A start with a failure yesterday, then some persistence led to a heart and soul-warming stargazing session...
After a busy day including travelling to my South NJ house, I was rewarded with some clear skies, finally. I decided to go easy as I was a bit tired, and use the Swift 831, as it sets up quickly. High humidity as usual in the late summer-early fall, as the property is waterfront by a lagoon. I took a different approach this time, and instead of observing planned targets, I just looked up to find the darkest section of the sky within easy reach, and used binoculars to verify if any odd blotch, asterism or cluster triggered my curiosity. I saw plenty of interesting features between Cassiopeia and Perseus, and that's where I decided to hop, from Perseus up and North to a couple blotches in binocular sight.
However, as I got started with a polar alignment, I realized there was somethig wrong with the finder, which I had previously found to be excellent.... the front lens was already all fogged up, just 10 minutes into the session! The telescope main lens was just fine. I guess the lack of a dew shield for the finder was the problem, as I never had such issue with any other scope/finder in similar humid conditions. I tried to just use a Kellner 40mm eyepiece as finder, but I quickly realized it was too hard to get oriented. It as disappointing to be let down by my beloved Swift 831, but at least building a plastic sheet dew shield to slip in should be easy.
So much for an easy and relaxing session... but I did not want to give up, especially given the rarity of clear skies this summer. So, inside I took the Swift 831 and outside the sandcast C8 went.....
Half an hour later, I started to get my reward and finally I had the Heart and the Soul nebulas in sight of the viewfinder, aka IC1805 and IC1848. Here is how they somewhat looked to me, with much fewer background stars of course but with some clearly visible nebulosity. Two nice groups of clusters with faint gray nebulosity along threads of stars, and dark areas in between. Both of them nicely framed within a K40mm eyepiece:
http://www.atlasofth...lae/ic1805.html
Soul nebula: a nebula filter did not help and I took it off immediately. The overall structure seemed to my eyes a three-pronged structure.
Heart nebula: a third nebula nearby, NGC896, was probably included in my view. To my eye the main star cluster (IC1805 itself) seemed the head of a butterfly body, with a trail of stars makig the body itself and nebulosty on either side somewhat similar to wings. 
In summary:
- I started to become familar with a section of the sky new to me, and full of interesting things.
- I hope to be able to soon check the same structures and more with my 6" newtonian, for comparison with the C8.
- I have to confess that this is the first time that I get enthusiastic using the C8. Until now its poor ergonomics (for me), difficulties in pointing it to a target given the short OTA, and high power views obviously not superlative, led to mediocre sessions and some frustration. Yesterday it shined with great low power DSO views, and it seems I am finally getting more accustomed to its quirks. I also took the opportunity to further tweak the collimation, on Polaris and with a 9mm OR. Probably a SCT expert can do much better but as I see it, the central obstruction off focus is perfectly centered and the rings are concentric and not crooked.
- Best overall view of the three objects was with a UO 40mm K circle-A, better than a Celestron 40mmK circle-T for having darker background bringing out the stars better. Best individual structure views with a circle-T UO super-Erfle 20mm MC.
Edited by DMala, 05 October 2018 - 12:13 AM.
