Finally got out

[The Warthog]

It was promising to be reasonably clear, and about 1 degree last night, so I set my scope up about 8:00 to cool, and went inside. When I came out again, frost was already forming on the scope, and the finder was fogged (I left the caps off, d'oh!) I messed around abit, but couldn't really find anything, so I took the finder back inside with me to warm it up again. There was some high cloud, and things didn't look too promising. I couldn't find anything in Auriga, so I pointed at the Orion Nebula, and after a lot of searching, I was able to get it in the FOV, and then sighted in my finder, which was way off, having sat around for more than a month. I couldn't achieve focus quite properly, and was beginning to think my scope was in serious need of collimation, when I realised that I had ice forming on the secondary.

I decided to try out my UHC filter that I was given by a friend, and discovered, a) the Erfle lens I just bought doesn't have filter threads, and the threads on the UHC filter dont' fit the filter threads on my 8mm ep. I managed to jam the filter in the threads, and looked through it, discovering that it appreciably darkened the sky behind the Orion nebula, which I couldn't focus on properly because of the ice on the secondary, but by then I was getting ticked off with the whole exeercise, so I packed it in.

Now I have to figure out the threads on this filter. I had to remove it from the ep with a little gentle persuasion from a pair of slip-joint pliers (didn't damage anything.) I am thinking I could pop the glass out of a filter that I don't use much, and jam the UHC filter in the filter threads, and have a working filter.

Does anyone have any idea what the filter may be threaded for? It certainly isn't an ep.

Tonight it's supposed to be clear and 8 degrees, so I may have a better time of it.

[Caz]

Trials and tribulation!! Typical, you don't get chance in a long time to get that scope under those skies, then your riddled with problems, hope you sort it WH..

Heres to a better night tonight!!

Caz