Paul,
Yes a beautiful day , but unfortunately heavy cloud rolled in from the SE and caught us all by surprise , a descent downpour around tea time
Early Friday night and Saturday night late is looking ok for some observing ( light wind , low Jetstream and cool evenings ) Not a big enough window for imaging at this stage. I usually need a 4 to 5 hour window to align , frame , focus and gather enough data on an object
I might roll my 12” Goto dob out for an hour or two
Carinas is up nice and high
Omega Centauri is rising
Centaurus A is rising
Plus a few other globs and clusters
Plenty up there at the moment
Good luck if your setting up !
Martin
Hi Jeniskunk
It may be raining in Brisbane but I bet it’s easier to get out of bed at 5 am there than in Launceston. What caught my eye was your use of the little RA 50mm table top refractor. I have one too and even though not much light gets through I always get sharp views of double stars, Jupiter and especially Saturn. I love it.
Ian
I don't have the physical space for a full size tripod, on the patio/balcony of my flat, so I use tabletop gear as that gives me more space behind the scopes.
I got my RAO 50x500 tabletop frac from Doolsduck, when he put it up for sale back in September last year. It's a brilliant little scope.
I haven't had a chance to see Jupiter and Saturn, yet, this year in any of my scopes.
Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars, look like being in their best spot for viewing, at about 2:30am, April 7. Bleah. Ugly hour to have to be awake for.
Great nights observing on the south coast NSW last night ( best this year so far ) seeing was really good , nice and stable , low Jetstream
Rolled out the 12” Goto dob from the garage and levelled up at 6.00pm, 2 star alignment took 5 minutes and up and running by 8.00pm. Finished up around 11pm
Used a variety of my Televue eye pieces with a Paracorr type 2 coma corrector on a number of objects including the following -
NGC 5139 Omega Centauri globular cluster
M42 Orion Nebula ( could just resolve trap E and F )
NGC 3372 Carina Nebula
IC 2602 Southern Pleiades cluster
NGC 2808 globular cluster
NGC 4590 globular cluster
NGC 3532 Wishing well cluster
NGC 4755 Jewel Box
NGC 5128 Centaurus A Galaxy
Used the following eye pieces
Ethos 21mm ( the hand grenade )
Ethos 13mm
Delos 17.3mm
Panoptic 24mm
Panoptic 27mm
Astronomik UHC filters
Great night !!
Forecast looks ordinary for the next week , some rain around and cloudy nights
Waiting in anticipation to get a couple of clear nights for some imaging under Bortle 3 skies
