Garden goodies

[furrysocks2]

My 12" paid a brief visit to the kids' school this morning - a failed daytime moon effort. It came into the house mid-morning to melt and dry off last night's ice and eventually made it back into the garden to cool off again for this evening.

The cloud was patchy and I had a plan. I left the 35mm in the house this time, armed myself with the 19mm, 16mm and 12.5mm. I hadn't put my observing chair away from the morning either, so it was still handy.

I spent a long time on M42, a lovely sweep and some structure behind the trapezium. But I wasn't interested in the nebular, I was after a fifth. I believe my primary is a little pinched, I get a three-lobed or three-spiked star either side of focus, and bright, in focus stars, as well as the four vanes, I get some spikeys shooting off. Also, the 12.5mm comes to focus almost precisely at the limit of in-travel (I've got a lower profile reducer in the post) - the reducer I was using is tapered and often lifts slightly, so I had to keep loosening and re-seating it, which also put it back on axis. So I was challenged. I found too that instead of twiddling the focus knob, if I gripped it fully I could tweak finer adjustment out of it and actually induce less wobble while I was dialing it. Add to that, some patient waiting as the little cluster drifted across the field of view, and some subtle head movements to play around with the placement of the exit pupil... there were three or four times I wondered, and once almost convinced. I'd drawn my head back slightly, and made my eye work a little harder to adjust focus. Some light cloud sharpened up the main four, and I watched closely and willed another to appear. The location of my "maybe" committed to memory, I checked online when I got back in the house just now and couldn't then for the life of me remember which way round the stars were or which direction my "maybe" was - my memory failed me, absolutely. I'll revisit after checking my primary and perhaps with a shorter EP.

Anyway, my second target was M34. I don't remember much of it, other than noting significant symmetry. My efforts on M42 were actually in two sessions and it was on M34 that I'd first tried gripping the focus knob instead of twiddling it. Lovely snapping the 82 degree 16mm to focus. But I would like a dual speed.

The night made me wait for my next target though - cloud was drifting across Gemini and the upper half of Orion. Cancer was still too low. I scanned a little to the west, struggled to get the observing chair close enough for the Double Cluster and really didn't know what was available in the clear patches. Ursa Major was low, cloudy and mostly hidden by a building anyway. Watching the patch of cloud that I was waiting to move, only made it grow not shift, so I ignore it for a while.

While waiting, looking up, I saw a cracker of a meteor, north to south, a fat white and orange streak. It left a trail so I immediately swung the scope round and was treated to what looked like a corkscrew! I followed it back and forward a couple of times as it faded. Brilliant! Not long after that, there was another, much smaller and pretty much along the same track. But south to north, unrelated I assume but the opposing direction did trigger mild curiosity.

Eventually, the right twin's foot appeared with enough clear space above it that I aimed the scope, set up the chair and waited. I'd read a post earlier on this evening which referenced a book called Cosmic Challenge. I found it on Amazon and clicked "look inside". No challenge pages were visible, so I logged in for more preview pages... I didn't really find what I wanted so I searched the text for "winter" which pulled up yet more preview pages. I picked out M35 and specifically NGC2158 as my night's goal.

M35 was easy. I knew I wasn't to be looking too far but had no idea what orientation the other would be in. But it showed itself pretty much immediately in the 16mm. I tried the 12.5mm but preferred the 16. I looked globby, I think I caught some prickles in averted vision, but it was generally pretty dim and indistinct. But readily available direct. Some nice shapes in M35.

 

As well as grip-focusing, I learned two other new techniques tonight. One was with my hood pulled up, I could rotate it round my head a bit so that one side of the hood lay against my nose, cutting out light from my non-scope eye, such that I could leave it open - the cloud in M42 gave off a very different impression with my left eye relaxed. I actually improved the technique by stuffing a wee bit into my mouth to keep the drawstring taught, though that's left a soggy patch. The other was to press an eyepiece cap lightly to my eye socket. I've got a patch coming off ebay.

 

Good fun - my third NGC to my knowledge. Perhaps I should start counting.

[alanjgreen]

Furrysocks2, nice report and some good targets there.

what was your plan with leaving the 35mm inside?

- next time I go out, I am leaving the ethos21 (& perhaps another EP too) in the house with a plan to come inside & get them later in the evening when the Rosette is in view, then I don't have to worry about it being frozen when I actually need it  Maybe your plan was similar?

Alan

[furrysocks2]

4 minutes ago, alanjgreen said:

Furrysocks2, nice report and some good targets there.

what was your plan with leaving the 35mm inside?

- next time I go out, I am leaving the ethos21 (& perhaps another EP too) in the house with a plan to come inside & get them later in the evening when the Rosette is in view, then I don't have to worry about it being frozen when I actually need it  Maybe your plan was similar?

Alan

Thanks. Nothing too grand - I love looking through it, it's sharp and gives a 7mm exit pupil, but was more field of view than I knew I needed. I wanted to challenge myself with the comparatively soft view I've typically had through the others, result being I was forced to learn how to achieve better focus with the single speed last night and also reminded myself I need to get the mirror out at some point to possibly relieve a bit of tension on the mirror clips. And the 35mm needs a clean.