Weather reports are showing clear skies April 1st. My 15x70 binoculars should provide a great view. I will also have the 20x80 binoculars out for a closer view.
Clear skies, it's such a novel idea locally, it's been teeming down all night and half of the day but the cloud has been here for the past week.
If it does clear up I'll be getting lost in my back lawn.......
When I got home today I was a bit tired. So I just used a very much grab and go 7x50 binoculars. The binoculars showed a very good image of the two together. What I like about binoculars is the ability to see the depth difference in stars.
It was beautiful clear tonight and I took my Astro-Trak out for it's first run. I had been playing with extension tubes (3mm) for an adapter from M42 (not Pentax thread, the narrow pitch) to my Nikon lens adapter and thought I'd sorted focus with my little Player One Neptune (IMX178) but I was just a whisker off getting clear focus with a 35mm f1.4 Samyong lens. Even down at f5.6 focus was still just that tiniest bit off and no more rotation of the focus ring.
I decided to throw my Megrez 80mm on the contraption with a good gear head for my initial alignment on a Manfrotto something 55 tripod (sturdy) and a 25Kg capable ball head on top. The problem was I couldn't remember exactly which adapters I'd used (extensions) to get the little 80mm Megrez (original model) to focus. I played around for ages till I got sick of not being able to get focus on stars (on a laptop screen) and packed it all up.
Had I just grabbed my D810 focus wouldn't have been an issue with the lens or the Megrez. It's the clearest night we've had in ages.
Had I been able to point my telescope at the moon I'd have obtained focus in seconds but the neighbour (owner) planted trees all up the fence line and they are at around 30 feet high now. I'm going to the council, she planted them and moved out and rented the place a year later. I want them cut back to maximum of 10 feet and maintained at that.
I know someone in the council and can make it happen without issues.
Overall a great waste of time because I didn't even just spend my time enjoying what was right in front of me, I wanted test images.
Maybe next time, we should get another good, clear sky before it drops down to below zero at night (-12) and means too much reliance on the trusty old hair dryer to keep lenses clear.
