First night with a new scope and eyepieces.

[fwm891]

This past week or so I’ve been buying and selling bits through the classified on the forum. I’ve picked up four TV Panoptics:15, 19, 24 and 35mm focal lengths which I felt were a good basic set.

Couple these to my 16 inch Dob and a darker near new moon night and I’m a happy boy.

I’m new to the observing lark so last night was to soak up starlight by just panning round. I found m57 (ring neb) easily well before it was dark. Then m27. At this point using the 35mm as a finder I tried using a 2” IDAS NBZ filter as a visual OIII Hb it worked a treat. M27 stood out superbly. I got the NBZ tri band to use with my OSC camera. I fitted the filter to a 2” to 1-1/4” step down adapter so I could  use the other eyepieces with the filter. The 19 and 24mm ep’s were fine, showing the dumbell  shape and after watching for a while I noticed mottling within the bright pats and quite extensive wings - all shades of grey of course. The veil eastern and western parts jumped out with the filter. Took me a good while to locate ngc891 not what I expected, (probably not it then!). Ngc 281 the pack an nebula also yealded to the NBZ filter.

m31 it’s companions and m33 all found through growing high cloud. Switched to a gap between house’s and bagged m’s 81, 82, 97 and 108. Plus a few globular clusters. Went to bed really chuffed. Bring on the darker nights.

[RobertI]

Very nice, some of these must have looked superb through 16”. 

[fwm891]

16 minutes ago, RobertI said:

Very nice, some of these must have looked superb through 16”. 

They sure did. Panning through the North American Nebula especially the gulf area was superb. Other than imaging it .

[Kon]

Excellent report. Welcome to the visual side🤩. Your 16" must bring some amazing details on the DSOs.

[Mark at Beaufort]

Nice one Francis. The big test will be seeing the Horse Head using a Hb filter - should be doable from your location. I tried this morning at 4am - no luck.

[Mr Spock]

Sounds like a great night. That's a nice set of eyepieces, I'm sure they'll be both treasured and well used.

[mdstuart]

NGC 891 needs low power and averted vision to pick out. It is ghostly but lovely once you have found it. Try when it is as high in the sky as possible.

Mark