Was down in the workshop last night about 9:30pm working on a small project. Stuck my head outside to find quite reasonable skies, wee bit of hazy intermittent cloud. Put the little 80 Achro out and got stunning views up into Eta C and Orion. What the heck, dragged the 10" out on the DOB base and starting really enjoying the sights. Been so long since I have had a good night.
Milky Way starfield was visible naked eye despite some very thin patchy high haze. Orion and M42 the neb extremely well defined and definitely pale green in colour. Eta C I put the 2" 30mm in and the dust lanes looked almost painted on like streaks. Extremely well defined. Wishing well was a brilliant starburst with almost a spider web background of faint star tracery behind it. The diamond ball of 47 Tuc impressed my 19 yr old stepson who came out to see the sights. ( He saw the green in M42 first )
Then slid over into LMC ....... and got totally lost ! Couldn't remember a thing ! There is just so much there to see that this morning I printed out Paddys LMC charts at work and have been perusing as I work on hardware. Figured out I was on Tarantula (2070) but could see a lot of complex stuff around it. Just stood there in T-Shirt till about 11pm sweeping the area. Warm as and very few mozzies.
Ok, didn't get any pix, didn't expect to see anything in the first place but it was an excellent night for sure. Now I remember why I like this obsession..
