Grab and go

[Ags]

I had an extended session with my grab and go and now only setup: Mak 102, ST80, TS travel mount and Berlebach Report tripod.

I started at 23.00 looking at Jupiter in the twilight. I only have half an hour of deep twilight before Jupiter passes out of view behind a building, so I didn't have much time to admire the big planet. At first the seeing was quite good and I could see detail across the disk at 150x in my 102mm Mak.  After about twenty minutes air currents from the impending building spoiled the view.  So I quickly demounted the Mak and mounted the ST80 to check the alignment of its red dot finder. Then I went in to study Turn Left at Orion and wait for dark.

I went out an hour later. The twilight had mostly faded, but in any case the Amsterdam light pollution is bright enough for color vision.

My first target was M3, but I could not locate it in the great void between Arcturus and Cor Caroli. Thin wispy cloud was not helping!

I shifted to Cor Caroli and admired the beautiful double. A drawback of an ST80 is it is very poor at reflecting star colors. 

M94 is near Cor Caroli but I simply could not find it. I had another crack at M3 and found it this time - a small grainy ball of light at 60x.

I turned to Arcturus to see if I could tease some color out of it with the achromat, but it was either polychromatic out of focus or just whitish with colored fringes in focus.

M13 was an easy find, and seemed a lot brighter than M3. Even using averted vision, I could not resolve any stars.

Vega had risen above my pergola,  so I tried to find the Ring Nebula. This is normally quite easy but at this point I could not make out any stars in Lyra except Vega. I never did find the Ring, but did stumble over the Double Double. At 60x I could not quite split the doubles, but the stars were elongated. At this point the cloud was getting too thick so I called it a night.

It doesn't sound a very successful evening, and conditions were not ideal, but it was enjoyable hunting for a few old favorites and I enjoyed using the setup. Tracking Jupiter at 150x is delicate but quite easy, and most importantly the setup is very stable and solid. With the ST80 mounted, the TS travel mount is very satisfying to use - at low to medium powers it is a simple point and shoot device. For the first time in a long time I was focussed on my targets and not on shakes, wobbles and other equipment hassles!

 

[Sunshine]

Nice read, i too had some issue hunting down M3 last night with my 150 Mak but i found it eventually.

[RT65CB-SWL]

Nice report @Ags. Its amazing what one can see/observe with small 'grab & go' aperture 'cats & fracs' when conditions allow. 

[cotterless45]

Hi ' these are free charts and a boon to finding Messier's.

http://avila.star-shine.ch/astro/messiercharts/messierTelrad.htm

M94 us between Cor Caroli and Chara , trouble is that you need a bit of darkness to see Chara and M94.

 Nice to hear of small aperture results , Nick.

[RT65CB-SWL]

2 hours ago, cotterless45 said:

Hi ' these are free charts and a boon to finding Messier's.

http://avila.star-shine.ch/astro/messiercharts/messierTelrad.htm

M94 us between Cor Caroli and Chara , trouble is that you need a bit of darkness to see Chara and M94.

 Nice to hear of small aperture results , Nick.

Pity they are not .PDF's...  

I know they [.PDF] exist... (plus the Caldwell & Herschel charts). 

[rockystar]

1 hour ago, Philip R said:

Pity they are not .PDF's...  

I know they [.PDF] exist... (plus the Caldwell & Herschel charts). 

Here you go: https://freestarcharts.com/messier

 

Nice report @Ags

[wookie1965]

3 hours ago, Philip R said:

Pity they are not .PDF's...  

I know they [.PDF] exist... (plus the Caldwell & Herschel charts). 

Here you go.    

http://www.custerobservatory.org/docs/messier2.pdf

https://sherwood-observatory.org.uk/astronomy/finder-charts/caldwell-finders

http://www.saguaroastro.org/content/db/Book110BestNGC.pdf