A repurposed session

[NGC 1502]

Last night was clear in my part of Essex so I was out in the backyard with my 10” Dob with a list of double stars in Gemini to find. The sky was mainly clear but the seeing (atmospheric turbulence) was dreadful. Even easy Castor was not great and yes the scope was cooled and collimated.  
 

So my plans changed, packed the Dob away and set up my little Edmund Astroscan. Setting that up takes a whole 60 seconds👍  With my 18mm Radian the Astroscan gives 25x, 2.4 degree field and a not over large 4.2mm exit pupil. Had an absolute ball, nothing new but the list included-

Pleiades (of course) and you guessed it……Double  Cluster…..Stock 2, NGC 457.  Almost overhead was Kemble’s Cascade, not forgetting at one end of the Cascade is my name on SGL- NGC 1502.  Auriga Messiers M36, 37, 38, Gemini’s M35, Beehive lovely!  then Orion’s Sword.  Finished off with M81/82.  Almost forgot…..the almost first quarter moon!

It was a complete delight, the freedom of simplicity, one zero hassle scope, one eyepiece no star chart needed for those oft visited targets and another 60 seconds to pack it away.

Thoroughly enjoyed my repurposed session 😁

Ed.

[Stu]

Sounds fab, those sorts of sessions are often the best aren’t they? 👍

[Stu1smartcookie]

What a great report , and a message to anyone who thinks astronomy has to be an expensive hobby. Its what you do with your time rather than the expensive equipment we have that counts .

I for one am even more enthusiastic after reading such a report . 

 

[NGC 1502]

1 hour ago, Stu1smartcookie said:

I for one am even more enthusiastic after reading such a report . 

That’s great to hear👍
 

Your avatar looks like M82, however I have to say that in the 105mm Astroscan and town skies it sadly didn’t look like that. But the dim elongated smudge was definitely there with the brighter round smudge of M82.

My Astroscan is one of the later ones so is in good nick with none of the issues that the early 1970s and 80s units can suffer from.

Forecasts for tonight are very poor. That doesn’t mean zero astronomy of course, time to make a list of objects for next time out.

[Stu1smartcookie]

37 minutes ago, NGC 1502 said:

Your avatar looks like M82,

Indeed it is , its my best DSO photo .. but i prefer observing to the stress of imaging ... the scope , is mainly for looking through

 

Edited January 10, 2022 by Stu1smartcookie

[Buqibu]

Great report! Also that scope is very cute

[NGC 1502]

34 minutes ago, Buqibu said:

Great report! Also that scope is very cute

Thanks, indeed it is😊.  However the Edmund Astroscan in good nick is hard to find, especially outside of the USA where most of them were sold.  But there’s loads of small aperture short focal length reflectors and refractors that will do a similar job, that’s low power wide field.  These make an excellent complement to a larger scope and they’re generally low priced even when new.