Izar, that is all… (literally)

[Stu]

My observing has been almost non-existent over the last few months, either through weather, chaotic/busy lifestyle or tiredness.

Last night was no exception really, but when I went out to feed the bunnies at around 10.30pm, the sky was clear and actually looked very steady; I could easily see Alcor with the naked eye.

Arcturus was shining brightly, and very orangily, (🤪) high up, so my thoughts turned to Izar.

My little 76mm was in the garden room, cooled already and on its ScopeTech/Gitzo mounting so I thought I might just manage five minutes before the lovely Mrs Stu summoned me in for the night.

With no finder, I got on target easily using a Leica Zoom, up to full power (x64) and the secondary just showed. In with the Nag Zoom and up to full power (x190) and there it was. Perfect collimation, primary with a beautiful first diffraction ring, just breaking up with the seeing a little but always there. The blue grey secondary was embedded on the diffraction ring like a gem on a ring. Just beautiful. I do love the views through these little scopes; big airy disks so the stars look like perfect balls against the sky.

Enough to keep me going until the skies get a little darker and things calm down a bit.

Stu

Never in the field of human observing, has so much been written, about so few targets…. 😉

[John]

Sometimes, a little is quite a lot. Izar is a lovely target even if it's all that could be managed in the time available🙂

It did clear late last night - I nearly didn't go out at all but it's been so poor lately I thought I'd better try and get a small scope out - thank goodness for those little instruments. Without them, many of us would be relegated to armchair astronomers !

[JeremyS]

10 hours ago, Stu said:

My observing has been almost non-existent over the last few months, either through chaotic/busy lifestyle or tiredness. 

So did you get re-elected last Thursday, Stu? 🤔

[Paz]

I've pretty much stopped observing in the last couple of month's other than using small simple set ups that I can take out and bring back in quickly, and my observing has mostly been very short sessions squeezed in between the clouds and real life responsibilities.

I saw the sun shine briefly half an hour ago and put out my maksutov for a half chance of some solar. After waiting for 5 minutes or so as the cloud cover became too thick to get aligned I got maybe two minutes looking at AR3738 through thick and thin (mostly thick) cloud, but it was great, and that's quite typical these days.