A surprise gap in the clouds 10th Feb

[Pig]

I was surprised to get a nice 3 hour gap in the clouds last night, from around 6 pm through until 9pm. So out with the scope I went, it was also surprisingly warm again for this time of year. 

There was a lovely crescent moon in a reasonably high position so I spent 45 minutes or so messing about with the two Nagler zooms, I was quite surprised that they are not quite parfocal, nevertheless they gave some lovely views of the termination and it was lovely to just stand there slewing about the lunar surface looking for domes and other non natural conspirial features ? Mars and Uranus where also in the vicinity so I spent a few minutes on each, the cold pale blue of Uranus was pretty nice and Mars was not too bad and allowed for some high mags without seeing any detail.

Next I went for some doubles, and this is where I love the accuracy of the Ioptron Pro, I can slew to targets using the 3-6 Zoom and at the 6 mm setting the target is always in the FOV, not bad at all for 130 X mag ! and it saves having to swap to higher power eyepieces. My first double was cOrionis @ 1.2 separation but I couldn’t split it this time as the conditions were not quite clear enough, next was HR 5133 in Ursa Major a little wider separation @ 1.8 which was easily split. I then spent quite a while just selecting any available tight doubles from the Sky Safari menu that were above the horizon. I was surprised at just how many I observed when checking the history file this morning. I also spent some time flicking through the Messier list but apart from Orion, the Pleiades, the Double Cluster and the Beehive most were pretty underwhelming due to the conditions.

Not a bad night at all and the Sky Safari history file shows over 50 targets in the list, of which 37 were nice doubles, and quite a few with little separation. I stuck with the 2 zooms for the whole session just using the 17mm Morpheus for the initial setup.... clear skies to all and I hope you get some decent skies soon.

 

[Demonperformer]

Indeed it sounds "not bad at all". Have to make the most of these gaps when we get them and it sounds like you did.

[Pig]

4 minutes ago, Demonperformer said:

Indeed it sounds "not bad at all". Have to make the most of these gaps when we get them and it sounds like you did.

I was helped by the forecast being accurate, this in itself was quite remarkable ? but thank you as it was indeed a welcomed surprise.

[Demonperformer]

1 minute ago, Pig said:

the forecast being accurate

You saw one of those as well ????

[Pig]

Just now, Demonperformer said:

You saw one of those as well ????

Yes..... this was more difficult to spot than cOrionis ?

[Alan White]

As Demons comments, I too find the accurate forecast more of a surprise than a clear spell!

I also got a short time out with my scope last night, being out was the big thing for me as I
have been ill since before Christmas and in no fit state to observe, so it was a super evening for me too.

I sat comparing my ep with my Nagler 3-6 zoom and again, the Nagler Zoom was my favourite.
 

[Pig]

1 minute ago, Alan White said:

As Demons comments, I too find the accurate forecast more of a surprise than a clear spell!

I also got a short time out with my scope last night, being out was the big thing for me as I
have been ill since before Christmas and in no fit state to observe, so it was a super evening for me too.

I sat comparing my ep with my Nagler 3-6 zoom and again, the Nagler Zoom was my favourite.
 

Well I hope your health returns soon Alan. I too like these Nagler Zooms ?