Got a chance last night to concentrate on some fun observing time after a month of working away although it was looking dodgy for a while but the night in Perth turned out pretty good except for a persistant wind .
Instead of going through the whole polar alignment thing i did a quick Altizmuth setup with the LX200 with just visual observing and testing 2 eyepieces that i havent had for long ....9mm nagler and 14mm meade uwa ... in mind . Had the scope in f/6.3 mode and started with Scorpius in the west , the LMC and SMC and Orion later in the evening . Used the article in the current Sky and Space mag to tour around the SMC , 47 tuc was a joy to see through the 9mm the core revealed but the outer boundries still within the field of view .
The LMC and particulary the tarantula nebula was a huge highlight . Ive had both a broadband and narrowband [both meade] for a while and have been somewhat dissappointed with the view they provide but wow using ithe broadband with the 9mm was a huge surprise . The immmersive quality that a Nagler gives really adds a new dimension to using the filters , it really did knock my socks off . The larger 14mm takes the 1.25 filter as well and the view was very good but just not the same effect as the nagler . Although the meade uwa angles have a claimed greater AFOV of 84 over the nagler 82 there just somthing about the tele vue eyepieces that give that something special .If anybody is thinking of buying a nagler or pan or even a radian Bintel has a sale on them until the 31st of Dec .
Later in the evening spent some time exploring Orion , Canis Major and Taurus ......
great to among old friends again . Towards the end i used my 120mm archo for some casual starhopping , this scope is a beauty , if anybody is considering a low cost {
}achro from Skywatcher/saxon etc they really do work well if your prepared to take some of its disadvantages in mind.
Anywhy that was my night of stargazing , time well spent after a lengthy layoff and you beauty it looks good for tonite as well ...
Reunion and Revelation
nice review of that nagler. Sounds like quite a night under the sky, it's cloudy here 
There maybe some leonids in the morning, 8th around 3:00am on the East coast of Oz I hope the sky is clear by then.
