It’s been a while since I have been here, hope to post a little more soon now I have the scope sorted. An old LX90 that I’ve had since the 90’s, had to get a new autostar this is the second one that I’ve had die since new. As the autostar is no longer available I had to get an audiostar, I hit that 7-button quickly after selecting the first object, haha.
After aligning the scope and waiting for it to cool down it was on to a few globular clusters and some old favorites. Most of the night I used a 2inch SV 30mm ep, in my opinion this is a great ep for visual observations on a moon lit night. Ghost of Jupiter was a highlight, it was easy to see and had a bluish tint to my eye. M104 was so close to zenith, seeing this galaxy was a real treat with the extra wide field of view. M4, M3 and Omega Centauri were some of the globular clusters that I observed, The smaller clusters just pop in the wide field. Where Omega just fills the same FOV and it’s just look at me. Mars looked so isolated and quite lonely and cold, Venus warm and bright, beautiful crescent. And lastly our satellite the Moon, great detail along the terminator peaks poking out of the black and long shadows. I was especially interested in the Hyginus and Araidaeus rilles, put a VT 13mm in to enjoy this area, seeing was fading in and out, plenty of detail in the steady moments.
Scope worked great and no dew, was not ideal night for some of these objects but it was just good to be out in the night.
Great report mate. Yes the Ghost of Jupiter is one of my favourite visual PN targets too. It really rewards larger aperture scopes with tonnes of detail if you can be patient with it.
I really need to make a list next time I go out under the stars. With the rain here for the last -ever, I have been trying to get back into the swing of hauling the LX200 out of it's crypt...
If the weather does play kind, I would like to hit the Mangrove Mountain Pony Club on the night of June 18 with a good list like yours. I'm with Dave, Ghost of Jupiter is a special sight.
I don't have a 30mm EP, but I have a Panoptic 41. Even at f/10, it gives a good wide(ish)field.
