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The night of the small scopes

GavStar

By GavStar
in Observing - Reports

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GavStar

GavStar

Posted
Posted

Stu, me and one other friend had an impromptu pub catch up last night in Esher. Stu was clearly itching to try out his new TS Optics 72mm scope because at around 10 he rather optimistically ventured outside to see if he could see any stars. After a minute or so, he reappeared with a smile on his face and said, “right let’s go to the green, it’s clear!”

I’d only put my little Altair 60mm in the car as it was what I had to hand at short notice and I wasn’t expecting to be observing anyway.

So off we went with our little scopes to the green to setup.

Immediately Stu was getting good (if a little small views) of Saturn, the rings nicely angled against the main disc. He also tried the double double to stretch the new scopes legs and got a lovely clear split at around 100x - very impressive for such a small scope I thought. Stu was clearly pretty happy with his new purchase ?

Meanwhile, I was setting up my tiny 60mm on my az gti scope. I now use this mount with the handset and sky wire since it enables me to have a very stable linkup to sky safari on my phone. The mount was aligned within a couple of minutes and off I went to look at Sagittarius while I still can this year. The green has a lovely southern horizon which makes it a great spot (albeit somewhat LP but hey ho). We commented how the skies looked better than many previous nights in the year and wondered if the recent rain had cleared things up a bit...

I popped in my 55mm plossl with NV monoculars to get a wide 6 degree fov. As I had missed it previously this week, I skewed the az gti straight to the lagoon which showed nice detail even at the low magnification of 6x. Also in the fov were the triffid, IC 4685 and Saturn (which looked like a funny elongated star with the ha filter in). Really great to see all these objects in the fov and now I was smiling ?

I hadn’t really viewed M22 before since it’s normally too low for me, but with the good southerly views it was easy to see last night. We did a face off of the 72mm with no NV vs the 60mm with NV. It was very interesting to see the difference in the views. Stu’s 72mm showed an obvious ‘smudge’ in the fov typical of what I remember globs looking like in my back garden with glass eyepieces. The NV 60mm resolved the glob very prettily with nice sharp stars. Both views were great, Stu’s 72mm once again showing to be a good purchase!

I then popped up to the swan and eagle to have them both clear in the fov with some good detail considering the small aperture (but no pillars of creation ?).

Unfortunately the forecast cloud began to move across the sky from the south. Sagittarius became obscured and it was now a race to see what we could before we were clouded out. Both Stu and I went over to that trusty favourite the North America nebula for nice bright views of that (and the pelican with the NV).

I think Stu also got the Veil before the cloud came across. Finally a try for M31 but unfortunately the cloud had finally beaten us.

But after anticipating no observing it was great to have an hour of so under the stars with friends in the warm.

As we were packing up, Stu mentioned that if we had had larger scopes with us we may well have missed a lot of the evening’s opportunities due to longer unpacking and setup.

It shows how much fun can be had with small scopes and decent skies. ?

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Stu

Stu

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Posted

Nice one Gavin :)

’‘twas a fun evening, unexpected really which made it all the better. Yes, am very pleased with the 72, but was also highly impressed by the views through the 60mm/NV combo. M8/20 plus surrounding neb was particularly lovely, as was the NAN (which I tried for but got clouded out)

Totally true that with bigger scopes we would either not have bothered setting up, or would have lost half the available observing time before being ready.

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kerrylewis

kerrylewis

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34 minutes ago, Stu said:

 

Totally true that with bigger scopes we would either not have bothered setting up, or would have lost half the available observing time before being ready.

Great reports chaps. I was ready here but total clouds.

It’s true that with the vagaries of the British weather, a quick set up has huge benefits. My Ioptron/Tak combination is not quite so light but it be set up (and taken down!) in minutes and I’m good to go. The AZ EQ6 plus 150mm Vixen - well, that’s  a quite different matter .......?

As is often said: the best scope is the one that gets used. 

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GavStar

GavStar

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Just now, chiltonstar said:

Superb stuff - I too very much appreciate the qualities of a small frac! Do you use a decent finder as well, or just rely on the goto and an rdf for alignment?

Chris

Just a little vixen rdf as finder for the initial bright star alignment. Once the AZ Gti is aligned, it’s got good accuracy and I can adjust the position of the scope remotely using the arrows on sky safari. Works well for me. I really like the AZ gti now I’ve managed to get sky safari working in a very stable fashion with it.

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chiltonstar

chiltonstar

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34 minutes ago, GavStar said:

Just a little vixen rdf as finder for the initial bright star alignment. Once the AZ Gti is aligned, it’s got good accuracy and I can adjust the position of the scope remotely using the arrows on sky safari. Works well for me. I really like the AZ gti now I’ve managed to get sky safari working in a very stable fashion with it.

Looks like the Piggy Bank might be emptied soon for an AZ gti.........

Chris

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Stu

Stu

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10 minutes ago, chiltonstar said:

Looks like the Piggy Bank might be emptied soon for an AZ gti.........

Chris

Good plan Chris, just budget for a decent tripod to go with it though, the standard one is not much cop.

I haven’t used mine for a while, not sure why. Perhaps I will more now I’ve got this little scope.

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chiltonstar

chiltonstar

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10 minutes ago, Stu said:

Good plan Chris, just budget for a decent tripod to go with it though, the standard one is not much cop.

I haven’t used mine for a while, not sure why. Perhaps I will more now I’ve got this little scope.

I would get it without a tripod and use one of my (too many) tripods lurking in the garage. Will it fit to a standard photo one, or is the base designed for an astro t/pod? I assume the AZ gti is man enough to swing an ED80 about without overloading anything (I'm thinking length and moment rather than weight)?

Chris

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GavStar

GavStar

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40 minutes ago, chiltonstar said:

I would get it without a tripod and use one of my (too many) tripods lurking in the garage. Will it fit to a standard photo one, or is the base designed for an astro t/pod? I assume the AZ gti is man enough to swing an ED80 about without overloading anything (I'm thinking length and moment rather than weight)?

Chris

Hi Chris,

it fits a standard photo tripod. It works fine with my fc100df with heavy 2 inch eyepieces so I would expect the ed80 to be fine.

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Stu

Stu

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38 minutes ago, chiltonstar said:

I would get it without a tripod and use one of my (too many) tripods lurking in the garage. Will it fit to a standard photo one, or is the base designed for an astro t/pod? I assume the AZ gti is man enough to swing an ED80 about without overloading anything (I'm thinking length and moment rather than weight)?

Chris

It fits on a Standard 3/8” thread, so yes it will fit to camera tripods.

I use it with my Tak FC100DC so an ED80 should be no problem.

 

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Stu

Stu

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33 minutes ago, PeterW said:

60mm with 2” eyepiece... make sure you don’t look in the wrong end!

... and you guys didn’t tell anyone you were going!

PetEr

Sorry Peter, was sent out to the WhatsApp group, forgot you weren’t on it!

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GavStar

GavStar

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1 hour ago, PeterW said:

60mm with 2” eyepiece... make sure you don’t look in the wrong end!

How could we possibly get confused ?

(And the pic is with a 72mm rather than 60mm)

ps my 1000th SGL post ??

08419485-E5BA-4E8B-BEED-43E8600B89E4.jpeg

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GavStar

GavStar

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10 minutes ago, PeterW said:

Aha, colour coded! Still a long old tube hanging off the back end, makes balancing tricky!

PEter

You would think balancing would be tricky. But the AZ GTi copes with this type of setup very well. We were dashing around the skies that night with the eyepiece at all sorts of angles - goto and tracking were excellent all the time and the whole setup felt very secure. Having the Baader click lock helps I guess and also the Night Vision monocular is very light.

Many in the USA are put off afocal night vision due to the long eyepiece stack but I’ve had no problems with any of my scopes or mounts (so far...)

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