Sunday 28 Feb - Grabbing and going

[MercianDabbler]

I decided to brave the moonlight and pop out for a while with the grab and go setup (ST80 and Manfrotto tripod... plus folding chair) this evening. Mostly revisiting things from other recent sessions.

On previous sessions I'd found that the mount had a bit of wobble in altitude which made aiming a bit of a pain - I could centre an object, clamp the head and then the thing would move slightly in altitude as soon as I let go. I thought this was all down to the quick release mechanism and was planning to make a dovetail that could be screwed directly to the head in place of the quick release. While measuring up for this job figured out a way to avoid the job, or at least postpone it. I'm now mounting the scope in line with the long side of the QR plate and pressing the QR latch closed instead of just relying on the spring. Finally I found that some of the wobble was coming from the azimuth swivel so now I'm locking the azimuth instead of leaving it free. Trying out my (hopefully) improved way of using the tripod was one of the motivations for heading out this evening.

The evening started off with M42, probably not the best night to be looking at it but it was there and at least I was shaded from the strong moonlight by a neighbour's trees. I tried it both with and without a Astronomik UHC filter. I'm not sure if I like the view better with the filter or not. It does show a bit more detail but the whole scene is dimmer. I could make out 4 stars in the trapezium without the filter but could not be confident that there were 4 of them with the filter.

Next up was Meissa to see if I could split this with the ST80. I got it into view pretty quickly using the 32mm Plossl and then tried progressively shorter eyepieces. It took the 5mm Starguider to do the split.

I noticed that Mars was pretty close to the Pleiades so decided to see if they would fit into a single view with the ST80. They wouldn't quite - I had to pan a little even with the 32mm Plossl. Instead I pointed the 10x50 binoculars up there which fitted both in without a problem. I also panned over to Aldeberan which was looking (to my eyes) very similar to Mars in colour and brightness.

The next target was Algieba. I'd tried this with the ST80 on a previous session and had not been able to split it. Having done it with the SP102 without too much difficulty I wanted to try again with the ST80. I tried the 15mm SLV, 9mm DeLite and 5mm Starguider but no joy so clearly my previous attempt wasnt unrepresentative. I then went indoors and fetched my 6.4mm Meade Plossl but still no joy - I was getting a lot of flare, sometimes one sided and sometimes symettrical. Sometimes I had multiple images of the star, particularly noticeable with more magnification - like a 4 pointed star composed of several dots. The views in the 5mm Starguider and 6.4mm Plossl were pretty similar so the problem wasn't with a single eyepiece. There was no shortage of light so in desperation I put the cap back on the tube with just the little solar projection window open. Bingo! - now I could split it with both the 5mm Starguider and the 9mm DeLite. I'm not sure this is a recognised technique for double stars but it worked on this occasion.

By now the Moon was getting above the surrounding trees so that was the next target. The 9mm DeLite and 5mm Starguider both gave a decent sized image and with the help of the moon phase images that I've now downladed to the tablet I was able to identify Mare Crisium, Langrenus and Petavius near to the terminator, Langrenus almost seeming to have a double rim, or at least a stepped rim.

I dedided to finish off the evening by revisiting the Beehive cluster. After finding it in Stellarium and then with the binoculars (always seems a bit higher than I expect) I got the ST80 aiming in the same azimuth direction, locked the azimuth and panned up... straight to the target with no problem at all. I started out with the 32mm Plossl, tried the 26mm Meade S4000, 15mm SLV and finally the 9mm DeLite. I was expecting to find one better than the others but in the end I decided that I liked them all.

Finally I just spent a few minutes just looking at the sky. Sirius seemed to me to be actually jumping around. I had a look through the binoculars just to check that it was indeed Sirius and there it was flashing all sorts of colours at me, so I guess the seeing was probably not the best.

Not a long session - proabably about 90 minutes and back indoors in time for the news at 10.

[Tiny Clanger]

Nice report ! Shows what can be done with a modest 'scope on a photo tripod.

Are you using the ST80 on top of the head, or with it rocked 90 degrees (as if taking a portrait rather than landscape photo with a camera ) ? I've found the on the side orientation lowers the centre of gravity enough to make the little 'scope much more easily shifted in alt on my pan tilt head (an old 029 with the big hexagonal QR plate) .

I went out early, and managed almost an hour of observing before the Moon rose . I'd taken the dob out, planning amongst other things,  to revisit Messier 37, 36 and 38 in Auriga , which I did, then thought ... wonder if I could see them and what would they look like in the ST80, ?

Popped indoors, carried it out with just the 17mm plossl I've left in it as a more or less permanent fixture, looked up ... and saw all three , tiny , a bit indistinct compared with the view in the 150 dob, with a 15mm BST , but not at all bad.

I'm really quite impressed with the ST80 🙂

Heather

[MercianDabbler]

 

9 hours ago, Tiny Clanger said:

I'm really quite impressed with the ST80

Yes I like the ST80 a lot. I bought it a few years back when having read the reviews I thought it was pretty much impossible to go wrong at the price and I haven't changed my mind.

There are plenty of occasions when I am happy to pop out with the ST80 but the time to put together the bits for the bigger scope, level it and do even a quick polar alignment would have put me off heading out at all. I also love the wide field - it takes so much less time to find what I'm looking for in the ST80 than it does with the SP102... especially on nights like last night when the moon was making most of the fainter stars invisible to the naked eye. Naturally it does have less grunt though but going out with less grunt is better than not going out at all.

I also like the ability to set the camera tripod legs at quite wide angles to make the whole thing lower so that I can enjoy the sky from the comfort of a folding chair.

Thanks for the tip regarding the mount. I've been using it with the mounting plate on top but I'll give it a try tipped over at 90 degrees.