Telescope Reviews: Antares split! Plus some other nice ones...

Last night I was working through some STF doubles with my new Intes M809 and for the first time since the scopes arrival in early May the seeing was superb; diffraction-limited for my 8-inch aperture. The temperature at 11pm was 12C and at 2am was 10C allowing the scope to reach thermal equilibrium with ease.
I observed all the STF's on Millennium Star Atlas charts 767 through 772 using my 17 Ethos (119x) and 8 Ethos (254x) most of the time with the 4mm Ortho (508x) on the very closest pairs to help me estimate the PA. The Gemini GoTo was used for target acquisition. (Sorry, purists)

When I saw perfect diffraction patterns I knew that I had a special night so I abandoned Mr. Struve and went for Antares and Nu Scorpii around midnight. They were still about an hour away from their maximum altitude here (about 20degrees for Antares....) but to my joy Antares yielded up his little friend at 254x. The view was steady, no 'waiting for that perfect moment' stuff tonight. Interestingly the companion was much harder to see at 508x, probably due to the fact that the seeing was not supported at such a high magnification - all I was doing was smearing the B-star. Once I knew where to look I was able to glimpse B with the 17 Ethos (119x) but only fleetingly.
This was my third lifetime split of Antares and with the least aperture so far. Previously I split it with a 20" Obsession and my rather nice 10" Lightbridge.
Buoyed by this success I then moved over to Mu Scorpii, the well-known and very difficult 'double-double' in NW Scorpio. Again the 8 Ethos at 254x was a winner. Bothe pairs were cleanly split. The separations are 2.4" amd 1.3" (WDS 2003 Obs.) 508x didn't help at all.
I then thought that if the seeing were this good this close to the horizon how good must it be overhead? And Corona Borealis was directly overhead so it was off to try Eta and Gamma CrB. The seeing proved to be as near perfect as it ever gets here in the Great Lakes region and as good as a slightly above average night in the Florida Keys!
Here are the data for these two challenge objects from the WDS's most recent 2004 observations (if someone has more up-to-date data please post it here..)

Gamma --- STF 1967 --- mags 4.04/5.60 - sep 0.7" - PA 114
Eta ----- STF 1937 --- mags 5.64/5.95 - sep 0.5" - PA 107

Gamma, despite being wider, was the more difficult pair because of the 1.5 magnitude difference and because, for my particular aperture, the b-component was on top of the first diffraction ring. At 254x I was unable, at first, to tease out the partner but the seeing allowed useful contributions from the 4mm at 508x. I could plainly see the companion on the first ring and there was dark space between the A/B pair. A definitive split!!
Eta defeated me on a clean split, however. The B-component was much easier to see due to its being nearly equal to A. The best I could do was a deeply notched 'snowman' at 508x. The diffraction pattern was nearly motionless and not distorted in any way.
Tonight, for the first time with this new scope, I was able to confirm for myself the claimed 1/9 wave, 95.7 Strehl which are claimed on the certificate which came with the scope. Thanks to Mark at Teton! And thanks to Mr. Nagler whose Ethos eyepieces are fully capable of this sort of high-res work.
Not a bad night's work, really.
Dave, observing at Castleton, Ontario.