The seeing is great tonight

[MortonH]

Ok, I'm not an expert on seeing, but I just had my best ever view of Jupiter from my balcony. I had my 8" Dob and my little Megrez 80 set up side-by-side. Once they cooled down, the views through both were great, albeit a bit colourful with the Megrez.

Tried out my 5mm Radian (swapped with my 6mm recently) to give 240x on the Dob. This was the perfect magnification for me tonight. Tried to push it higher with the 3-6mm Nagler zoom, but 240 was the most stable, and the Radian gave a more pleasing view.

Also scanned the area with my recently acquired 13mm Stratus. Very nice views indeed. Suspect this will be quite spectacular in a dark sky.

If Mike Salway and others are out imaging tonight, we're all in for a treat when their processing is done.

Hope you're all out their enjoying the night instead of reading this! Why am I writing this? I need to go to bed so I can get up early tomorrow, but I had to share first!

Cheers

Morton

[iceman]

Get back out there! The seeing sure is tops!

I'm out here in my freezer suit and IIS beanie, and Jupiter looks great!

Lots of processing ahead.. on a Mothers Day weekend no less! Boy am I going to be in trouble! :bashcomp:

[seeker372011]

but the dew is driving me crazy!

[sheeny]

I'm just back home now... the seeing was definitely better than I've experienced for a long time but I have had better. I'm guess if you guys at lower altitudes are getting good seeing then it's only the venturi effect over the range lifting the velocity of the breeze that's affecting me.

It was very cold but dry here. No sign of dew or ice... yet! I think conditions are right for a firm frost here by morning.

Looking forward to the results on everyone's captures. I got a few myself tonight as well, so I have something to play with for the next few cloudy nights...

Off to bed now, 'night guys!

Al.

[Portmac]

Nothing but clouds here....like normal

Maybe I need to stop buying astro equipment for a while.

[Kal]

Great seeing but it was a fight with the dew! I was grabbing my hairdryer every 10 minutes =/

[freespace]

Seeing /was/ fantastic - I even managed to see the bands on Jupiter for once with my 102mm watcher. First time ever, and I have to say I was excited - when I tried to see Jupiter last night the seeing was horrible - I was like viewing through water.

[UniPol]

My wife and I are minding our son's house for the weekend in Blackheath as they are having a mini break from work. Lucky I grabbed the Vixen Porta mount and newly acquired Celestron C6-A OTA (thanks to Craig from this forum) as the seeing here was simply superb. Dew was a problem later on around 10.30 p.m. but nonetheless a great few hours viewing.

I hadn't realised how clear it is further up the mountains, skyglow from Sydney has had a definite affect on seeing conditions even in the lower mountains where we live. Definitely a retirement prospect however the winters are supposed to be pretty cold and wet, hence the name "Bleakheath".

This is a great time of year to see the sights so to speak. Earlier in the evening I was able to to view Orion before it set as well as Venus. Saturn was superb and later, Jupiter looked more like Venus, I haven't seen it so bright in a good while. Omega Centauri was spectacular as usual and the Coalsack lived up to its name, appeared so much darker than the surrounding sky. Too many sights to list but most of you know what was out anyway. Must mention Eta Carinae though, it simply mesmerizes you, great dust lanes.

The C6 was a pleasant surprise, I would rate it a 9/10 for contrast and brightness, almost refractor performance. No image shift on this scope and the focuser is silky smooth. It has the XLT coatings which probably makes a difference and I think the stars are more pin point than my 10" LX200 GPS. The Porta mount is rated as carrying around 5kgs and the C6 weighs in at around 4.5kgs and it handled it perfectly. The only problem is the finder which ends up underneath the OTA as the dovetail bar is at right angles to the usual position. The focusing knob ends up above the star diagonal but wasn't a real bother. Tube rings would solve this problem though. I also dragged out the Orion Express 80mm which is simply a superb telescope. At 24X using a 20mm GSO Superview eyepiece, the milky way was absolutely magnificent.

I hope Saturday night will be a repeat of last night, I forgot to bring my blower brush and LED torch which was a pain but managed somehow to feel my way around.

Cheers,

Steve