Out Again – Some Doubles & Clusters

[cloudsweeper]

7.15pm Friday. Devil’s Lantern low, east, behind houses. 8SE Cat + Focal Reducer in action on GoTo. Aligned on Betelgeuse.

11/β Mon – triple - 4^th &5^th mags, 7.1” and 9.8” separations. Bright, in a busy field. The Zoom got the split – very nice, the near-matched fainter pair were closer than each of their stated seps from the primary.

Christmas Tree Cluster (OC) also in Monoceros – not very bright, many stars, not dense. The brightest star was 15 Mon, with a nice line of three unrelated pairs beneath it. (The fainter companions were not spotted even at x191.)

Σ953 Mon - 7^th mag pair, 7.3” apart. Just south of the above cluster. Got the split at x73 – very pleasing, sparse field, good match, secondary at 4 o’clock.

C50 Satellite Cluster (OC) also Mon – nice, loose open cluster at centre of Rosette Nebula (not detected).

M48 Open Cluster in Hydra – faint, generally loose, more stars evident at x91.

M47 Open Cluster in Puppis – similar, perhaps denser at the centre. At x91, a central star was nicely resolved into a close, matched pair.

I finished after 1hr 35mins. An enjoyable session, the first for a while. The Cat/Focal Reducer combo does seem to give sharper images, and it was a pleasant change to work solely with 1.25” EPs and no adaptors.

Doug.

Edited March 19, 2022 by cloudsweeper

[wookie1965]

Doug I went out last night but my mount is acting up polar aligned and did 2 star alignment. Went to the first object not even in FOV. 

If I can work out what is wrong I am going to try for that cluster in Puppis and C50 they are 2 new ones for me. 

[cloudsweeper]

30 minutes ago, wookie1965 said:

Doug I went out last night but my mount is acting up polar aligned and did 2 star alignment. Went to the first object not even in FOV. 

If I can work out what is wrong I am going to try for that cluster in Puppis and C50 they are 2 new ones for me. 

Glad you've got some action in Paul!

I have very little experience of polar alignment/eq mounts (had one only briefly).  I like the Celestron altaz GoTo, and I usually just use the one-star set-up.  It works fine if you don't aim too far away!

The 8SE with Focal Reducer is like having a new 'scope.  And no bulky 2" diagonal/EPs!

Doug.

 

 

Edited March 19, 2022 by cloudsweeper

[Davesellars]

Nice report!  When I had my 8" SCT I always used the focal reducer unless I was doing planetary observation.  To my eyes it made a considerable difference and made to scope more able for DSO observation - and of helps to use sensible eyepiece focal lengths!  Sharper stars as well although still had to wait an hour or sometimes two...