Well Worth Obseving With a 94% Illuminated Moon

[paulastro]

Set up just before midnight with the Celestron 8inch Starsense Explorer dob last night.  A 94% illuminated  moon, but I hadn't seen comet C/2022/ E3 ZTF for a few days.  Set up the scope and using the starsense app I was guided to the comet effortlessly in 2minutes - no alignment or finder necessary!  The coma looked dimmer and a little smaller than last time, but not surprising with the moonlight and layers of haze.  Still, it was very easy in the 8inch and relatively bright, using ES 24/68 eyepiece.

Then changed to the Morpheus 17.5mm for more mag to aid contrast and resolution in the poor conditions.  Targeted open clusters mostly and double stars. Looked at M35, M37, M36, M38, Double Cluster and ET Cluster.  The latter two surprisingly good in the conditions. Also NGC 663 OC in Cass and M103.

Then gave first light to a used Celestron Xcel LX 9mm I had recently bought, Delta Bootes, Gamma Leo,  Alcor//Mizar and NGC 2548 - apparently the Cluster Messier observed and catalogued as M48.

Still with the 9mm, went to Praesepe which was only about 4 degrees from the 94%illuminated  Moon.  This making  nonsense of comments suggesting that the Starsense Explorer system cannot work very well in bright moonlight when few stars can be seen. I had no problems going  through this observing run, indeed I would realky have struggled if I had had to use a finder.

A very enjoyable session - despite the bright Moonlight and rather hazy sky.  The performance of the 9mm XCel LX was extremely impressive,  excellent star images to the edge of the field, nice colour saturation and good contrast.  I was very pleased with its performance.

 

 

Edited February 5, 2023 by paulastro

[Sunshine]

Nice report! I agree with comments made by those who have not tried the starsense technology, my starsense locates its position in the sky so quickly and with so few stars visible it always leaves me dumbfounded.

 

[paulastro]

2 hours ago, Sunshine said:

Nice report! I agree with comments made by those who have not tried the starsense technology, my starsense locates its position in the sky so quickly and with so few stars visible it always leaves me dumbfounded.

 

I agree with you,  I've had my scope since July and it never ceases to amaze me  every time I use i!

[Alan White]

Paul, thanks for this post, made me go for comet C/2022/ E3 ZTF with my 4" tonight, was abit tough with the Moon and also directly overhead,
but contortions done, my knees will charge me tomorrow, but so nice in the scope over Binoculars.|

Then had a good old play with my Baader diagnal and Binoviewer trying for focus without a barlow, but close, but no cigar.
Work in progress I think.

Just wish my 10" dobson was up and running as I expect the Comet would have been even better.

 

[paulastro]

58 minutes ago, Alan White said:

Paul, thanks for this post, made me go for comet C/2022/ E3 ZTF with my 4" tonight, was abit tough with the Moon and also directly overhead,
but contortions done, my knees will charge me tomorrow, but so nice in the scope over Binoculars.|

Then had a good old play with my Baader diagnal and Binoviewer trying for focus without a barlow, but close, but no cigar.
Work in progress I think.

Just wish my 10" dobson was up and running as I expect the Comet would have been even better.

 

Thanks Alan.  Do a srarsense explorer mod on your 10inch dob and it would be dead easy to locate, and no sore knees!  😊