First clear night in almost a week, and a beautiful night it was.
The bright moon didn't bother me, as I was intending to do some imaging of Mars and Saturn.
Had the scope out to cool from about 6:30pm, but the sharp drop in temperature as the night progressed meant that it still wasn't fully cooled by 10:15pm when I started.. hmm, need a fridge on my mirror like Bird!
Through the eyepiece, Mars looked quite steady but something wasn't quite right.. I checked my collimation and it was WAY off! Usually my scope holds collimation very well and it only needs a very minor tweak before each session, but this time it was a long way of.. I'm not sure if it got bumped, or one of the kids found the screw?
Anyway after collimating, the views of Mars were much more pleasing and the seeing was reasonably steady though I've seen better. I used my 15mm GSO plossl and a 3x barlow for the equivalent of 250x and the image stood up quite well with only slight fuzziness. The view was of the Mare Cimmerium face and was quite pleasing.
I did some imaging after that, they'll be processed today and posted later if I get time.
So to bed I went for a few hours, and then up again at 4am to do Saturn.
My scope had been outside all night (though under the pergola), and I left my EQ platform setup as it was aligned nicely. While the morning was quite cold, the scope being outside all night definitely helped, the mirror appeared to be at ambient and the seeing was very good this time! It was my first view of Saturn this apparition and I wasn't sure what to expect.
Through the eyepiece at 250x, it was THE best view of Saturn i've seen. Incredibly steady and 5 moons were easily visible in the growing dawn light. I took in the visuals for a minute or two, then quickly grabbed the laptop to capture some data.
They're being processed today too if I get time, looking forward to the results.
So anyway, a long night, i'll be tired today but i'm pumped on adrenalin at the moment from such wonderful views.
