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Tassie - 13th January
A real high / low tonight.
Up at 3.30am to great transparency and super still conditions. Stars at 10 degrees hardly a twinkle. Cooling was still on and had the mirror at 12.5 and the ambient was 12.1.
4mm TMB eyepiece in start the alignment process for the guide scope. Treated to my best tasmanian view of saturn with 100% cd and distinct banding. No tube currents at all.
I know i promised not to image saturn again, in goes the full image train including 100mm extension to give 9625mm. After a couple of minutes, image is on the screen and was just about to tweak the brightness when high cloud starts to interfere.............image starts to break down as the temp drops quickly to 11.1........now there is in excess of a 1 degree difference between ambient and mirror.
Cooling back on and sit back and wait for cloud to move on............
Unfortunately it didn't and with lots of peeks to the SE and with the cloud moving in from the NW, I swing around to Jupiter.
Pick it up pretty quickly and then start to wait for it to get up out of the murkly low altitude.
The image is still pretty murky and the temp has dropped further to 9.5 degrees. The cooling system has down well to get down to the low 11's in the time, but I have lost the race as the cloud starts to dim the image.
Anyway, i was pleased with the cooling and 4mm TMB eyepiece, but had a bitter taste left in my mouth as I feel tonight with luck could have resulted in a great saturn!
Dem da breaks!!!
Comet tonight, so lets see how the weather holds out.
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