AEAJR
16-10-2016, 04:05 PM
10/14/16 8:30 to 11:30 pm About 53 degrees F, with about 3-5 mph breeze.
Orion XT8i with Intelliscope activated. 38, 25 mm 2", 8-24 zoom, 6.7 mm
Robert Moses State Park, New York, USA. This is one of the darker sites within 30 minutes drive, falling into the light orange band. But not when there is a full moon. We went for the unobstructed view of the sky rather than the dark this time.
http://darksitefinder.com/maps/world.html
Met up with 3 other members of the ASLI astronomy club. We had a great night. Full moon. Zenith to South was covered in clouds from East to West. The remainder of the sky was mostly clear with occasional wisps of clouds going over.
In addition to my Orion XT8i Intelliscope there was an Orion XT10 (manual dob) and two Celestron 8SEs. The four of us linked up on the club mailing list and decided to meet for a night of observing even though the moon was full.
I started the evening with my 10X50 Garret binoculars as always. The open sky was washed out by the bright moon. It would have been great if the clouds had covered the moon, but they didn't.
I set up my scope and aligned the Intelliscope on Vega and Altair.
My buddy Doug and I started by comparing some common binocular targets in binoculars vs. our scopes such as the Pleiades, Double Cluster. Even in my 38 mm the Pleiades looks better in the 10X50s if you want to look at it as a cluster. naturally you can get deeper in with the scopes.
Doug had this HUGE eyepiece on the 8SE that gave him a view similar to my XT8i when I was using my 25 mm 70 degree eyepiece, perhaps not quite as wide. I did not think you could do that with an SCT without a FL reducer and he was not using a focal reducer. I bet it cost a bundle. It was 41 mm.
I showed people my zoom eyepiece. This was barrowed to be tried in the other Orion Dob.
Initially we were working independently. I found NGC7243 (C16) in LAC and Doug came over to see. He was on something else and showed it to me. We were having fun.
I had brought an observing list done up in Tonight's Sky that was sorted by constellation. So we started to chase the same targets. I called out that I was going after NGC 1502. He went to the same target.
Here is the list we ran over the next couple of hours. The other two joined in, again going after some of the same targets. The fella with the XT10 was working from charts. But since my observing list was sorted by constellation we stayed in a narrow area of the sky. Mostly we were in Cassiopeia. Using his charts he was doing a pretty good job of keeping up with the computer scopes.
In Camelopardalis - this is , in the NE of the sky, away from the moon and the clouds
NGC 1502
Then we moved to Cassiopeia
NGC 457, the Dragonfly/owl. We observed this in three scopes comparing My XT8 with his XT10 and trying different eyepieces.
NGC129
NGC654
IC1805, the Heart Nebula
NGC7789 - We spent a lot of time moving between scopes on this one as we were not sure what it looked like, then we confirmed it.
NGC7654/M52 - October Salt and Pepper cluster.
We finished in Auriga
NGC1912/M38 - The starfish cluster. Because of the moon this was very washed out and at first we could not confirm we had it but after some fiddling and eyepiece changes we confirmed it. It was a very faint cluster. You needed to let your eyes dark adapt a bit at the eyepiece and then use a little averted vision. But eventually we got a solid lock on this. Very nice. I would like to see this one again, on a darker night.
NGC1960/M36 the Pinwheel Cluster - Like the starfish, this was very faint but finally we confirmed it. This one I will revisit when we have a darker night.
Around 11:10 pm we started to pack up, as the temperature was dropping and the breeze was picking up. Before we left the binoculars came out. I scanned the sky. Then one of our group noted that Orion was coming up in the East. And so I was able to see the Orion nebula as my last target of the evening.
Overall a wonderful evening. We plan to do this again when the moon is not out and the sites are dark.
Orion XT8i with Intelliscope activated. 38, 25 mm 2", 8-24 zoom, 6.7 mm
Robert Moses State Park, New York, USA. This is one of the darker sites within 30 minutes drive, falling into the light orange band. But not when there is a full moon. We went for the unobstructed view of the sky rather than the dark this time.
http://darksitefinder.com/maps/world.html
Met up with 3 other members of the ASLI astronomy club. We had a great night. Full moon. Zenith to South was covered in clouds from East to West. The remainder of the sky was mostly clear with occasional wisps of clouds going over.
In addition to my Orion XT8i Intelliscope there was an Orion XT10 (manual dob) and two Celestron 8SEs. The four of us linked up on the club mailing list and decided to meet for a night of observing even though the moon was full.
I started the evening with my 10X50 Garret binoculars as always. The open sky was washed out by the bright moon. It would have been great if the clouds had covered the moon, but they didn't.
I set up my scope and aligned the Intelliscope on Vega and Altair.
My buddy Doug and I started by comparing some common binocular targets in binoculars vs. our scopes such as the Pleiades, Double Cluster. Even in my 38 mm the Pleiades looks better in the 10X50s if you want to look at it as a cluster. naturally you can get deeper in with the scopes.
Doug had this HUGE eyepiece on the 8SE that gave him a view similar to my XT8i when I was using my 25 mm 70 degree eyepiece, perhaps not quite as wide. I did not think you could do that with an SCT without a FL reducer and he was not using a focal reducer. I bet it cost a bundle. It was 41 mm.
I showed people my zoom eyepiece. This was barrowed to be tried in the other Orion Dob.
Initially we were working independently. I found NGC7243 (C16) in LAC and Doug came over to see. He was on something else and showed it to me. We were having fun.
I had brought an observing list done up in Tonight's Sky that was sorted by constellation. So we started to chase the same targets. I called out that I was going after NGC 1502. He went to the same target.
Here is the list we ran over the next couple of hours. The other two joined in, again going after some of the same targets. The fella with the XT10 was working from charts. But since my observing list was sorted by constellation we stayed in a narrow area of the sky. Mostly we were in Cassiopeia. Using his charts he was doing a pretty good job of keeping up with the computer scopes.
In Camelopardalis - this is , in the NE of the sky, away from the moon and the clouds
NGC 1502
Then we moved to Cassiopeia
NGC 457, the Dragonfly/owl. We observed this in three scopes comparing My XT8 with his XT10 and trying different eyepieces.
NGC129
NGC654
IC1805, the Heart Nebula
NGC7789 - We spent a lot of time moving between scopes on this one as we were not sure what it looked like, then we confirmed it.
NGC7654/M52 - October Salt and Pepper cluster.
We finished in Auriga
NGC1912/M38 - The starfish cluster. Because of the moon this was very washed out and at first we could not confirm we had it but after some fiddling and eyepiece changes we confirmed it. It was a very faint cluster. You needed to let your eyes dark adapt a bit at the eyepiece and then use a little averted vision. But eventually we got a solid lock on this. Very nice. I would like to see this one again, on a darker night.
NGC1960/M36 the Pinwheel Cluster - Like the starfish, this was very faint but finally we confirmed it. This one I will revisit when we have a darker night.
Around 11:10 pm we started to pack up, as the temperature was dropping and the breeze was picking up. Before we left the binoculars came out. I scanned the sky. Then one of our group noted that Orion was coming up in the East. And so I was able to see the Orion nebula as my last target of the evening.
Overall a wonderful evening. We plan to do this again when the moon is not out and the sites are dark.