........for the first time last Tuesday night.
Have been going stir crazy for some dark sky time. Some Pentax camera bits were waiting for me at Snake Valley so I took an evening off to go up with my big binoculars (30x100). Got the Pentax stuff, brought back, for repair, a little 600W 2 stroke generator that stopped producing 240V (
) on the first night it was used. And had a nice evening with the binoculars touring around the favourites.
Not a great sky - seeing pretty poor and a haze of bushfire smoke.
However, I weakened later and pulled out the club 8" reflector. After a rough collimation with the laser (no centre spot on primary), I popped in a borrowed 13mm Ethos (
) and had a look at various things. Alpha Centauri split fairly cleanly, Alpha Crux split fairly well, could see E and F in the Trapezium, so I turned to Rigel. I had not yet looked for its little companion. And there it was - very clear! Chalk up another observation.
Someone recently told me that Rigel's little mate must be "Nigel" - sounds good to me.
Yeah, it's an easy split. I was just getting excited - My first time and "Nigel" was almost under a diffraction spike making it a bit harder. That's my excuses! My 12" made a very easy meal of the split Tue night.
