8pm:
scope went out to start with getting a venus vid : completed, but lots of house roofs and mess to contend with. wrapped that with the 5x powermate and the dob tracking, i went in side and came back 2 minutes later and image still on screen!
10pm:
mars next, but seeing was bad, 3 degree difference between mirror and ambient
11.30pm:
mars again, a bit better seeing, but temps falling quicker than i can keep up, took collimation videos with one of the orion stars. Temp at this stage 11 ambient: 14.5 mirror.
3.30am:
ambient 4: mirror 7.5 = arrgggggghhh, so i kept the sucking fan going and soldiered on with the videos of saturn in std mode and various gain / gamma and then back into raw mode to compare, jupiter a few different gain / exposure tests.
Finished up with a couple of doubles: Rigel K and Hadar
I am very happy with the dob driver setup. Mving to a new target, i would say that within 5 minutes, i am tracking very well. I was at all points of the sky tonight, and all worked well.
I am not happy with cooling, durinig summer, i am going to need a quicker system.
By the way I collimated before all of this.
The computer is having a fit, processing over 10 gig of data, so lets hope there is something to see!
A final cherry on top: Jupiter, morning blue background and the vixen 5mm eyepiece. Multitudes of bands no problems! This was the most pleasing sight i have had of a planet. Cannot wait for better seeing, cooler mirror and for jupiter to be high in the sky. What i saw this morning of jupiter blew me away!
Sounds like a good night David, apart from the temperatures that is. Always good when you are stunned by an image of something you're so used to looking at eh?
yes muddy, i had seen jupiter back when i got my scope with a 6.5mm cheap eyepiece. I had viewed it also with the 5mm vixen very low a couple of weekends ago.
But this time, still low on the horizon say 15-20 degrees and the view I received, i would bet my right one , anybody looking at that for the first time would be hooked!!!
It is not as if it was my first time looking at it!!!
