Had a chance to get out the scope tonight, and I'm glad for it!
47 Tuc and Omega centauri are still lacking in brightness from my location, but the stars were much more easily resolvable individually. a product of better collimation I suspect. I also had the opportunity to do a proper star test as well. nice even rings on either side of focus, with no obvious spherical aberrations or any other unwanted errors. Sweet.
I also took my first ever look at Saturn thru a scope.... wow. just wow. 25mm ep with the 2x barlow got me a nice crisp disk and rings. no cassini division that I could see, or distinctive snappy colours on the planet itself (in fact, it seemed a bit washed out), but that probably had to do with my inability to keep my head still given where the eyepiece had to be so I could get Saturn in view. next on my list of priorities is a decent chair!
I also counted what looked to be 4 moons. 2 on the left side, out a reasonable distance, and 2 on the right, quite close together near the rings. I'll have to look up in my planet guide whether there actually were 4 visible moons tonight or whether I was just imagining them.
one other thing I was looking to nail down tonight was the sombrero galaxy. I figured that since I was in the same basic neighbourhood checking out Saturn, that the ol' hat would be a good first galaxy to see through my scope. Right? Wrong. Couldn't find it at all. I'm not sure if I was just having no luck (or no skill), or if I'm in too light polluted an area. i suspect a combination of both.
must get to a dark site soon.
