I had not observed for over 2 months, and last night was clear for the first time in a while. It was very cold but I had my thermals on plus freezer suit, so I was not cold.
Julian had invited me to his place for some observing with his beautiful Obsession 18” F4.5. His sky is nice and dark to the South, East and West.
Melbourne glows a bit in the North. Julian only lives 20 min drive from my place but the sky is so much darker their, I envy him.
So with the 18” set up we have a nice arsenal of eyepieces. 31 , 26 , 22, 17, 11, 9, 7, 5 , 3.5 and 2.5 mm Naglers. Meade series 4000 UWA 14 and 8.8 mm.
Also my eyepieces 35 Pano, 22, 13, 8mm LVW’s also LV 10 mm and 6 mm.
And all the 2” and 1.25 “ filters you can have.
Also the scope is armed with the best tool we have the Argo Navis DSC.
So with all this I arrived at 7 pm 9th June. We observed till midnight. That’s five hours and for me that was enough as I started to get tired.
Julian had already had the scope set up for the last few hours so it was ready to go.
I will start with Jupiter which we observed on and off over the time we observed.
To our happiness we found Transits in progress. The view was exceptional.
The transits came from Io and Ganymede. As Jupiter got higher in the sky the transits finished but Jupiter became a wealth of detail. We tried many coloured filters. Julian wanted to see the difference. We both agreed that the light green filter worked best. (I normally use this filter when observing Jupiter)
The seeing did not allow us to get past the 8 mm eyepiece.
With all the eyepiece combination we had all eyepieces worked very well.
But so they should!! My favorite was the Vixen LV 10 mm. The least expensive eyepiece in the box!! Take from that what you will.
I must say people say big scopes are no good for Planets, I say phoo to that.
The 18” showed so much detail it was amazing.
Julian has one of the best Apo refractors in the business but it did not get used!
On to Deep Sky well we all know aperture rules and it did!
I lost count of what we observed we went to all our favorites, NGC 5139, 5128, 3372, 4755, 5286 etc etc etc. Just mind blowing what the big scope shows.
We did the globular tour in Ophiuchus, Scorpius, and Sagittarius. All very nice and found the 17 Nagler our Favorite with these Objects.
We looked at lots Messier objects. A lot of the brighter Objects were found with out the Argo. Just using the Telrad. Got to keep the hand in finding things without the Argo!!
We tried a few things over the night eyepiece combinations. The 18” uses a Paracorr. I wanted to use eyepiece with and without the Paracorr.
I found that many eyepieces worked fine without it, but overall I preferred to use the Paracorr.
Of interest to me was we both preferred the View with the 35 mm Panoptic over the 31 mm Nagler. This was just a personal choice as both eyepieces are fantastic. But I found myself looking around the 31 Nag, as just looking into the 35 Pano.
If that makes sense. On the other hand I much preferred the 22 Nagle to the 22 mm LVW. But for me I have 1.25 filters and Julian has 2” filters.
But there was I big difference in looking into both these eyepieces.
To that I could not see more in the Object in the 22 Nag, but the view was more pleasing with the Nagler to the LVW. So I will keep my LVW and Julian will keep his 22 Nag. The 17 nagler is one fantastic eyepiece which got used a lot.
Anyway we finished the night with Objects normally overlooked either by there faintness or people not knowing them. Some galaxy’s worth a look next time your out are NGC 6300, 6684, 5938, 6221. IC 4662, 4633. These are all Galaxy’s. Globular worth the look in the area of Pavo, Telescopium, Apus, and Triangulum Australe. NGC 6752, 6362, 6101, 6397, 6352.
We also looked and Planetary Nebula in this area and in Scorpius.
We used my 13mm LVW and O111 filter. Argo Navis was very helpful here.
Sorry I lost=t count on these as the Argo was in Tour mode.
I should not be so lazy in my observing reports.
I have put 2 threads with this my 3rd on my Observing adventures with the 18”
Hope you enjoyed reading them. Excuse any errors in spelling.
Regards.
Dave thanks for a great report, it's makes it all worthwhile when you have such a good nights observing
