CN FORUMS ARCHIVE Telescope Reviews: ETX-125 - Cats and dogs list of doubles

HI all,

Fall is here. Temperatures fell to a comfortable 50 degrees this evening. No mosquitos made my quick 45 minuts of observing the first truly pleasent one since Summer began.

With the moon out of the Southern skies I continued working on my 100 doubles list and focused on those in that area. Nice thing about the ETX-125 is it's so lightweight. For one double star I had to carry the setup 150 yards to avoid some low flying trees. Try that with an LX200!

Here is what I tracked down this evening. As always, I never use the GOTO preferring to find the doubles myself;

8 Lacerta
Zeta Aquarii (1.8" split - toughest split so far on the list)
Beta Capricornus (206" split - widest split so far)
Alpha Capricornus
Iota Bootis

8 Lacerta was tough. Finding the double was easy, finding Lacerta itself was the challenge in my light polluted skies. Finally figured out that I could make out the constellation if I used the ETX finder. I've never used the finder to find a constellation but it worked great! Another tip for those with light polluted skies.

43 down and 57 more to go. I should be able to make some serious headway at Astrofest this weekend. Will report back.

Allister