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A Very Good Night
On the 9th July 2021 I observed from a dark hill at Leycester, about 10km west of Lismore, NSW.
The west, north and east horizons were clear of obstacles.
There was a hill on the south side and some light pollution to the east.
Rain cleared the atmosphere on Friday afternoon and I washed my secondary mirror to stop it fogging up. I use a 12” (305mm, 1500mm focus) collapsible Dobsonian telescope. It is portable and you don’t have to bend over or use a ladder when looking straight up.
My eyepieces are a
26 mm, 58x, field 54’ for large OC and with a UHC filter for large nebulae
11 mm, 136x, field 36’ for OC, GC and galaxies
9 mm, 167x, field 24’ with a UHC filter for most nebulae and PN
4.7 mm, 319x, field 15’ for planets and PN when the seeing is good
On Friday night I observed for 5 hours from 6:30pm to 8:30pm, 11:30pm to 1:00am and 3:30am to 5am. It was windy till 1am. I saw more than 200 objects in 5 hours without using a star map, 15 OC, 45 GC, 25 nebulae, 37 PN, 63 galaxies and more than 30 objects in the Magellan Clouds.
I don’t like goto telescopes because they are too slow. When I was younger I used star maps and now can find the location of many objects for memory.
Attached is a list of most of the objects seen last Friday night, I may have omitted a few.
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