Equipment:
Discovery Telescopes Dob 10" f5.6
Eyepieces: 32mm Televue Plossl (44x, 1.1 degree FOV), 18 mm Meade Superwide (79x, 0.8 degree FOV),
7mm
Nagler (203x, 0.4 degree FOV)
Atlas: Orion’s deep map 600
Dew heaters for two EP and telrad but not 50mm, 8x finder.
Site: 63 Derby Lane, Huntington, WV
Weather: snow on ground. Below freezing. No wind. Clouds ended evening at about 1:20AM. It snowed 3-5" yesterday. There was some melt today but a good 3-4" remains on the ground. I couldn’t convince anyone to go out with me – too much common sense. So I resigned myself to the back yard after the kids went to bed and lights out. My wife is becoming much better at cooperating with light discipline – lights out. So I toted the stuff out to the back deck and set up. This limits me to overhead looking south but It’s the best I can do. The People on the next hill (behind me) are trying to develop it and have installed street lights on what is otherwise an empty road. Bummer.
I began by fine tuning the collimation (the secondary was way off after the trip to City Hall for the public star gaze with the Huntington Symphony) and then adjusting the tracking on the platform (which was way off at the symphony).
Gemini was the target.
It took me a long time to get oriented and find NGC 2392 – the "Eskimo Nebula". This Magnitude 9.2 PN lies in Gemini. It was seen as non stellar in the 32mm plossl. I swapped this for the 18mm with a UHC filter and the nebula was well defined and rounded,. Looked round at 200 x with the 7mm Nagler. I did not notice the "blinking effect noted in NSOG. A nice PN.
I was unable to locate the OC NGC 2420.
Crossing over into Lynx NGC 2683 was seen as a faint spindle with the 32 and 18mm EPs. With the Nagler at 200 it was very dim and to me harder to see. This is a mag 9.8 edge on G about 9x2.2’ It felt like a triumph to find it after my frustration with NGC 2420 in Gemini.
M44 in Cancer was seen as an obvious bright OC even in the partially dewed over EP if the 50mm finder. A nice but diffuse OC appeared in the telescope. Because of its size, it was observed awith the 32mm for FOV. Mag 3.1 – the bee hive cluster.
M67 also in cancer was a smaller and tighter OC observed with all 3 EP. The 18mm was my favorite view, enough magnification to see it well but not as dim as in the Nagler. Described as a rich OC, magnitude 6.9.
Clouds obscured the nose of Leo and I was unable to find NGC2903.
As I packed it in, the telrad fell off the OTA. I guess I’m out of commission until I get some Double sided tape … or I could just duct tape it back on … maybe I could hold it inplace with screw in metal cup hooks. Hmmm. Makes you wonder what the refractor owners are up to.