A beautiful night

[F15Rules]

Lovely night, had an hour and a bit out with the FS128 and Pentax SMC zoom from 11.20pm to 12.40am.

Enjoyed my last weekend session so much I repeated much of it, taking in:

M42, 6 Trap stars seen, all with direct vision.

Beta Monoceros, lovely triple, bright and white-yellowish.

Theta Aurigae, close double, whiten primary,much fainter companion, golden yellow, just over 2" separation. 

Algieba, Gamma Leonis, lovely coloured double, orange-yellow primary and yellow-orange companion at 4".

Castor in Gemini, bright white twins, lovely pair.

And a few clusters, Praesepe, (Beehive), and the Auriga Trio, M36 M37 and M38. All naked eye objects last night,and lovely in the scope. M37 has a brightish orange ? near the centre. M38 is the largest and perhaps most impressive of the three.

And last but not least M35 in Gemini, again a naked eye object at mag 5.3, and a real showpiece of "frosted diamonds on velvet" as the saying goes.

It was SO satisfying -  just a man, a scope, and one zoom eyepiece (with a 1.6x Barlow nosepiece as well), for some simple easy visual observing..

I went to bed happy, and actually not too cold for once!??.

Dave

[Paz]

Great report, lots of nice targets and just a scope and sky with no distractions. Unlike you I ended up freezing by the time I came in last night!

[Telescope40]

Hello Dave. Nice report of a relaxed session. 

Simple sometimes is best. If only I did this more  LOL 

Enjoyed the read. 

Regards. John 

[F15Rules]

Thanks John.

I've really simplified my EPs now, just have 5 "proper" eyepieces.. Pentax XL 7 & 10.5mm, SMC Zoom 8-24mm, Vixen LVW22 and Paracor 40mm (SW Aero/TMB Paragon clone).

I could probably do with a good 3.5-4mm at some point for those rare nights (like last night actually) where x250 or more is useable, but I have several x1.6 Barlow nosepieces which are good optically and can increase the magnification quite a bit..for example, one of these changes the 8-24mm zoom to a 5-15mm unit - a nice medium to high power spread☺. Using the Barlows I can get up almost to x300, and I can't really envisage ever needing more than that here.

The simple approach means that I probably gain 10-15 minutes per hour of observing time just by not thinking about, and then switching, eyepieces in and out.

Dave