ICEINSPACE
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Myself and another central coast amateur astronomer that I met through the IceInSpace Forums, Rod Berry (Rodstar), took a roadtrip out up to the Mangrove Mountain soccer fields, a nice dark sky site only 25 minutes from home. It was Rod's first roadtrip after recently getting his first scope, a Meade 10" LX200GPS. We met up at Kariong at around 8:40pm, and convoyed out to the site. It was very dark by the time we got out there, and we almost got lost - well, I almost got lost, since I was leading the way :) We arrived just after 9pm and surveyed the soccer fields for the best place to set up. We found a nice spot of grass that shielded the only street light behind the canteen building. Unfortunately there was no car access to the oval itself, so we had to lug our gear about 75 metres from the carpark. I was anxious to get the observing underway, I was looking forward to using the convenience of Rod's GOTO to observe some as yet unseen (by my eyes) objects. I was also keen to use my laptop + ToUcam to take some avi's of Saturn, my first avi's using a tracking mount. ConditionsConditions were only average. Seeing was average, transparency was fair as high clouds sat around the horizons, the wind was gusty and the temperature was cold!
The Viewing
Unfortunately we didn't get off to the best start, as Rod struggled to get the LX200 aligned so that the GOTO was accurate. The finder wasn't attached, and Rod was trying to do it by eye, and he obviously missed :) While he played around his mechanical machine, I used my dob to take in a few favourite sights such as Saturn, 47Tuc, the Tarantula (NGC2070) and Orion (M42). I used the Andrews 2" UW80deg 30mm eyepiece, on loan from Lee at Andrews Communications, and also the GSO 2" SV 30mm from Rod's collection. The UW80deg had a nice wide field, but edge performance was poor in my f/5 scope. The GSO SV, while a narrower field (~67deg), provided much sharper views near the edges of the field.
Just when the scope was almost aligned, an unexpected visitor arrived at the fields and parked outside the canteen (they had a key to unlock the chain/gate). They proceeded to turn on all the flood lights around, basically ruining our night vision and any hope of observing for the next 30 minutes while he unloaded stuff into the building. While he was an inconvenience, he helped us in the end by telling us he'd leave the gate unlocked so we could drive the cars down to pack them up at the end of the night. When he was finally gone we got around to the business of observing. I warmed up the laptop and hooked up the ToUcam and planned to get some Saturn through Rod's scope. My first tracked avi
My first experience imaging through a tracked scope was pretty good, it was so much easier than the constant realigning with the dob. Saturn stayed in the preview screen while I adjusted focus and capture settings! :) The conditions weren't good enough to try and increase the image scale further with a barlow, so the avi's were taken at prime focus in Rod's 10" f/10 scope, focal length 2500mm. Even at that scale, the image jumped around when the wind gusts hit the scope, and so a lot of frames were manually deleted from the avi before processing. Unfortunately I couldn't get focus spot on, as the microfocuser wasn't working (seems the cord broke as it wrapped around the scope during some aligning) and so it was done by hand and eye (no hartman mask) using the focus knob on the Meade. For my first experience with this type of scope, i'm pretty happy with the result. Next time out i'll be definitely looking to ensure focus is dead on, and increasing image scale with a barlow. Down to the business end
With all the playing around of aligning, bright lights and Saturn avi's out of the way, we finally got a chance to do some observing. It was getting late and cold now, so we rushed through most things and didn't devote the time to hunting out some stuff we would've liked, but we'll have a better plan for next time. The aligning still wasn't spot on, and most objects that we punched in ended up just on the edge of the field of view and had to be adjusted into the centre. We took turns on each scope, comparing the views. With the differences of focal length (and image scale) aside, the views through my 10" dob were nice and bright and sharp. Rod was also chuffed with the ease of use of the dob, simply pulling and pushing and tilting it to where he wanted it to go. For me, I loved the convenience of the GOTO and the tracking, not having to realign between each view, and not having to starhop to an object that you don't know where it is, looking up charts, looking through the finder, looking back to the chart, etc. So we both got something out of the experience, and having both a dob and a goto/tracking SCT is a great mix of dob convenience for the favourites, and GOTO for the new objects. It was a learning process for us both too, Rod's first roadtrip with his Meade, and we'll no doubt be better at aligning it next time. It was my first dark sky trip with my new green laser pointer, and it really excels in dark skies. It was great for pointing out the objects we were observing, or hazy patches in the milky way that warranted further investigation. All in all, you couldn't really say it was the best observing night because of the weather, the cold, the lights, the seeing, but it was a great experience and we'll be all the more prepared for next time!
Objects ObservedThere's a bunch of open clusters we looked at that I can't remember, so this is a list of things I can remember :)
The two galaxies were my favourite for the night, and the jewelbox cluster is always so so pretty.   |
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