Melbourne - thanks for saturdays weather!

[toc (Tim)]

Despite what appeared to be horrid seeing, (Im still tying to get enough experience to be able to judge such things) I had an awesome Saturday night with the Meade/CGEM combo.

Saturn was boiling, even though it was high in the sky, so I spend most of the night with my low power 2 inch 'proxima' 31mm eyepiece. Not exactly a Televue, but its all I got at the moment.

I am definitely going to have to do something about the focuser on the Meade. Massive mirror shift and 'focus lag' detract from a fun experience I have tinkered with the focuser myself, so I suspect I might have made it a bit worse since I took delivery of the scope a few months ago.

[pgc hunter]

I was out that night, and seeing was a disgrace, which has been the case everytime I've been out this year. Saturn wasn't boiling, it was flapping about like a flag in a monsoonal storm. Stars were beginning to mush up at just 167x. I was clouded out just 90 minutes into the session.

[casstony]

Originally Posted by pgc hunter

Stars were beginning to mush up at just 167x.

167x is luxurious for me. I was able to go to about 140x Sat night which is better than normal. It seems I'm only able to get higher magnifications when there's a slow moving high pressure system sitting over the valley - maybe to do with less difference between heat plumes from the town and the atmospheric temperature.

You need a feathertouch crayford for that Meade Tim

[toc (Tim)]

Originally Posted by casstony

167x is luxurious for me. I was able to go to about 140x Sat night which is better than normal. It seems I'm only able to get higher magnifications when there's a slow moving high pressure system sitting over the valley - maybe to do with less difference between heat plumes from the town and the atmospheric temperature.

You need a feathertouch crayford for that Meade Tim

Next pay day, Im getting a moonlite with a DC servo motor