Telescope Reviews: Fun with a 50mm refractor.

Well , short rounds four & five came Saturday & Sunday nights for the little 50mm Tasco .
Saturday Night:
Out the gate was the open cluster M41 in Canis Major , sometimes called the "Little Beehive" . 30x magnifications was just right on the pleasingly bright sparse cluster . Since I was in the area I went ahead & slewed over to M47 in Puppis . This cluster is a nice little gem that looked great at 30X , but its' next door neighbor M46 was so dim , at first I wasn't sure I was bagging it . 30X was the best magnification on it but I gotta say it's not an impressive cluster in the small scope .
Mars was up & I wanted to check out the Beehive anyway , so I slung on over to the fourth rock & focused up at 120X . I didn't spend much time there but got a nicely defined crisp limb on the orange orb with a bit of surface mottling . I had a bit of a hard time tracking down M44 & ended up using Mars as a guide to it knowing that it was just passin' through last week . Panning a little , there it was in all its' brilliance filling the entire view of the scope at 27 power . What a nice , wide , bright cluster . That thing takes up the field of view of M45 & I don't recall that being the case when viewing it through larger scopes . It's funny how different things look through a small aperture .
Sunday Night:
I called it short & sweet as the first of the three objects that I added to the 50mm list was Albireo . With only 50mm to work with you just can't jam up a bunch of magnification & the separation in these two components was tight tight tight . I could barely get the fainter Blue component outside the diffraction ring of the brighter Orange component . Again , another completely different view of any Albireo I have ever seen . It almost makes me wonder if that is really what I was lookin' at . I fiddled with focus & eyepieces ranging 48X to 67X magnification & I'd say the cleaner view was at 48X . For my first Planetary Nebula through the little guy , we went to M27 , the "Dumbbell" . Sighting down the side of the finder scopes tube , I got into the general area , popped in the 20mm ocular at 30 power & started to pan . Then re directed , then panned ..., then re directed & panned again , & whoa , there it is ! It was faint , but what a gas ! (pardon the pun) . The Dumbbell really did best at no more than 48X magnification . Originally I had planned to grab M35 , M36 , M37 & M38 , but they would still be obscured for awhile , so I figured on callin' it quits early but not before one more . I told myself , you bag M15 & we'll call it .
I had to do a bit of panning & re directing with this one too . That stopped down finder scope really isn't much more than an ornament that sits on the scope & without any help from it & some cruising across , I found the fuzz . Yes the great M15 fuzzball in Pegusus ! My first Glob in the Tasco 50mm ! Yeehaww ! As well , the Glob did best between 30x & 48X . I'm used to pushin' 125x to 195x on this stuff but it's still "Fun with a 50mm refractor" !
I'll post again as I add more to the "Bagged It" list for the Tasco , & until then , I now return you to your regularly scheduled programming !

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LXD75 AR5
LXD75 SN8
Series 4000 Plossls
Misc. other stuff

Fort Rock , Az .