[Chaos-l] Ready to go

[Michael Hrivnak]

We had a great night on Thursday.  Kumar, Terry, and Julia (my girlfriend) 
came out.  We also met a nice young couple who brought out a scope, but 
didn't know about CHAOS and just happened to be there at the same time.  
Hopefully by now they've had a chance to get on the mailing list.

The observing was great.  I think the conditions were about as good as you 
could ask for coming out of Summer.  Even while I was waiting for dark 
between 8 and 9pm, Jupiter looked great.  It didn't have that typical 
waviness around it from unstable air at sunset.

Kumar had a great binocular setup.  He had his huge binoculars (12x85?) on one 
of those parallelogram mounts that suspends the binoculars right in front of 
your face while you lean back in a lounge chair.  We discussed plans for a 
few improvements including a personal heater for the winter, a 
binocular-mounted straw connected to a tap line with your tasty beverage of 
choice, a side-mounted cooler with sandwiches and backup tasty beverages, and 
possibly a masseuse.

Ok, on to the objects.  I focused a lot on Saggitarius, since it's slipping 
away for the season.

--Saggitarius--
M8
M17 (Swan. We noticed that a UHC filter improved contrast by quite a bit 
without dimming everything.  An OIII filter yielded tremendous contrast, but 
had more of a dimming effect, especially on stars)
M20 (Trifid Nebula)
M22 (spectacular globular, which in some ways is more impressive than M13.  
It's much more expansive, and still quite bright.)
M28
NCG 6642 (small globular)
NGC 6520 (open cluster) & Barnard 86 (giant dust cloud that blocks part of the 
cluster)

--Scutum--
M11 (Wild Ducks. I hadn't seen it since upgrading from my 8" scope, so I 
didn't even recognize it.  I thought "Whoa!  What is THAT cluster, and how 
did I never noticed it when looking for M11!?"  It was truly spectacular, and 
perhaps the best object of the night.  The star density was incredible.  With 
a Nagler 17 at 121x, it nearly filled the field of view.)

--Vulpecula--
M27 (Dumbell Nebula.  Hour-glass structure was very evident.  Adding an OIII 
filter made the ellipse around the hour-glass shape completely clear.)

--Hercules--
M13
M96 (the core had a concentration of distinctly golden stars)

--Cygnus--
NGC 6960 (Veil- spectacular as always)
NGC 6888 (Crescent Nebula, very faint, but interesting.)

--Lyra--
M56 (small globular)
M57

--Andromeda--
M31
M32
M110

By this point, it was a little after midnight, and a few clouds were starting 
to roll in from Hanna.  We called it a night.

This was my first time using a Cheshire eyepiece for collimation.  It made a 
big difference.  Before, I'd been using a laser, which is great.  BUT, there 
is no way with the laser alone to know if the secondary mirror is square with 
the focuser.  And on my scope, it is easy to accidentally rotate the 
secondary while trying to adjust its tilt.  I probably need a locking nut for 
the secondary's bolt to reduce that problem.

I can't wait to get this scope out to our dark site, and especially to MASP.  
Jordan is great, but there is still a fair amount of light all the time.

Michael


On Thursday 04 September 2008 19:57:33 Michael Hrivnak wrote:
> She has great collimation, thanks to my new Cheshire eyepiece.  Come
> on out!  Scope optional.  I have a long list of targets for tonight.
>
> Michael


-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part.
Url : http://rtpnet.org/pipermail/chaos-l/attachments/20080906/9f1de797/attachment.pgp