by this time and I could not decide whether to image it or not...In the end the fact that I have not been out since March/April swayed it for me and out came the DSLR.

Again everything worked as it should, this is the first time I have used the 12v adapter for the camera and it worked faultlessly!!!

I popped in the camera and after about 10mins of trying to focus I finally managed to find some stars in the DSLR Focus preview screen. I set up a 40 second long exposure and clicked start. WOW! I can see the Ring with some nice green colour and a little red (I think, maybe my eyes were just getting tired!), so I fired off another 40odd images of it. I then cpaured another 10X1min exposures and really had to call it a night as I start at 7am in the morning and it was fast approaching 1am

Removed the camera and placed a cover over it to take some darks, packed everything away and finally got into bed at 01:20 :shock:

Overall this has to be one of my most enjoyable evenings with the stars! Whilst I was imaging I had the bino's out and was re-learning the stars after 9 months of absence! It was a crakcing night, from my back garden in Edinburgh I could make out the double cluster and think I could see M31 as well but that may have been wishfull thinking!

It was great to see some of the familar constellations coming back round, Lyra, Andromeda and Cassiopea and before I headed inside I could not resist a quick view of the Pliades with the Bino's.

So tonight is going to be spent processing the data I captured last night, hopefully I will have a couple of decent images posted up later on today.

What a great way to spend a summer evening/night

[Starflyer]

Great report Craig, good to hear that clouds let up for you Looking forward to seeing the images.

Ian

[starf]

I eventually ended up viewing Jupiter with a 5mm EP and my Neo filter. Could really see 2 distinct bands accross the planet as well as 4 moons, the missus was less excited about the view mind....Oh yes I see it....not as good as Saturn is it?

lol, could be an epitaph for an amateur astronomer's tombstone!

[legion48]

Nice report Graig. I'm pleased everything worked out well for you. Chop chop now, get them images posted.

[blinky]

Done! Check in the planetry and deep sky imaging sections