Summer skies ain't so bad

[parallaxerr]

I had a rather pleasant observing session this evening. My mount has been setup and strapped down in the garden for a good week or so now, but the presence of the full Moon, high winds and some cloudier nights prevented me from going out. Tonight though I was presented with clear, steady skies and the Moon is late to rise, so I put the new Omni XLT 120 out to cool after dinner.

Went out to observe about 9.45pm with poorly adjusted eyes so started off just focusing in on a few bright stars at low power. I used the opportunity to try out some of my filters to see what effect they had on controlling the (minimal) CA in the achro. After a bit of to and fro, I decided to stack the Baader semi-apo and a #8 light yellow and to my surprise found they nearly completely eliminated CA, even at X200 mag on Vega with only a very slight yellow cast. So slight I believe because the un-filtered views through this scope are particularly cool.

After 10 minutes or so visiting Arcturus & Vega I could start to feel my eyes adapting and seeing fainter stars and by about 10.30pm I was surprised at just how much I could see with the naked eye. I was expecting a bit of a wash out given Stellariums estimation of my atmosphere & LP.

As I cruised around the Eastern extremity of my observable skies at X50 using a humble 20mm plossl, I stumbled in to the glob M92. I was not expecting to pick out anything faint this evening but it really popped into view. I decided to try the Great Cluster in Hercules just next door and was rewarded with a very nice view indeed. Changing to the 9mm LER yielding X110, I could resolve individual stars albeit very faint, seemingly quite deep into the core. This is the resolution I missed in the 4" scope and tonights view very much reminded me of the view through my C8 a few years ago. 

Seeing as I was in the neighbourhood, I panned across to Lyra to pick out the double double. Very clean split at X200.

To finish off I located the Ring Nebula with the 20mm, then with a UHC filter pushed the mag up to X110 again. I was rewarded with a very nice contrasty view with subtle hints of what looked like a twist in the ring.

Given that I was in two minds tonight, that was most enjoyable!

[Stu]

Lovely stuff, your scope sounds like it is delivering for you, and it certainly looks fab too!

I think we had similar evenings! I nearly didn’t go out at all, but it looked good out there so viewed some of he same objects in my little scopes too, just to get a fix! Very enjoyable it was too.

[cloudsweeper]

Similar targets to me Jon!  AR 102S frac in action.  Arcturus, Spica at the start, then Vega, with the Double Double in the same large (>4deg) FOV.  I got a clear spilt (tho' very close in appearance) at x150.  Having viewed dozens of doubles in recent months, I'd forgotten what an absolute beauty Epsilon Lyrae is - all bright (5th mag; one is just 6th), and the pairs have similar separations (about 2.2"; 2.4").

I finished by just aiming at - and hitting -  the Hercules Cluster M13.

Doug.

[mark81]

@parallaxerr sounds like a decent first session - especially with the use of those filters... How did you get on with the AZ4?

Mark

[parallaxerr]

2 hours ago, mark81 said:

@parallaxerr sounds like a decent first session - especially with the use of those filters... How did you get on with the AZ4?

Mark

Hi Mark, the AZ4 is absolutely fine for low to medium power stuff, it makes a nice combo with the 120 for DSO work. It's only above about X150 where the damping time takes a bit too long, so I'm considering an EQ5 head or equivalent to go on my pier extension for planetary work, but there's no rush given that they're all hiding at the moment!