Sharing the EP

The sky started off cloudy as the evening started to draw in, but I was pleasantly surprised to see these disappearing around 8pm. I grabbed the scope and got setup for a little daylight viewing, and to share the ep so the visitors we had could all take a look. Following the usual, level and power up, I aligned on the moon, and setup with the 5mm Hyperion and x2 barlow. Most of the people here were quite impressed and I even got a couple of oh wow's, all except the OH who said, "ohhh, it's the moon, I can see that on google earth". Ah well, never mind, it's a lonely life looking into space ti misquote something or other.

Once everyone had taken a look, I decided to have quick play with my barlows just to see what I could see. I started off replacing the 2x barlow, with the 5x barlow. This gives me something like 400x, which is about 2.5x more than my little scope is probably capable of. However, I could see some detail, but focusing was a total mare. I then messed about with various ep/barlow combinations, and settled on trying out the 17mm Hyperion, with both the 5x and 2x barlow in line. This provides a magnification of about 240x. Still a bit OTT, but I didn't think it was too unusable, but the image was very dark. I look around the scope, and the mist and murk was making it's way back in again. I had been hoping that the clear air would stay so I could try out the webcam in the 5x barlow, although as I'm still on the stock R&P focuser, I suspect it would have been problematic. So anyway, the moon, naked eye, was looking like it had been dipped in flower and given a good shake and the bits were floating around it, so I packed up.

Ah well, so another night with very little to show for it, although it was good showing everyone and providing some surprises. I didn't even get the time to note down any craters, although from memory, when I was setting the scope up, I could see Atlas and Hercules and the craters along that line, but I can't remember the others off the top of my head.