Last night was the first clear night we've had in Mackay for months and it just so happened to be our first club viewing night for the year. With much anticipation I set up the 12" dob early so we could start observing at dusk, I also had a fair idea that Kevin and his new 13mm t6 nagler would be arriving soon. The nagler was loaded into the dob’s focuser minutes after Kevin’s arrival; I was keen to see how good these naglers really were at f/5. Saturn at dusk was amazing, viewed at 116 x you could clearly see the Cassini ring division and banding on the globe I think we counted 7 moons in the twilight. Maybe viewing planets at dusk or early morning has the advantage of cutting down some of the gathered light making small detail stand out. M42 was strong, the nebular was like wispy smoke with a hint of green and 6 stars of the trapezium were bright and tight pin points of light, M42 in the nagler is a wow object. Another astronomy club friend turned up with his Meade 14mm Ultra wide ep so it was great to compare both similar focal length eyepieces side by side. Both are excellent for visual viewing using this f/5 scope not a lot of difference in the view and both are sharp to the edge. Omega Centauri fitted both fov’s like a glove you could see right into the hart of this beautiful globular, stars resolved to the core and all despite some light pollution to our south. We looked at a lot of other objects but the one that stood out on the night was Eta Carinae and it’s nebular. Eta was bloated yellow with two lobes in a small figure eight shape; I was surprised how good the detail was. The nebular and its dark lanes jumped out with twists and turns like a dark country road, after fitting Kevin’s Lumicon deep sky filter it had the effect of blocking Eta’s bloated shape but the contrast between the dark and light sections of the nebular enhanced the viewing pleasure. All said it was a wonderful night with great friends and company.
