A little session with the 8" f8

[Stu]

I've been having a bit of a refractor fest for a while, using my Vixen FL102S a fair bit, plus the Tak and Telementor, so my Orion Optics 8" f8 has been a little forgotten.

I recieved a new Baader finder shoe the other day, as the one fitted flexed around too much on the relatively think aluminium skin of the OO. I spent a little while drilling new holes to fit that, carefully cleaning out any dwarf to protect the mirror and am very happy with this new addition; my 60mm finder is much more solid and holds position very well.

I wanted to have a look at Venus, and was pleasantly surprised with the results. I guess I shouldn't be really as this is an optimised planetary scope. The diffraction spikes are a little distracting vs a refractor, but looking beyond that the sharpness of the planet was very good. I used my Leica Zoom giving between x85 and x180, a really excellent range.

I hadn't planned on doing too much observing last night, so hadn't setup the EQ Platform. This scope has a small footprint and can be a little unstable so the platform really helps the stability by providing the tracking so I will definitely use this more in future. It may make sense to find a way to fix the dob base to the platform to make it more stable too.

I had a nice little trawl around some familiar objects; Auriga clusters and M35 were excellent, the stars really are nice in this scope (for a dob 😉), and the extra aperture really gives these clusters some scale and brings out far more faint stars, really nice.

Doubles also split very well as I've found before. My little tester in the corner of the 37 cluster was beautiful, very refractor like.

Switching to my 40mm 68 degree Paracor eyepiece gave me 1.7 degrees of sky, enough for the DC and M44 and with a 5mm exit pupil should be ideal for OIII filtered views.

M81 and 82 were very faint, not totally sure why but the sky appeared fairly bright, perhaps high level cloud reflecting the LP and cutting transparency.

Last one I caught was the Eskimo Nebula. Even unfiltered I could see the brighter core and fainter halo.

So, as is often the case, nothing amazing seen but enough to enjoy. Good to revisit this lovely scope and remember just how capable it is. Very light and easy to carry down the garden too, and quick to cool.

[AdeKing]

2 minutes ago, Stu said:

I spent a little while drilling new holes to fit that, carefully cleaning out any dwarf

How did the Dwarf feel about being evicted @Stu?

Ok, I'll get my coat 

[Stu]

5 minutes ago, AdeKing said:

How did the Dwarf feel about being evicted @Stu?

Ok, I'll get my coat 

Funny! He was keeping himself warm, hiding in the scope 🤣🤣

I shall resist using my mod special powers to fix that 😉