First M42 observation this year

[glennbech]

The weather forecasters are sure getting better and better now days! (at least when reporting bad weather!) I checked my weather site and it reported a few hours of clear sky between showers. Looking at the animated radar map I knew they were not kidding! A fast moving center of rain was moving my way. It's quite nice to stand there under clear skies "knowing" that in 60-120 minutes the sky will be clouded and the rain pouring. Civilization has advanced :-)

I mostly do imaging at the moment, but 2hrs of clear sky and wind was not going to make me unpack the full gear. The moon was also up and stealing the show.

So! Out went my Megrez 90 on the Vixen Porta (Alt/Azim) mount. I wanted to see orion's belt for the first time tis year and swung my scope in that direction. Using a 25mm EP for "aiming" made finding and centering the nebula an easy task. (No finder on the megrez) Since I mostly image my EP's a real carp. Ironicly I have the slick 2" carbon fibre Diagonal. I also have a 25mm and 9mm EP that came with my SW mak and a much better Baader 6mm Ortho. Both the 25mm and 9mm suffer for havy "kidney beaning". Making the observation rather frustrating.

he M90 is an amazing visual scope. The smaller stars are tiny tiny points of light giving almost a "3D" effect to the observation.

The 6mm was a perfect match. At 100x I could easily make out at least 4 well separated trapezium stars and loads of nebulosity. T

I ran in to get my OII filter and came out to see the reported clouds fill half the sky. I'm sure glad I made my first visual of this one this year. I'm also glad I didn't rig up the imaging gear :-)

I have pretty dark skies when it's not foggy SO I should definitly use my "low tech" equipment more..

[GazOC]

That sounds like my night last night, 30mins with M42 and then clouds. It still makes it all worth while though eh?

[glennbech]

That sounds like my night last night, 30mins with M42 and then clouds. It still makes it all worth while though eh?

That's the beauty of obsering. It takes just a few minutes to set up. I had almost forogotten how easy it was I guess sketching is next for me, I am an artistic soul

The only downside for me now is that I only own one "usable" EP (My 6mm Baader Ortho). I though I had bed seeing when using with both my 9mm and 25mm Skywatcher ones. When I plugged in the 6mm everything was suddenly clear. I have treated them pretty bad and they probably need cleaning. The view through them looks like my newt when it's far out of collimation.