Dodging cloud, successfully!

[Ags]

It's been a long time since I got the scope out (I don't think I have had it out this year at all). More correctly, since I have a dual scope setup, I haven't had the scopes out since just after Christmas when I chased down Comet Wirtanen. But tonight the sky looked occasionally clear and more importantly very black (and not the usual patriotic Dutch orange). As soon as I got home I put out the setup to cool, cooked dinner, walked the dogs, and then it was still very starry and black! 

The first target was the Great Nebula of Orion, but it never looks good from my city location so I wasn't expecting anything. I was very surprised indeed by the view tonight.  On the left of the Berlebach Castor was my ST80 with a slightly broken Speer WALER 9.4mm eyepiece (the eyepiece rattles, but views don't seem affected), and on the right was my Skymax 102 with a redoubtable SkyWatcher  Super 25 plugged into the focusser. Orion looked quite well defined in the ST80 at 2mm exit pupil, but a bit small. The view was much better in Mak despite the dodgy eyepiece. The nebula was not just a diffuse smudge tonight, I could see a lot of structure in the cloud and the fluorescing gas was very extensive. 

Some wisps of cloud were drifting in, so I tried to please the crowds (ok, one person) with some quick doubles. Castor not only matches the name of the mount but is also an easy and very pretty fierce white double. I could not split it with the Super 25 in the Mak, so I swapped the eyepieces. It was an easy split with the Speer WALER at 136x. It was then on to Mizar (the first thing I ever pointed a telescope of my own at). I had hoped to whizz up to M81/M82 although they were well within the Amsterdam light dome, but by then the north was utterly lost to the clouds.

I might have had time for the galaxies but I was stymied by what seemed to be a mount malfunction: AZ was suddenly very sticky, and Alt was loose with a massive backlash no matter how much I tightened it. I've always liked the Castor but it was performing like something nailed together from scrap wood. After a few minutes of scratching my head in the darkness, I realized the Castor mount had simply slightly unscrewed from the tripod. After screwing it back on the tripod properly, normal excellent service was restored.

The south was still clear so I swung back to Orion to view the nebula at 136x (sub-1 mm exit pupil) with the Speer WALER in the Mak. This is normally too much for the nebula but tonight I was granted a vision of the gas cloud filling the eyepiece with mysterious billows and folds. I held onto the view until the clouds whited out the eyepiece.

I'm really glad I went out tonight although reason told me I would only catch a few minutes of stars. In these situations you are well served if you know a few quick targets that you can hit with a minimum of fuss. I only wish I knew more! Also, these quick sessions are enabled by a dual scope setup with less need to switch eyepieces around.