Location: 63 Derby Lane
Scope: 10” f5.6 Discovery Dob on Tom Osypowski Equatorial platform
Star atlas: Bright Star Atlas 2000
EP’s: 7 mm Nagler (203x), 16 mm Konig (UO) (89x), 18 mm Meade Superwide (79x),
26 mm Plossl Meade 4000 (55x), 40 mm plossl (came with scope) (35x), Meade shorty
barlow (2x)
Date: 9/27 at 10:30 PM to 9/23 at 2 AM
Temp: I wore a fleece and shorts, by 2 AM I was cold
Conditions: by 2 AM there were moments of phenominal seeing, tranceparncy – good to
excellent
Scope mods: computer fan (12v) at bottom blowing on back of mirror ( utlra high quality
duct tape fixation system – patent pending)
Precooled mirror for 1 hour with 20” house fan: yes
EP care: ok going to a star party so I cleaned all my EP’s
First to M2, a mag 6.5 GC in Aquarius. Bright. Resolved stars at 178x with barlow and 18 mm. Brighter to core.
Then onto M72 a mag 9.3 GC in Aquarius. It was quite dim and seemed diffuse. The dimmest object seen tonight. If M73 is what I thought it was, it looked like only a few stars. I’ll have to look this one up. Could not find NGC 7009 a mag 8 PN.
Gave up on driveway. Pleaded with wife to turn off bedroom lights. Move all equipment to back deck. Mental note, must make ramp so I can roll out of garage and up onto deck without having to lift up the step. Unscrew light bulb on side of house.
Visited the double cluster in Perseus. Viewed in 26mm and 40mm. Prefered framing on the 26mm
Stopped to surf the clusters In Cassiopeia and Perseus with my new “Vista” 7x 50 mm binoculars from Orion. The clusters area easier to find in the bino’s as they appear as tiny fuzzy patches. In the 10” they are often difficult to separate from the background stars.
Hopped over to Andromeda. Locate M31 (G, mag 3.5)and M110 (mag 8 G). Could not identify M32 (mag 8.2 G). Strange. Observed M31 with 26 mm and 18 mm and with barlow plus 18 mm. Bright core, faint diffuse extensions with averted vision. Teased out subtle detail but no clear dust lanes seen. No GC’s seen.
Used M31 to fine tune polar alignment of the platform.
Success awaited me when for the first time I saw M33 (a mag 5.7, but very diffuse G in Triangulum) Vieded with 26mm with and without the Lumicon deep sky filter. No clear improvement with filter. Some back ground darkening but no clear improvement in contrast as image dimmed too.
Visited NGC 752 a mag 5.7 open cluster in Andromeda. Pretty. Used 26 mm and 40 mm. Should have pulled out the 2” 32mm Konig (?40mm too) but to lazy to unscrew the adapters. Fail to find NGC 925 (mag 10 G)
Realize that Jupiter and Saturn are visible from the driveway. Disconnect dew heaters and van from 12 V transformer. Trip over power cords. Decide to turn on lights. Roll scope to step … ok now the scope, observing chair, eyepiece case, … etc. are back in the driveway.
Discover that telrad is off by 1.2-1.4 degrees … hmmm, maybe that’s why I could not find anything, should have realigned after moving scope to deck.
Find Jupter. 18 mm, 18 mm and barlow, 7 mm Nagler. That’s 203x, usually the limit for the skys arround here. The upper (? South) equatorial band separates into two bands, detail is seen in the lower (?North) band. When the sky steadies, Multiple thin fainter rings are seen near the poles. Ok add barlow, 406x, adjust platform tracking. Still seeing detail in flashes 3- 12 sec of improved seeing. Absolutely unbelieveable.
Saturn, the coolest thing in the solar system at 400x. The rings stand out in sharp clear detail, the Major ring division is clearly seen all the way around (where ring is seen), On major dark band on upper planet, several fainter rings suggested. 4 moons, image is sharp, sharper then I’ve ever seen and at 400x. Its almost 3 D. There are minute fluctuations that occur in real time that are not captured on film. Wow. I am blown away.
The EP begins to dew. (Didn’t move dew heaters) Its time to go in.