I spent a good bit of time getting to know the telescope last night and again this morning (gotta love that 4 AM feeding). First smart move: Setting the scope up during sunset for last night's viewing. This made it much easier to get the thing level, plug in the AC adapter, set up my lenses in the accessory tray, and perhaps most important, allowed the scope to adjust to the ambient temperature so I wouldn't get dew on the lens (which I didn't). Conditions were better than earlier in the week due to lower humidity (a bit) and clear skies (translation, good clarity, not the best transparency). Morning conditions were significantly better due to the more slender, and later-rising, Moon.
For my object list I worked from Skyhound's excellent In The Eyepiece This Month page, focusing in particular on their "Objects for Newbie Skyhounds" list. (The whole site is a fantastic resource, and the object-specific pages are wonderful.) Here are the objects from my list that I was able to see from the front yard (based on line of sight, not magnitude), with observing notes for each. The pictures below are simulated by the excellent planetarium software Equinox 6, although they seem smaller than in the lens because they're not filling one's field of vision. But the proportions are right.
- Jupiter: Caught the gas giant just before it set below the trees to our west. Not as much humidity as in past days, and the big planet put on a good show. Changing filters produced some interesting effects; blue, in particular, helped resolve the banding in the Jupiter's clouds. All four of Jupiter's large moons were visible, and in the 12.5 with the Barlow the image looked a little like this. The moons, from left to right, are Io, Europa, Callisto, and Ganymede.
- Andromeda Galaxy (M31): No better resolution than the large haze I've seen in the past, although the new lenses produced a larger haze than before.
- M13: Great. Plenty of individual star resolution with the 12.5mm.
- The Ring Nebula (M57): The show of the night. Just fantastic. I had tried to spy M57 from the Poconos and was left wondering if I'd seen it; no doubt last night. While I couldn't resolve any red color, the ring did appear distinctly non-gray, with the color being closes to blue. Nice in all lenses, even when Barlowed (the view below simulates the 25mm). What a thrill!
- Epsilon Lyrae (the "Double Double"): Just a great set of stars. Able to split both doubles in the 25 and 12.5.
- 61 Cygni: What a fantastic double. Bright orange in my lenses.
- M2 and M15: Small, but visible and nice.
- Betelgeuse, Sirius: Just nice to have in the lens ...
- Orion Nebula (M42): Viewed this morning and much better than in the Poconos, in part due to the Moon not yet being up and in part from having clearer skies and better lenses. Clear resolution of the central stars. No red color, but an image that filled the field of view.
- Mars: Nice for the same reasons as Orion. Difficult to make out surface patterns, but could just do so with the blue filter.
- Venus: My first view of Venus and wow! Almost too bright, and a fantastic crescent.
- The Moon: A wonderful waning Moon nearly to a sliver. The higher mag lenses produced great close-ups, although the warming morning atmosphere and heat coming off the room made the image quality for the 12.mm with the Barlow pretty poor. Still, a great view. Also checked out the ND filter, but the Moon wasn't quite bright enough to get the contrast benefit. I tried to get some snaps but there wasn't quite enough light.
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