A rare few hours

[Tiny]

We were not going out tonight - I've got a bad back. Still at half six the muck that seems to be around even when it seems clear up there was missing, Jupiter was up and Vega just appearing so we thought we'd give it a go for an hour. Even the wind had dropped and it was half way warm too.

Due to the back I took out a 72mm on a photo mount rather than carry out a equatorial. This was a bit of a mistake as, while the scope is OK on that mount actually doing fine adjustments on higher objects is a real B. Still Jupiter is easy and showed a couple of bands at first - then actually went off as it got darker. Still the 4 moons and the little planet always looked nice.

While I was doing my bit the wife was setting up her Nexstar 8 which takes a bit longer as she does 2 star setup - using which the beast is amazingly accurate. When she locked on to Jupiter the surface detail in that scope was no better than the 72 (as we swap looks).

We then turned both scopes to M31 which was markedly better in the 8 inch as you might hope. By this time it was dark and it was obvious that just for once the transparency was a bit special so I put away the 72 and got out the go-to list I always have just in case - worked out using Celestron's the sky as being a set of things to look out that would be visible - the order being governed by when they would best be visible where we live with all the trees we have around to block the view.

Once I have the list it's a matter of me calling the object and the wife dialing it into her scope and centring and focusing once the scope finds it so we can both have a look. Meanwhile I get to look at the sky (and get a crick in my neck) and what a sky we had - by 6-30 the milky way was gold with stars overhead and I swear I could see the shape of the American Nebulae.

Meanwhile the scope found the objects - one after another M27, M71, M11, M57, M26, M52, M103, M76, M2, M15, NGC7662 and finally M31 again. The scope found every one and put them in the field of the eyepiece working at x50 without a miss and in the conditions each object was crisp and seen in near perfect still air high transparency conditions which gave excellent views of dumbells, rings , starclusters and globulars. Of this lot we voted M11 the best with its masses of stars picked out much better than we have seen in photos.

Meanwhile as time went on the transparency up above actually got a little worse than it had been - still well above the norm but not quite as good. Maybe it's as the night gets colder or maybe the smell of a wood fire somewhere was something to do with it. Still by this time we had reached the end of the list, the wind was picking up and the back was getting worse. So we packed up, came inside and found it was just 8-15!

But what a sky we had and, just for once everything worked perfectly - such nights are to be cherished and make up for all the ones where we gnash our teeth in frustration.

[asteria]

Hi - great report - very enjoyable read. I went out last night as well, and had a similar experience sky-wise. Initially the sky was very good, then it dropped off in terms of transparency and seeing. It was still a good night, but not the absolute best. Thanks for posting your account.

Ed

[mik]

Thanks tiny that was a very nice report

Mick