A gap in the clouds and first night with first scope

[NickK]

Well there was a gap in the clouds this evening and as it was my first time out I was wracking my brain where I could go near Bracknell that would be a quick journey and be dark enough (the local area is all domestic and I was initially worried about telescope+houses=pervert! Then it occurred to me that the area I park my car is in a little square with no lighting (save a path light a couple of fences away).

I looked using Stellarium at targets. Orions belt to the south, moon towards the west (I can see from my bedroom). So I set myself a goal - Orion Nebula. I memorised the location as bottom belt star and then 90 deg down from the plane of the three stars. Should be simple enough!

So it took me all of 5 seconds to walk and set up the scope - Vixen A80Mf and porta mount.

The sky had thin clouds heading up thicker stuff from the east /west/north however there was perfectly clear sky to the south. Perfect - Orion's belt stood out like a sore thumb.

So I found a local laylandi and zeroed in the 20mm EP and the view scope. Not great but it will do to get me started.

Target one - Orions belt. Simple I thought. Ok got the target on orion's belt and preceded to look through the EP. Stars.. lots.. of.. stars. More than I was expecting! I found the middle star but between moving to the target scope the mount would move… ok time to resettle the mount as the focusing and EP has put the centre of gravity out of whack.

With that done.. I though I'd not bother realigning the target scope but use the porta's manual controls to star hop.. I got down to the base and after a little zig zagging I found Orion's nebula.

My night vision was getting better. More stars were appearing. So I thought - 6mm EP time. Woah, it was evident I was resting my had on the mount control and wobbling it! I could see the stars of the Orion nebula but the light pollution stopped me from seeing any clouding around it.

Just looking at it now, I can't identify which of the set of stars it was in the nebula but you could see the cluster of stars by naked eye and faint tinting (I assume that was the nebula).

So I looked around a little more.. almost straight up there was a set of stars which has a similar tinting. Mental note where in relation it was from orion.. Draw a line straight across from the belt, take Betelgeuse (the only star I know in Orion!) make a box with the belt being one corner, betelgeuse being the top corner… follow the top of the box out past a bright star and that took me to the little cluster of stars (you could probably guess this by now).

After getting an alignment with my targeting scope and the 20mm picking up a beautiful set of stars.. it was time to realign the target scope and the main scope by selecting the bright centre star. Perfect.. far better alignment and I could now just pick any of the stars in the target scope with the 6mm and it would right there in the centre of the EP.

It was a really nice set of stars, my mystery cluster, however it as better viewing in terms of faint colouring with the 20mm however the 6mm made it very contrasty between the stars.

I thought with the scope aligned perfectly I'd have a look at Orion's nebula again.. but it looked different. I could see the star light but not the bluish tint. Sure enough the thin cloud had rolled the nebula. Looking up at my mystery cluster I could see the thin cloud also starting to cover it. Time to pack up.

Just looked for my mystery cluster.. the bright star on the way was Aldebaran. The cluster appears to be Pleiades! The star I aligned my scopes on was Alcyone (HIP 17702) I could see Pleione, Atlas, Merope, Asterope, Taygeta, Celaeno, Electra and Maia clearly (although without the cloud as bright as you see through processed imaging).

So I came inside, my fingers burning with the cold.

Very happy - more than I planned to see on my first night! I'm also happy for going manual and having to star hop. I noticed more stars between them than I thought. I tried taking a photo through the EP with my little Ixus but it wasn't playing ball.. however I did manage to get a very wobbly crappy handheld shot through the targeting scope of orion:

The three stars of the belt (bottom to top) Alnitak, Alnilam, Mintaka, with Betelgeuse top left and Rigel bottom right. Third point of the triangle from Betelgeuse and Mintaka is Bellatrix. I'm making a guess that the bottom star is Sirius due to it's brightness. Pity you can't make out any nebula from this but hey

About the scope and mount...

The Porta mount..

1. The magnet to keep the alan keys in the tool holder is a nice touch. They don't jump out at all!

2. It would have been nice to have the struts between the legs (where the tray sits) to be aluminium rather than plastic.

3. The porta mount is a nice mount for pickup and go. The controls make it easy, with a little practice, to move around the sky.

4. 6mm can be used once the scope targeting is aligned however it's very sensitive to the porta's wobbles if you're not careful.

5. The scope requires a good centring of gravity

6. A half pillar for the mount would be good unless you like bending down for high DEC objectives! (I'm 6'4)

The scope

1. The focuser is a little too coarse for the 6mm. If you're using this then you'll want to change the focuser.

2. Needs a 10-12mm EP to complement the 6 & 20mm that come with it.

Would have liked to have seen some dusting however I think the 80mm aperture and the light pollution saw to that!

[Nexus 6]

Excellent Nick,

I guess your chuffed! must have been good to get out and test your new kit. I had given this lot some serious consideration myself, surely a great bargain!

Look forward to some more reports.

Alan