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asaint
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 04/25/03
Posts: 2094
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HI all,
My plans for the evening called for a continuation of chasing doubles from my list of 100. Specifically, I planned to chase down a number of doubles in my Southern and SE skies.
Setting up outside at 8:30, I was astonished to see our large white spotlight called the Moon, poised deep in my Southern skies. Not only could I not see the doubles I was looking for, I couldn't even see the constellations! The Southern sections of my sky were totally washed out by the glare of the moon. My plans need to change.
Ok, I pulled out my doubles list, my Sky Atlas 2000 and my trusty 32mm Konig, 20mm Super Erfle and 16mm Konig and decided to chase down some of my doubles odds and ends. I have accumulated a few doubles that needed some further research to figure out where they were. Here are the doubles I found on this night;
Struve 2816 (Cephus) - Stunning triple star!
Otto Struve 525 (Lyra) - easy to find double
Struve 2404 (Ophicus) - a bit hard to find equal double
Tallying up my list I've found 38 doubles in the past 2 weeks. The remainder will require me to get up early in the morning as the constellations will not rise until late at night. Time to start setting my alarm clock for 4:00 AM.
Next up was some clusters in Cassiopeia. Cassiopeia is simply chocked full of clusters. If you've never taken a cluster tour of our Queen Cass - do yourself a favor and go do it. Some are dim but all can be cound in a small instrument. Tonight I looked at;
M103
NGC 457 - owl cluster - neatest cluster in the entire sky
TR1
NGC 654 - a small challenge to find
NGC 663
NGC 659
NGC 637 - easy to find as 2 stars point directly at it
NGC 129 - real big open cluster
Wrapped up the evening by looking at Mars for the last 30 minutes with my 16mm UO Konig. Polar cap is crisp and the body of Mars showed a large triangle shaped star fish. Mars was still too low in the sky to see much. Waves of seeing washed over the planet at a quick pace. I'll need to stay up late or get up early to see if the ETX-125 can do justice to it.
Allister
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EdZ
Professor EdZ
Reged: 02/15/02
Posts: 18806
Loc: Cumberland, R I , USA42N71.4W
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Hey allister,
I took almost the same cluster tour last night. I had the 6" SVD set up looking towards Cas.
I started with
NGC 7789, faint but broad many seen
129 fairly loose with a few bright*
457, the owl, used lo and hi mag, hi showed more of wings
M103, the delta shape
659 small just a little glow spot next to two bright stars
663 larger and brighter
654 small and faint with one bright star
missed TR1 probably not enough magnification
then I moved down, stopped at Stock 2 then moved on to the double cluster and used a few eyepieces to see the whole view and study the core.
Later moved out front to the 6" refractor to view Mars. Did a little sketching. The dark area on Mars last night reminded me of a little scotty dog, running towards the east with his tail curved up over his back to the southwest.
edz
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Teach a kid something today. The feeling you'll get is one of life's greatest rewards.
member#21
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asaint
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 04/25/03
Posts: 2094
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Ed,
How is the 6" SVD working these days? One of the things I liked about it is it's light weight and ease of use. Gives pretty decent images for such a low cost package.
The Cass cluster tour just gets better and better the more aperture you throw at it. I always thought my 12.5" Portaball did the best job. I could literaly dance my way through each of the clusters in a 30 minute time frame.
Allister
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EdZ
Professor EdZ
Reged: 02/15/02
Posts: 18806
Loc: Cumberland, R I , USA42N71.4W
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Took it out this weekend after neglecting it for some time. Friday night I remembered why. Images were poor, also with maybe a half degree of slop in the focuser. Satuday I took it down to the work table and repositioned the teflon strips in the focuser tube. That steadied up the focuser nicely. Then I put in a Helix grid hologram laser collimator. I tweaked the secondary and centered things up nicely in a matter of minutes with the laser.
Saturday night with just a minor adjustment of the primary mirror on a defocused star and a high powered view of an in-focus star, images were improved to excellent. No more slop in the focuser, no more misallignment in the diffraction rings. Difference was like night and day. Several double star views show a nice clean tight view.
Best image of the night was a deep view into the core of the preceeding component of the double cluster, NGC 869. This cluster has a bright central star with a semi-circle of stars around the eastern edge of the core. On the western side of that central star are about 12 very faint stars that are not even entirely seen at low magnifications. At low power wide field views the image has the effect of a faint glow. At higher powers each star pops into view. I suspect the stars in this clump are 10th to 12th mag.
I like the views I get with several of my UO orthos. The 25mm and 18mm, although quite low powered, provide beautiful contrast and exceptional pinpoint clarity, even near the edges. The 25mm gives a 1.5° fov. Even a 12.5mm ortho still provides a 3/4 degree fov and a 2.5mm exit pupil.
This 6" SVD is amazingly light-weight and easy to handle. While I had the SVD 6" set up out back, I also had my 6" CR150 set up out front looking south. It takes four loads to get surveyor tripod, CG5 head, counterweights and finally scope mounted. On the other hand, the SVD tripod, head and counterweights stays setup, can get carried out through the door and within 2 minutes even in the dark, the tube is attached with the rings. Can even pick the whole thing up and move it around. Try doing that with a CR150!
Glad I took it out this weekend. Outdoor programs are starting within a few weeks for the local schools and it was good to get it tuned up. It will get a ton of use in mid October. I have booked two schools entire 5th grade classes of 125 each for four nights out. Opportunity for the SVD to really shine. Thanks again for the great deal.
edz
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Teach a kid something today. The feeling you'll get is one of life's greatest rewards.
member#21
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