Monday Feb.26th/2001
Sess# 276 7:30 - 10:30 Farm Road lm=6.0 s=7 clear -11C
Observing session, by myself, to test out Janice's f/5 80mm Short Tube
Scope, at a darker site. I used the newly acquired 3x Barlow I
got from Matt Weeks, to achieve higher magnification on the planets
than previous tries, with this small scope.
Venus - Just love venus when it's a very thin crescent like this.
It's so much larger at such times. Could not detect any variations
in shading on the lit part.
Moon - Crescent shaped as well. Darker area showing much detail with
earth shine. Small scope pushed to 96X yeilds a decent view after
all.
Saturn - 2 moons visible, in this small scope. Cassinni division
visible, colour detected on sphere, shadow on rings. 120x was best
for this one.
Jupiter - caught it just when a moon was touching the surface edge on
the way to dissapearing behing it, I think. Attractive view, though
with much less fine detail in bands than what I'm used to.
M81&82 - Ahh, this is where the wide field pays off. I can easily get
a 2 or 3 degree field of view. These differing galaxies, one oval
and one pencil-shaped, in this wider setting, are most attractive
indeed.
M65&66 - Same pleasure as the 2 galaxies above. Nice to be able to
see them in a wider field of view, in context with stars all around.
Could not detect the 3rd nearby, fainter NGC.
Gamma Leo - Binary star. Wow, do refractors, even inexpensive ones,
ever do a good job on binaries. Two bright little yellowish
ball-bearings with much dark between them.
NGC2903 - An excellent and bright galaxy in Leo that somehow did not
make it onto the Messier list. Easy to find and quite distinct in
the f/5 80mm Short Tube.
Overall, I'm impressed by how much even a 3" scope can show you. It's
finderscope is puny, so the strategy for finding things is completely
different than with the SCT8". However, used with a 32mm ep, the
short tube itself becomes a super 16x 3 degree F.O.V. findercope of
it's own. Pleasant to be under dark skies again.
Rol.
