Finished work tonight at 2200, came home and saw that there were no clouds above. I took my new GSO 12" dob out to have a long awaited play. Didn't get as much time out as I would have liked, moon was starting to rise in the area I was wanting to look. Here were the main highlights of what I saw: NGC 104, clobular cluster (is it 47 Tuc?): Started with my 2" 32mm (46x) eyepice and saw a small fuzzy patch. Then with 1.25" 25mm (60x) the stars began to show themselves. I thought "bugger it" and stuck in the 1.25" 9mm (166x), well knock me over with a feather. The stars in the centre of the cluster were tightly packed, clear and sharp points. I had to pick my jaw up of the ground. Jupiter: Began with the 2" 32mm (46x) again and just took in the view of the planit and its moons on either side surrounded by countless stars in the background. I have never been to keen on using high magnification but decided to use the 1.25" 9mm (166x). The amount of clouds that begun to show up was fantastic. I could see the GRS and a smaller white spot in the darker cloud band towards the top of the disc. Rigel Kentauris: Now just pointing the telescope at individual stars never interested me but I decided to look at this one using my 1.25" 9mm (166x) eyepiece to see if I could do a star test on the collimation of the mirrors. It was out of focus so I begun to focus it and was surprised when I seen that it was a double (I'm sure I knew it was earlier but never took any notice). It was an amazing sight to see 2 stars almost the same size with very little spacing between them. Both shimmering white/blue.
Hope it is clear tomorrow night to get out again. Looking forward to looking at Orion, Sirius and Andromada.
Forecast looks good for this weekend...
