Last Couple of Outtings

[Ed in UK]

Well finally got to try out my new BST 18mm, 12mm and x2 Barlow at the weekend (14th April) and last night (18th April).

I was quite excited about the weekend as I was way in my caravan on a site with no real lights and was looking forward to putting my new toys to good use for a few hours. Planets were high on the agenda.

Saturday night started really well with good views of Venus after the sunset and managed to get my scope aligned with Polaris just as the darkness started to take hold.

Much to my amazement the neighboring camper vans came back with lights on main beam across the field, put lights on just about everywhere and lit a camp fire about 40 ft away from my scope. I couldn't see a thing to the south due to their lights. The lights were that bright I didn't need to use a torch to see anything that I was doing.

I relocated the scope to a spot that was out of the glare of the lights and got set back up again. Pretty limited now by what I could view, now I went to look at my old pals Mizar & Alcor. Got myself all lined up on Mizar only to watch it disappear in the EP ?????? Clouds had moved in and blotted out everything. Pretty disappointed I retired and set the alarm to try and catch Jupiter, Saturn and Mars. Alas every time I went outside to check the cloud cover remained.

So last night (18th April) forecast was pretty good so out I went again, at home this time, and had a good go with the new EP's on the moon. WOW what a difference, sooooo pleased that I made the investment.

Had a scan around Leo for the first time but gave up on two counts. Firstly the wind got up and buffeted the scope. Could only use my 25mm EP anything shorter was just a complete waste of time. It made life so difficult see properly it really wasn't worth it. Secondly I did struggle to find my way around, mainly by correlating what I saw in the EP to the map. Just need to spend more time appreciating the scale of the map and relating it to what I can see in the scope.

Hopefully have another chance in the next couple of days.

Ed