Observing night 19/02/10

[Dave47tuc (David)]

Hi all,
Went to Julian's last night. Only observed for 2 hours. But is was first light with my 12" and also good to compare with his big scope ha ha you should not do this. Size does matter !!

It was very warm night northerly blowing and some high cloud, but that went away once dark. Seeing was ok and transparency was poor.
The mozzies where terrible.

Looked at many objects but my aim was to use the 12" and see how it went. Tried many eyepieces to see what works best.
Bottom line is the GSO" eyepieces that came with the scope are hopeless in such a scope. There ok in an Apo but not the Newt.
Tried most of the Nagler line and a few others. Came up with a couple of eyepieces that worked best in my scope with out a Parracor.
And they where not the Naglers !!!!! 24 Pano worked beautifully as well as the Meade UWA 14 mm. they were the pick of the night.
I had a bit of trouble with the AZ movement but should sort it out by camp.

Bottom line the 18 ate and chewed the 12 up and then spat it out and laughed !! lucky there was not a smaller scope !!

[Rob_K]

Hey Dave, if ya wanna feel really good about your 12" scope, come observing with me one night! Nice report!

Cheers -

[richardda1st (Richard)]

Would be nice to look through the same size scopes one with a mass produced mirrors and one with premium mirrors!
Must try and make it to Snake Valley camp.

[pgc hunter]

Originally Posted by Rob_K

Hey Dave, if ya wanna feel really good about your 12" scope, come observing with me one night! Nice report!

Cheers -

Use it as a finder for your Tasco

Good to hear you got first light Dave We've been lucky with with the mozzies, not a whole lot to speak of. I agree with you on the GSO plossls, useless in the dobs, the edge of the FOV is a mess. With the Vixen LVW the performance is dramatically superior.

[barx1963 (Malcolm)]

Dave, nice to hear about your scope. My 12" GSO came with 5 eps all of which are permanently assigned to a bits box except the 32mm which I occasionally use when starhopping if I need a slightly larger FOV than the 24mm Pan provides. Out of the last 6 sessions I have used it twice. It's not an observing EP, only a finder!
I agree with you on the 24mm Pan. Absolutely brilliant with this scope. Do you have a 13mm Nagler? Would be interested to hear your opinions of that vs. the Meade 14mm.

[Starkler (Geoff)]

Shame I didnt see your sms invitation in time to come along. I have always enjoyed observing sessions down at Julians place. Lucky fellow he is to have such a great view of the sky.

Glad you got to put your scope through its paces but yeah next to an 18" a 12 will start getting lonely soon FWIW a paracorr will help the 24 pano a lot (as you know I have both). I cant view without a paracorr now without seeing the abberations and thinking 'yuck!' Once you get used to seeing sharp stars to the edge anything less looks horrible.

Mozzies yeah I know Im covered in lumps and bumps from visiting the Briars the other night

[Paddy (Patrick)]

Interesting to hear your experience of Naglers in a GSO 12". I did really like my 24mm Pan with my 12" GSO dob and also thought my 9mm Nagler was very good. I may have been too green at the time to really notice.

[Dave47tuc (David)]

Thanks guy's. On bright objects like Carina nebula or Orion nebula etc . yeh the 18 was better but the 12 was very good also.
But on the likes of the spindle galaxy or 3132 the 18 was a lot better

Funny with eyepieces, the naglers seemed not so great and where's the Parracor. But the 24 Pano was much better. very slight coma right on the edge. But the field was flat and bright. Julain and I both agreed it was surprising how much better the Pano was in the 12" or even the 18"
Also to get some higher power into the scope it was much better to Barlow the 24.

The 14 UWA which is the older type was my choice of medium power. Of the Naglers used the 17mm was the stand out. If I was not to have the 24 Pano the 17 would be my next choice.

I would like to see how the new 5000 series 14 UWA works. I have fixed the AZ problem as I changed a few things which made the scope to stiff to move. With a solid tube it is heavier than my old SW 12.

Oh it was good fun and I count myself lucky to use those eyepieces.