More NV madness

[vineyard]

Hello,

Last night was unexpectedly clear in the first half.  (I say unexpectedly b/c I had foolishly just gone by CO & not set anything up & then looked outside when I saw Jupiter shining and thought "oh %$^&" - too late to set AP rig up).

Anyway, thought I'd do some quick NV, so popped a 6nm Ha filter on the end of the PVS14 (ie, only 1x) and just did a scan of the sky to see what I could see.  Tootling along, I saw a cloud and thought huh, where did that come from.  Took the PVS14 off and looked up naked eye - nope not a cloud anywhere near.  Looked up again w the PVS14 and realised hang on, is that the California Nebula?  Scanned right to see if the Pleiades were where they would be, and yep there they were.

The California Nebula at 1x 🤯  The thing that surprised me even more was how big it is compared to M45.  I know a star atlas shows their relative sizes, but actually seeing it in real life, and appreciating how big that thing is was something else.  (I really want to see the NAN at 1x b/c I think that is ginormous).

After that I quickly set up my old WO EZTouch, put my 0.5x reducer+TV40+PVS14 rig into my old TV76 and just went for a visual scan to see what else I could find by just wandering around.  Thought I'd stay around Cassiopeia, and just panned around.  Pacman, Heart & Soul!

Took photos w my smartphone (really not v good images at all - handheld so there is glare & blurriness - for a better representation of NV at the EP experience, check @GavStar's posts, but this is just to show).  The 0.5x reducer setup that speeds the system up to f2 definitely improves things for my equipment.  Next time I have a chance I want to try that on a 7" f10 as that should speed it up to f/3.25.

I cannot wait to get this under dark skies with more uninterrupted lines of sight.

Cheers,

Vin