Briefly into the murk

[The Warthog]

Encouraged by a couple of discussions on here the last few days, I decided to go and have a look at the moon, which was fairly clear when I got home. Both my scopes are sitting on my den floor at the moment, and the tripod is inaccessible as I have been clearing out my sheds, so now one of the sheds has all the stuff from the other one sitting in its doorway.

So, I decided to have a go with my little 65mm Mak, and see if I could steady it sufficiently for use with a monopod.I put out one leg of the tripod to the max, put the scope on top, and went boldly forth to try the experiment. Of course, cloud had moved in and masked but not obliterated the Moon. I got it in the scope and quickly determined that even at 30x, I can't hold it steady enough for any useful observations, and at 90x, I can't hold it steady enough to even focus.

I used this scope to show some relatives Saturn, and the Orion neb a couple of years back, at about 60x, more or less firmly mounted on the tripod, but it needs all three legs.

I still have hopes for the monopod and my 10x50 binox. In the meantime, I'll work on the shed rebuild, and getting out with a real scope.

I ofund my missing red torch in the bag for the Mak, so it was a worthwhile effort...