darkskybondi
24-01-2009, 05:02 AM
Went along to the North Sydney observing session tonight. Was good fun. Helped me decide that I'll buy a wide field eyepiece next!
Just a little gratuitous field report:
Collimation remains a challenge but still managed to observe Eta Carinae, Tarantula, 47 Tuc, Saturn, Orion, and a couple of other objects through the night. Almost all of them were impressive. I am still new and confused by the physics of the fact that higher power eyepieces reduce the light that gets to your eyes. This seems weird and frustrating... Tarantula looks excellent with a 25mm EP but you switch up to 10mm and it's lost so much brightness.
There's still a lot of light pollution at the Turramurra site but regardless, it was a lot of fun and I learned a lot in the space of a few hours. Good fun having the biggest scope there tonight (10 inch) - what with being the centre of attention and all - but I'm looking forward to seeing what things look like through some bigger apertures in observing sessions to come!
Cheers
DSB
Just a little gratuitous field report:
Collimation remains a challenge but still managed to observe Eta Carinae, Tarantula, 47 Tuc, Saturn, Orion, and a couple of other objects through the night. Almost all of them were impressive. I am still new and confused by the physics of the fact that higher power eyepieces reduce the light that gets to your eyes. This seems weird and frustrating... Tarantula looks excellent with a 25mm EP but you switch up to 10mm and it's lost so much brightness.
There's still a lot of light pollution at the Turramurra site but regardless, it was a lot of fun and I learned a lot in the space of a few hours. Good fun having the biggest scope there tonight (10 inch) - what with being the centre of attention and all - but I'm looking forward to seeing what things look like through some bigger apertures in observing sessions to come!
Cheers
DSB