A rare treat!

[chiltonstar]

Despite the weather forecast here last night, it was actually glorious for a couple of hours (22:00 - 24:00). Using my 180 Mak I re-acquainted myself with AN's double Star of the month for January, 52 Orionis.

A beautiful pair of whitish yellow nearly equal stars 1.0 arcsec apart. The seeing was good to excellent, so that the pair could be seen as a double at x270 (10mm ortho), and at x450 (6mm ortho), the pair could be seen as a clearly separated double with dark space between them (simulation below - visually slightly clearer than the sim.).

The Trapezium was stable initially, but began to break up as Orion moved round to the west and began to sink over a house with a heating plume. The E and F stars were clear at x135, but not really separated below that or visible at much above x180. Always a thrill to see the Trapezium with all six stars clearly resolved against the background of M42, although M42 wasn't too impressive last night because of the nearly full Moon.

The Moon itself was glorious - I spent nearly half an hour looking at the Mare Crisium and Cleomedes area - a huge amount of detail because of the oblique lighting. The Mak often offers amazing views of the Moon when conditions are right.

Roll on some more clear skies..........

Chris

 

[RobertI]

Nice report, I’ve looked through pretty much every type of scope but never a Mak, need to remedy that. How did you produce your simulation?

[chiltonstar]

2 hours ago, RobertI said:

Nice report, I’ve looked through pretty much every type of scope but never a Mak, need to remedy that. How did you produce your simulation?

Using Aberrator, or a DIY program.

Chris

 

[John]

Great stuff Chris

I've not managed to observe in quite a while, mostly because of the weather, but I'm glad to read an enthusiastic report to show that its worth the effort when the chance comes along

I wonder how the 203mm GSO classical cassegrain would fare on 52 Orionis 

[chiltonstar]

42 minutes ago, John said:

Great stuff Chris

I've not managed to observe in quite a while, mostly because of the weather, but I'm glad to read an enthusiastic report to show that its worth the effort when the chance comes along

I wonder how the 203mm GSO classical cassegrain would fare on 52 Orionis 

I await such a test on a real object with interest!

Chris