A Good Night

[Hobbes]

Had a fun session last night doing a mini messier marathon in the garden with my Bins. Viewing conditions kept getting better as the neighbours went to bed and turned the ligts off so I kept finding new objects. Bagged 23 Messiers and another 12 NGC's.

Crawled into bed at about 3am knacked but happy.

Sadly tonight there is a lot of high cloud which has put paid to a repeat session

[Nexus 6]

Hi Hobbes, you must be proud in managing to find so many dso's, thats some going well done!

conditions for me here over the course of the early morning were very good so I did see a few myself and upped the Messier count.

Virgo is brilliant for them, especially enjoyed having a good view of M104

[Hobbes]

Sound like you had some fun yourself. The Virgo Galaxies are just a bit beyond my grasp at the moment - they will have to wait until I have a scope or bigger bins. Something to look forward to.

[MrsR]

Glad you had a good night, I had a terrible one due to twins not settling then working themselves up too much, plus using a tripod for the first time that wasn't heavy eanough so made it hard going.

[Hobbes]

Bummer! I can feel your frustration.

I started out using a lightweight tripod that was too short and was really unhappy with it. I must say that the new one is fab and has enabled me to get a lot more from my Bins. I am going to upgrade to some larger ones as these will be my long term portable "scope" to take on holidays. We have just started camping hols last year and my kids are a bit older than yours so I reckon I can get a bit of star-gazing in while we are away.

Kind regds

Rob

[scogyrd]

plus using a tripod for the first time that wasn't heavy eanough so made it hard going.

Can you hang a weight off your tripod to give it a bit more stability? Mine has a hook built into the base of the centre column for doing just that. Failing that you could get a carrier bag, put a couple of bricks in it and duct tape it to the centre column I suppose.

[MrsR]

Rob ooooooo camping holidays - my idea of heaven, cannot wait for the girls to get old enough for these - in the Breacon Beacons and I would be in heaven lol We are off to France in a few months - static caravan so taking bins with me for that.

Scogyrd good idea, that will do while I wait for the 8115 to arrive.