Collinder 70 (Or - Hello Old Friend)

[cloudsweeper]

Or even - Not Another Orion Post!

Over recent mornings, Orion has been in the south before 7am, and too faint to merit setting everything up.  So when it was clear at about 3am this morning, I took advantage and put the ST120 into action.  Nothing ground-breaking - just a pleasure to revisit an old favourite.

M42 was first, at x14 and x20 - clearer with the UHC filter, and more so with the OIII, although stars were dimmed more with that one.  At x60 the Trapezium sprang into view.  Still only four stars seen at x150 - seeing and transparency not great.

But a new observation for me was to take a look at Cr (Collinder) 70 in its entirety.  It's an open cluster of about 130 stars spanning around three degrees, so the 42mm Revelation (giving 4.55 deg) framed it nicely, showing Mintaka, Alnilam, and Alnitak (the three stars of Orion's Belt) in a rich starfield.  It was a pleasure to absorb the view and appreciate the benefit of a widefield 'scope!

Thickening cloud prevented further exploration, but these easy and common observations constituted a very enjoyable 90 minutes.

Thanks for reading.

Doug.

 

 

[Stu]

Nice session Doug, you can't beat a widefield scope  

[Paz]

Nice report, that is a busy bit of sky. I can't handle getting up in the night like that so I'm waiting until it's up at a more sociable time!