Saturday May 14th

[glafnazur]

Finally on Saturday 14th May we had a clear night on an evening I was able to stay up late 🙂 I had ordered a 12.5 Morpheus eyepiece in the May sale and it arrived that morning so I was eager to get out and test it. I had also recently received a Sky-Watcher SynScan WiFi Adapter and a Baader 2" Semi APO Filter, both of which I hadn't yet had chance to use.

I set up using my Skywatcher Evostar 150 on the EQ6 R Pro. Both are heavy beasts but I managed to get set up without putting my back out so result there 🙂 I aligned the finder and scope on a distant TV aerial and waited eagerly for the sky to darken. I attached the Sky-Watcher SynScan WiFi Adapter and as soon as a few stars became visible I decided to try and polar align using the polemaster. I was delighted to find that the Sky-Watcher SynScan WiFi Adapter connected without a hitch and I proceeded on. I was quite surprised that PA went so well considering I'd not been out with a scope for a few months. 

I attached the Baader ClickLock 2" DiElectric Star Diagonal and selected my ES Maxvision 2", 68° 28mm eyepiece and started a 3 star alignment. Although it seemed strange at first I found the Sky-Watcher SynScan Pro app very intuitive and got along with it almost straight away. My first alignment star was way, way out but the second appeared in the field of view and the third was practically in the centre. 

After alignment I selected Vega and attached another of my recent purchases, a Baader 2" Semi APO Filter. Viewing Vega there appeared to be very little CA 🙂 I decided to have a bit of a shootout between my LP filters, Baader Neodymium Moon & Skyglow Filter, IDAS LPS-D3 Light Pollution Filter and Optolong L-Pro Light Pollution Broadband Filter. 

I had great views of M57, M13, Epsilon Lyrae (the double double), Albireo, M92 and a few other doubles and clusters. Although there was not much in it I found that I kept going back to the IDAS D3 filter so that will be my preferred choice from now on. 

The only problem I had with the Sky-Watcher SynScan Pro app was a user problem. Around 11pm I helped my wife to bed and when I returned out I found that it had disconnected 😞 I was a little puzzled at first as to why this had happened then I realised that when I went in to help my wife I had left my phone in my body warmer pocket and it had reconnected to my BT wifi - Doh! 

Overall it was a great night, it felt so good to back out observing, the Morpheus 12.5 was pin sharp to the edges and I can see it becoming a firm favourite, and all the rest of my new kit performed as good, if not better, than I had hoped for 🙂 

Dave