great Moon tonight!

[Piero]

After two hours of nice white light this afternoon, a great surprise for this evening: a 68% Moon with no clouds around and almost absent wind!  

The Tak was already smiling of joy about the idea of going back to the garden, so we decided to have another hour or so observing the Moon... and it was great! There was some little turbulence, but nothing to be worried about and certainly nothing to stop the appetite for catching minute details on the lunar surface. A good amount of time was also spent observing Alexander, Aristoteles, Montes Apenninus, Eratosthenes, and Copernicus.  

A lot of magnification was used. Zoom+barlow were working between 91.10x and 341.28x. The views were just terrific to my eye. No image degradation at all. I then decided to go further with the HR 2.4mm (308x) alone and then with barlow at 2x, 2.23x, 2.6x, and 2.86x. Although the HR with barlow set >2x was generally too much for tonight's seeing, the view of Copernicus with barlow at 2.86x is not something I will forget easily! Copernicus was covering about half of the FOV, nice terrain undulations all around, tall mountains inside, bright and dark line shades on the internal crater, etc. It made me curious to see how this crater looks like under perfect seeing.. 

Thanks for reading, 
Piero

[Stu]

Great stuff Piero! Bet the Tak was lovely, I'm so tempted to try a HR 2.4mm , still can't quite believe the Tak can sustain those mags but from your reports it clearly does.

I had another little session either the 130p this evening, mainly just trying stuff out but had a good look at the moon. Nothing like a Tak view, but really quite competent none the less. Must get the Tak out soon though.

[John]

Lovely report Piero

Very nice lunar phase tonight I agree - lots of interest all along the terminator and onto the illuminated part as well.

They talk about "empty magnification" but these quality refractors seem to fill the view with detail at these very high powers rather well

[Piero]

Thanks Stu.  

It's great that there are affordable but very good newtons like the Heritage 130mm, nowadays. More people can get involved in this hobby!  

The HR is a cracking eyepiece IMO; I wish a HR 5mm were out there.. Anyway, the Tak can sustain 300x and more on the Sun and the Moon. It's all down to seeing to me. Never tried it on planets because Saturn and Jupiter were badly placed when I got the Tak. I'm so eagerly waiting for Venus. That's a target I love to observe with a refractor and a single polarising filter. I reckon the HR should work well by increasing the image and decreasing the brightness, while the SPF by cleaning up any form of glare. Fingers crossed.

Note: I only have minor floaters at high magnifications.

[iPeace]

Really enjoyed the view of the Moon myself tonight, with the Vixen HR 2.4mm as well.

Great report.

[Piero]

8 minutes ago, John said:

Lovely report Piero

Very nice lunar phase tonight I agree - lots of interest all along the terminator and onto the illuminated part as well.

They talk about "empty magnification" but these quality refractors seem to fill the view with detail at these very high powers rather well

Thanks John.  

I read about empty magnification but after an amount of tests in these years, I am not convinced it is true. It seems to me that it is more down to seeing, optical quality, and perseverance/patience while observing.

I had a 3.5mm Nagler that I used for more than a year with my TV60. It reached that status of empty magnification compared to my previous 5mm Vixen SLV..  Then I got a Delos 8mm which was used with a powermate 2.5x, and this showed more than the 3.5mm Nagler... Same thing about the 9mm Vixen SLV + powermate 2.5x.. This was not due to lack of experience. I wrote reports of planetary observations with the 3.5mm Nagler for months and the details in features seen with the Delos / SLV were simply not there. Then I got the VIP, the the SLVs showed even more. Same thing with the Zeiss zoom and docter + barlow. And finally with the HR2.4mm. On a night with very good seeing, there were plenty of little details on Jupiter using the HR + TV60. Sure, not easy to detect, but they were noticeable. 

In conclusion, I am not convinced about the statement of empty magnification. I just prefer to push the magnification until there is an aesthetic or content advantage without recurring to vague thresholds like magnifications are empty below an exit pupil of 0.5mm. It's interesting to try! Why not?   

[Mark at Beaufort]

Great report Piero. I also viewed the Moon tonight because I wanted to try out my new 25mm Fujiyama Ortho with the Baader 2.25X barlow. Incredible sharp image of the terminator. I tried to view the Comet C/2017 O1 (Asassn) but although I found the star field (hope Stellarium was correct) I could not see the Comet. I could see stars of 13 mag but nothing else.

 

[jabeoo1]

Nice current thread!  I agree its exceptional tonight even in the city, views at x246 my max are outstanding.  The full terminator at around x100 is exceptional to me. 

*If only there was less concrete & more county air!

[jabeoo1]

Those southern highlands always pull me in.  Exquisite really. 

[Mr niall]

I enjoyed the moon too tonight! Unusually good night - spent about 15 mins on Copernicus. Although things started to get a bit wavy above 200x. Definitely best night I’ve had in ages, and with the clocks changing was able to observe either side of dinner! Vive la winter!

[Stu]

I certainly think that with high quality apo fracs you can push the mag to a very high level. Supposedly 1mm exit pupil is the limit for scopes, but I think that only applies to newts above about 150mm. Decent quality fracs can take well below 0.5mm if your eyes can take it!! 

[jabeoo1]

5 minutes ago, Stu said:

I certainly think that with high quality apo fracs you can push the mag to a very high level. 

Too true.  

[Trikeflyer]

Agree with all the comments about the quality of the moon tonight.  I recently acquired a Williams optics binoviewer with 20mm eyepieces and 1.6 Barlow. Used it on the Meade ETX 125 tonight and it was like being there on the moon, the mag at about 150x was nice and brought out much detail that I hadn't seen before.  Concentrated on the terminator, the South Pole and Copernicus.  The views were stunning, Doubt I'll go back to monocular views of the moon after my binoviewer experience tonight.   Never had a look at the moon through a quality frac like the Tak especially at high mag and I'm sure that if I did I'd be just as amazed as I was with the binoviewer.  On a separate but related note, there was a nice bright reflection all round a crater top and it looked just like an 'o'. It was near the terminator and Copernicus. I've heard of the lunar x and v but not the 'o'. Did anyone else see it? Is it a known lunar transient feature? Thanks to everyone for posting in this thread. IMO the moon is a great target and can bring much observing joy ?

Steve

[Astro Imp]

Enjoyed your report Piero, as others have commented the moon was fantastic last night. I'm surprised Clavius hasn't been mentioned which was showing really well.

Let's all hope for more of the same.