Observing session 24th Jan

A nice and clear night, first one in a while, so I was all eager to get outside with the scope and have a hunt. I checked on Stellarium for the location and time to rise for Saturn, not seen this yet and wanted to give it a try. I decided I'd setup the camera on a tripod as well and see about getting a couple of stacked widefield images whilst I was at it. The moon was near full, but was hiding behind my house, which meant the garden was reasonably dark. Even with a scope this size, that can be carried in one end, all set, there was still quite a lot to carry out. The scope, the camera, two chairs, the case with the ep's etc in, a notebook, pen, planishphere, Turn Left at Orion (TL@O), and last months Sky at Night magazine (well, really still this months, but as next months is out already). Anyway, got all setup, and I thought I'd start with the usual favourites. M45. Spent quite a few minutes just staring at this in the 20mm ep, with the sisters nearly filling the FOV. Moved onto M42 and spent a while more there. Then I remembered Saturn. Move the scope so I could see past the house, lined up with the RDF, dropped in the 5mm Ortho lens, and pop. There it was. And what a Sight. Even in my little scope at 80x I could see Saturn really clearly. I popped in the x2 barlow, cranked up to 120x and even more WOW!!!!. I ran to the house, and called inside that I could see Saturn and the rings. My wife came out and had a look too. I think she was impressed, first time with my new hobby, always a good thing. She went back inside as she wasn't really dressed for it. Next thing I know, my kids came outside to have a look to. They had just gone to bed, but she thought they'd like to see. I got a chair so they could look into the ep and they had a good long look at 120x, then I send them packing, as it's MY telescope and I wanted a look ;o). Spent some time looking at Saturn, only gave up in the end as with that level of magnification, Saturn only stayed in the eyepiece for about 30 seconds, and the camera tripod, whilst pretty sturdy and good, doesn't have the fine tuning necessary to track. Note to self, must sort out something better as a mount.

Anyway, after looking at Saturn, I decided to see what I could do with my camera. I set it up for full manual operation and attempted to focus, in the end I gave up and set it at infinity and left it there. After a couple of test shots, I was lined up for Orion. So I snapped away, setting the self timer after each shot (no remote shutter release). I also shot the Hyades and the Pleiades.


Orion - 15 frames of 15 seconds at ISO400


Hyades - 10 frames of 15 seconds at ISO400

This one had some star trails, I forgot to reduce the exposure time when I zoomed in, but some help from a Forum, gave me the tricks to use to remove them.

Pleiades - 18 frames of 3.2 seconds at ISO400 (10x zoom)


Having taken these sequences of shots, my camera started complaining about the batteries. So I gave up on the photos and went back to the scope. Using TL@O I decided to see if my scope could split any double stars. Firstly Beta Monoceros, this worked fine, definatly saw two stars there. Moved onto Castor, and again saw two, but I'm pretty certain this is the (AB) and C pair only, not the really tight paring of A and B). I hunted around for a while for M81 and M82, I think I may have found them, but I don't think I can get enough magnification in this scope to be able to see them clearly. I tried for M1, M41 and M50, but I didn't see them. Then hunted for NGC457, and found that, and the Double in Perseus.

Then moved onto the Moon as it had decided now was a good time to show it's face over the top of the House. I took a long look at the moon, although it took awhile for the green glow across my vision to fade after the first glance. It was now that I discovered the Chromatic Abberation (CA) in my little scope. It didn't seem to be affecting the view too much as I could see craters and hills and stuff on the moon (no idea which ones mind you). After a further 30 minutes of looking at the moon, I gave up for the night and headed indoors. Unable to see properly in one eye as I'd switched on the lights, and the other eye because of the afterimage of the moon. But hey, I'd enjoyed myself immensely.

I spent a long time playing with the images, staking, restaking, tinkering and tweaking to get to the images above. I think it was worth it.