Post by erikruud on Aug 13, 2007 6:58:04 GMT -6
I went out on Friday night to test out my newly tuned up red dot finder.
I started out by visually locating Jupiter and using the red dot to aim the scope. When I looked through the scope I could see that Jupiter and three moons were visible in the eyepiece but slightly off center.
Next I set the azimuth to zero and then visually located Polaris just to the left and slightly above the tip of our Sweet Gum tree. I then aimed the scope with the red dot by moving the tripod around so that I left the azimuth set at zero. So now I had the scope aligned to the north.
Then I looked up a few other stars and aimed the scope using their Atl Az coordinates. In each case the stars were always visible in the finder so that I could correct the aim slightly with the red dot. It probably would have worked even better if I had made sure that the scope was sitting level.
Then I went back to looking at Jupiter for a while. Three moons were visible through the 20mm EP, but no band details. After a while I thought I could see Io just on the edge of Jupiter. Switching to the 12.5mm EP brought all 4 moons into view and there was a faint suggestion of one band that faded in and out with the atmospheric distortion.
Switching to the 8mm made the band a lot more visible with a second band just barely showing. Ganymede was not out of the FOV. I tried to get a look with the 4mm but I couldn't get the focus set right and it was drifting out of the FOV too fast.
I went back to looking with 8 mm and watched as Io disappeared behind the planet.
After a while I got my camera, an old Kodak dx3900, out and set it up on a tripod just to see what kind of photographs I could take with it. I have downloaded them yet, but I did get some shots Jupiter, Polaris, and Cassiopeia above the trees. I also tried some shots at 8 and 16 second exposures. I also discovered that it has a white balance setting for Tungsten so tried that out as well. The view screen on the camera is too small to be sure how well most of the pictures turned out until I download them.
During all of this I was keeping an eyeout for any early Perseids. I didn't expect to see much because Perseus was still low behind the trees. Then around 11:40 I saw one very bright meteor started a little to the east of Cassiopeia and extended horizontally 15 or 20 degrees towards Andromeda. It left a very bright trail so i don't know if it was an actual Perseid or just a chance meteor or space junk.
I checked the sky Sunday night around 10:30pm, but Perseus was too low, and there were some clouds so I decided it wasn't worth sitting out. I got up earlier than usual Monday morning and again saw that it was partly cloudy. i sat out between 4:20 and 4:40 am and only managed to see a few small streaks.
Hopefully it will be better tonight.
I started out by visually locating Jupiter and using the red dot to aim the scope. When I looked through the scope I could see that Jupiter and three moons were visible in the eyepiece but slightly off center.
Next I set the azimuth to zero and then visually located Polaris just to the left and slightly above the tip of our Sweet Gum tree. I then aimed the scope with the red dot by moving the tripod around so that I left the azimuth set at zero. So now I had the scope aligned to the north.
Then I looked up a few other stars and aimed the scope using their Atl Az coordinates. In each case the stars were always visible in the finder so that I could correct the aim slightly with the red dot. It probably would have worked even better if I had made sure that the scope was sitting level.
Then I went back to looking at Jupiter for a while. Three moons were visible through the 20mm EP, but no band details. After a while I thought I could see Io just on the edge of Jupiter. Switching to the 12.5mm EP brought all 4 moons into view and there was a faint suggestion of one band that faded in and out with the atmospheric distortion.
Switching to the 8mm made the band a lot more visible with a second band just barely showing. Ganymede was not out of the FOV. I tried to get a look with the 4mm but I couldn't get the focus set right and it was drifting out of the FOV too fast.
I went back to looking with 8 mm and watched as Io disappeared behind the planet.
After a while I got my camera, an old Kodak dx3900, out and set it up on a tripod just to see what kind of photographs I could take with it. I have downloaded them yet, but I did get some shots Jupiter, Polaris, and Cassiopeia above the trees. I also tried some shots at 8 and 16 second exposures. I also discovered that it has a white balance setting for Tungsten so tried that out as well. The view screen on the camera is too small to be sure how well most of the pictures turned out until I download them.
During all of this I was keeping an eyeout for any early Perseids. I didn't expect to see much because Perseus was still low behind the trees. Then around 11:40 I saw one very bright meteor started a little to the east of Cassiopeia and extended horizontally 15 or 20 degrees towards Andromeda. It left a very bright trail so i don't know if it was an actual Perseid or just a chance meteor or space junk.
I checked the sky Sunday night around 10:30pm, but Perseus was too low, and there were some clouds so I decided it wasn't worth sitting out. I got up earlier than usual Monday morning and again saw that it was partly cloudy. i sat out between 4:20 and 4:40 am and only managed to see a few small streaks.
Hopefully it will be better tonight.