After Melbourne had been turned into Darwin for about a week, courtesy of a low that wouldn't budge, the skies cleared last night. I plonked the one month old Orion 100mm on the lawn and bought out my new hand grenade - the Andrews 30mm UW.
Seeing was pretty ordinary - rather hazy with a real glow in the sky.
Never having owned a GEM scope before, I'm gradually getting the hang of aiming it. I think the alt-az. Dobs have spoiled me slightly. Still, M45 was an obvious first target to check the FOV. I've calculated I should have around 2.6 degrees and the entire cluster seemed to fit snugly into the FOV. The eyepiece seemed very sharp and crisp - degrading a bit at the very edge. Had to move my head around to see this though.
Up to Sigma Orionis and saw three stars - couldn't see the fourth. Quickly on to M42/M43 - this looked amazing as always. Spent a bit of time here just letting the whispy clouds develop an image. Four trapezium stars clearly split.
Swung over to 47 Tucanae - a nice bright blob with one star blinking in and out of resolution. I quickly popped in my 8mm radian and saw around a dozen stars resolved. I could see another much fainter glob slightly south(?) - must go and look up what that was. I must have been looking right through the SMC, but couldn't see it. It wasn't a good night from light polluted Melbourne.
Clouds coming up from the south at around 11:30pm so I swung back north and decided to look for M1. Never found it from Melbourne - I swear I was looking right at it but couldn't detect it. Apparently magnitude 8 or so, 4" x 6" - couldn't see it. It didn't help to go inside and read O'Meara observing it in 7x50 binos (probably from on top of his Volcano...!). I'll try again with the Dob. It's becoming my white whale
Thoughts:
I liked the 30mm eyepiece a lot. Having nearly 3 degrees of sky is fantastic.
I need to persist with aiming a GEM mount. The 6x30 finder is hopeless - especially from Melbourne. I think I'll upgrade to a 8x50. Bintel seem to have them and it looks like the dovetail will slide nicely into the mount on the OTA of the 100mm.