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Well I was out last night, in suburban Melbourne, helping a friend who has been busy having babies for two years and was desperate to see through a scope again.
Good chance to set up the C8 on wedge with RA tracking on and test out my new second-hand cheapo 80 deg 30mm and 15mm eyepieces. I'm making up a pack for public viewing with this scope (IYA2009 in mind!) so have those two plus a Seben 8-24mm zoom. I reckon the wide angles went OK. Not bad across 80% of the field in the f10. At one stage the seeing cleared and the E & F stars in the trap were very visible and well separated in the 15mm (133x). Still have to fiddle with the Seben - cannot lock it firmly enough in the adapter to stop the whole eyepiece turning as I adjust the zoom.
Gave up trying to locate NGC253 - couldn't spot it in the bright skies!
A bit of the Jewel Box, 47 Tuc, M42, then we turned to the 15 day old Moon. Spent a while working along the terminator at 250x. She was stoked. Especially when she held her hand over the empty diagonal and I focussed the image of the moon on her hand! I enjoyed the views, the weather (observing above 10deg - luxury!), the fact that all worked well. Polar alignment and leveling was good enough to have only some drift!
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