Short but sweet..

[F15Rules]

Having seen Stu's post about con trails plaguing him last night, I decided that it was, after all, worth getting the scope out for barely half an hour. 

I get some disturbance from passing aircraft, but it's mainly noise from RAF Eurofighters training over the Lincolnshire Wolds ( based out of RAF Coningsby), as they train at all hours and just come up on you so fast when flying low, that it makes you jump!

Anyway, the moon was so very bright and I had low expectations, but that half hour in Orion was as enjoyable a half hour as I have spent recently.

The seeing was pretty good, despite the strong breeze. Transparency wasn't so good, so along with the Moon and only half an hour or so, it made sense to stick to a few targets only.

Objects viewed:

M42. As you might expect, with a very bright moon nearby, much of the nebula was washed out, however a surprisingly large part of the fov did show traces of the great cloud. As often in these conditions, a higher power worked best, and both the Pentax 7XL and Pentax zoom at 8mm gave nice, contrasty views.

The Trap presented beautifully. No E or F last night of course, but the main four stars looked great with a nice airy disk and traces of a single diffraction ring, all of them very sharp. The seeing allowed a bit more power last night, and the zoom with x1.6 William Optics nosepiece to give 5mm ( x204) at the 8mm max setting delivered a really lovely view.

Encouraged by this, I turned next to Rigel. Sometimes it can be a little awkward, with Rigel Prime's brightness and a fairly close separation of around 7", but last night the pair showed beautifully with Rigel pure white and bright, and the companion shining strongly in direct vision, like a sharp little pinprick.

From there I went up to Mintaka in the belt (a very wide, easy double), and then to Alnilam at the other end of the belt, and one of my favourite stars in Orion: it's quite close, at just a bit over 2", and can be quite challenging if the sky is not steady. Well, last night both components were separated clearly at X 160, and at x204 they were very sharp, distinct and with clear dark sky between them.

That was it for last night. Just the FS128, Pentax zoom, the 7xl and a x1.6 nosepiece and I got some quite lovely views, despite the moon.

Hope you did too! ?

Dave

[des anderson]

Well, someone enjoyed themselves did`nt they, and its shows. great report. I myself was hunting around the moon. Des