Quick session with a classic 60mm in Lyra & Cygnus

[SuburbanMak]

Was about to turn in tonight when I noticed it had finally cleared so I headed out into the garden planless for a quick look around with my recent eBay Hilkin 60mm f13.3. 
 

Seeing was actually pretty steady & transparency up high improving all the time. 
 

I’m still waiting on the Vixen converter which will allow 1.25 eyepieces so took out the array of .965s which are in varying stages of disrepair. 
 

There is something satisfying about the way they slot into the split-cut diagonal with no thumbscrews - shame most of the higher powers seemed borderline unusable. 
 

The 25mm though gives a nice crisp view and I congratulated myself on my bargain looking at some lovely tight concentric rings either side of focus on Vega before hopping up to Epsilon Lyrae. 
 

Stepping down the focal lengths I was just about splitting the more southerly pair with a 12.5 mm (64x) and not a bad view. The 9mm (89x) on axis confirmed this lower pair & showed some elongation in the fainter, more northerly pair. Kind of dim view though.
The 6mm & 5mm were hopeless. 
 

Popped the 25mm back in and took a pot shot at M57 which to my delight showed as a tiny but crisp circle.  Tried to step up the magnification but it was not happening. 
 

Enjoyed a nice contrasty view of Alberio for a while - really do like the tight pinpoint stars, good colour and inky background in this scope. 

It’s a lovely still, warm night but the town clock striking two reminded me I have work in the morning so I took one last sweep around the rich centre of Cygnus.

I landed on a pretty little cluster a bit like a micro-Pleiades & realised I was looking at M29 - a thrill to have tracked down a new-to-me Messier object with this lovely old instrument. 

I’ve hatched a plan to see how many of the lunar 100 I can observe with the Hilkin - seems a fitting task for it!

As I packed up a huge Skytrain of 20+ satellites went N-S behind Deneb - biggest one I’ve seen and amazing in its way. 

Lovely all-analogue couple of hours well spent. 
 

 

 

Edited May 18, 2021 by SuburbanMak

[Stu]

Amazing what fun can be had with a tiny scope! Nice report, wish I’d see the Starlink pass!

[SuburbanMak]

Meant to add -  I also got a super split of Polaris at 64x after looking at the Double Double, seems very easy to see in this scope I think because of the smallness of the diffraction rings, the little white ghost of a companion sits just outside the single ring and there's a marked contrast with the yellow-er primary. 

[HollyHound]

21 hours ago, SuburbanMak said:

As I packed up a huge Skytrain of 20+ satellites went N-S behind Deneb - biggest one I’ve seen and amazing in its way.

Saw the same when I was letting our dog out last night... very impressive line of them, like a string of pearls 😀