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An hour out tonight.


argonaut

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I had an hour out with my binoculars tonight. My choice tonight was with my Garrett GT70 90°. I stayed with the 20x eyepieces.

First object was Polaris,I use Polaris every time I go out to see what the sky conditions are going to be like. Conditions were pretty good. I split Polaris tonight at 20x. Just wondered how low a magnification you can split Polaris with? Have you also noticed the companion could be a little Yellowish? I don't think it was CA. Had a beautiful image of the broken engagement ring while I was viewing Polaris.

Secondly I moved onto M81 and M82. Not much more than smudges but I could make out the shape of these two Galaxies. I then moved to M51 and M101,tonight wasn't the night for these two. Could not pick them out at all. I always have problems with these two. My light polluted backyard doesn't help.

I moved on to one of my favourite objects which is Mizar/Alcor. Mizar was a lovely clean split tonight with it's companion.

Moving over to Auriga I viewed M38-M37-M36. M38 always looks good with a nice group of stars which seperate nicely at 20x. M36 is always a little challenge after M38. At first it's just a foggy patch with a couple of stars,when my eyes gets used to the view and I use averted vision, 5-6 more stars appear. Nice target. M37,to me is visually between the two,another pleasing object. Had a look at Epsilon Auriga. Watch for news on Epsilon in the future.

M45, beautiful tonight at 20x. This is one of the finest binocular objects. You just don't need magnification with M45. I moved West and had a quick look at Venus.Nothing much to see really with binoculars but always worth a look.

My Last object tonight was NGC457, Owl cluster or ET cluster whichever you want to call it. To me it looks like a little scorpion. Those two main stars look like car headlights and then the trail of stars to the North. Nice cluster with any binocular.

Well,that's about it for tonight. Just thought you may want to hear what you can see with binoculars.

Glen.

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Glen, are they 70mm aperture?

if so you do well (and you were brave to be out last night!) to pick out some of the fainter stuff! I use apm20/40x100 45deg and I've never managed to pick out any galaxies other than m81, m82 and m31 but the view of open clusters through them is unreal so I usually stick to those and sometimes just wander randomly around the cassiopea/perseus area. The great thing with bins is you can just wanderover the sky for many minutes without your eye getting tired. I am in london so i suspect my LP is worse than most :) .

I am looking forward to the day I can take them to a dark site :(

anyway, thanks for the report

dan

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Hi Dan,

Yes, they are 70mm 90°

A couple of pics.

John: I also have apair of Garrett 15x70 SS. Great bino's, a little tough on the neck. I use them layed on my back sweeping the starfields in Cygnus.

I will try Albireo with my 10x50's, could be quite late in the night for that. It's one of my favourite doubles.

Cassiopeia is a excellent constellation for binoculars,everything you want and very close to the double cluster in Perseus.

Glen.

Glen.

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