Post by atomant on Jul 27, 2012 14:41:42 GMT -6
The morning storms cleaned the skies a bit, allowing for a bit of mid-summer observing from the city last night.
I decided to grab the lightweight 130mm f/5 newt.
With open tube, I would not need to worry about dewing too soon.
Luckily, a cool northerly breeze kept the dew and skeeters at bay.
With the moon out and 24hour lights glaring at me on the rooftop, I decided to use a little help of Orion's intelliscope, aka digital setting circles, in finding brighter DSO.
I first aligned my 6x30mm finderscope with 130mm tube on the ever-fast setting Saturn.
Wish the manufacturers would improve on these finderscopes by leaving the center open. The crosshairs totally block out the tiny bright spec.
After "teaching" the mount two bright stars [Arcturus and Vega], I was ready to "push to".
I started with open clusters.
M29 in Cygnus - tiny cluster within a field of stars.
M11 in Scutum - right at the bottom of "bowl" of stars
M6 and M7 at Scorpius' tail
I took a pause and imagined how the milky way would have looked from the city if there was a blackout.
Without a nebular or narrowband filter, I was not able to see the nebulosity in M8 Lagoon, but was able to see the neat little ngc open cluster.
Next, were some globs.
M13 and M92 in Hercules - very comet like
M3 - hope and skip from Arcturus.
The planetary neb, M57, wasn't too shabby tonite.
Using a 32mm plossl as my scanner ep, I was able to see over 2 degrees of sky with the 130mm newt.
The intelliscope is my new savior in urban observing; it allowed me to quickly pick these objects in the city muck.
The moon is of another creature.
At 1st quarter, it is so bright, it was competing with the manmade lights.
Thankfully this piece of cheese is chockfull of surface details.
Tonite was probably the best I have seen of the lunar sword aka rupes recta, straight wall.
iphone, thru Meade 12mm plossl
using digital zoom on camera phone
double stacking two 2x barlows with 12mm plossl
Look forward to catching some lunar boobies aka domes this weekend.
I decided to grab the lightweight 130mm f/5 newt.
With open tube, I would not need to worry about dewing too soon.
Luckily, a cool northerly breeze kept the dew and skeeters at bay.
With the moon out and 24hour lights glaring at me on the rooftop, I decided to use a little help of Orion's intelliscope, aka digital setting circles, in finding brighter DSO.
I first aligned my 6x30mm finderscope with 130mm tube on the ever-fast setting Saturn.
Wish the manufacturers would improve on these finderscopes by leaving the center open. The crosshairs totally block out the tiny bright spec.
After "teaching" the mount two bright stars [Arcturus and Vega], I was ready to "push to".
I started with open clusters.
M29 in Cygnus - tiny cluster within a field of stars.
M11 in Scutum - right at the bottom of "bowl" of stars
M6 and M7 at Scorpius' tail
I took a pause and imagined how the milky way would have looked from the city if there was a blackout.
Without a nebular or narrowband filter, I was not able to see the nebulosity in M8 Lagoon, but was able to see the neat little ngc open cluster.
Next, were some globs.
M13 and M92 in Hercules - very comet like
M3 - hope and skip from Arcturus.
The planetary neb, M57, wasn't too shabby tonite.
Using a 32mm plossl as my scanner ep, I was able to see over 2 degrees of sky with the 130mm newt.
The intelliscope is my new savior in urban observing; it allowed me to quickly pick these objects in the city muck.
The moon is of another creature.
At 1st quarter, it is so bright, it was competing with the manmade lights.
Thankfully this piece of cheese is chockfull of surface details.
Tonite was probably the best I have seen of the lunar sword aka rupes recta, straight wall.
iphone, thru Meade 12mm plossl
using digital zoom on camera phone
double stacking two 2x barlows with 12mm plossl
Look forward to catching some lunar boobies aka domes this weekend.
