But NO!! Hey, it's my :HB: and once again (it happened this way last year too, not with the acquisition but at least with the clearing skies) the cloud cover had rolled away and I was actually seeing these almost forgotten tiny pinpoints of light up there. OMG I'm really going to be able to go out there and possibly SEE SOMETHING!!
So I'm out the door with the new toy, the 25x100s, 8x56s, and the 2.3x40s to the dark site. With a 3/4 moon and HEAVY humidity (HEAVY!!) the transparency is quite poor, so I know this is not really going to be a head to head between the 82XL-ED and the 25x100s, that will come later. And with the conditions the way they were, I probably could have done just about as well from my driveway in town as I did at the dark site. But it has been too long (way, WAY too d@#! LONG) since I've been, not to mention the open clear horizons and the silent serenity.
First, I have to say the scope and the tripod looks NICE! It's pretty. The alt/az motion of the pan head is SMOOTH. And of course it's such a chore to set up, so time consuming, put the tripod on the ground, slide the quick connector plate attached to the bottom of the scope into the receiver in the pan head and start observing. It doesn't get any simpler or quicker.
First EPs in were the supplied Oberwerk 14mm. Focused the right, focused the left, set the inter-pupil distance (very smooth!) and instantly the dual images merged. I was pointing at a random direction in the Milky Way in the vicinity of Cassiopeia and first beheld a rich star field. Absolutely beautiful!! :thumb:
I panned around the general area for a while enjoying the very sharp pinpoints scattered throughout forming different patterns and sometimes tighter little clusters. Everything was sharp and colorful.
Now over to Jupiter. With the 14mm I've got about 32x, so Jupiter is small, but it's sharp and I can see the two major bands. I can also see a little light scatter and occasionally some hints of
The WO 20mm 66s that came with my binoviewer are next up and these performed really well. The field really opened up and the view was much wider (more than I expected) than the supplied 14mm which are supposed to be 70 degree. These were sharp across almost the entire field with only a small degree of aberration at the very edge. These EPs are small and very light and I can see will be used quite a bit in the future.
The
The Meade 25mm HD60s would not come to focus in the scope because of insufficient inward focus travel, so that's a bust with those EPs. That's a shame because I really like these EPs in my binoviewer.
My real surprise, and another reason I'm reconsidering buying duplicates of some
There was also another issue besides the weight of the
The supplied 14mms are good and I see that I will get a lot of use from them, just wish they were threaded for filters. The WO 20mm 66s are definite keepers and I may look to try to get other focal lengths of this one because I was REALLY impressed with it's performance. The
I did do a little comparison against the 25x100s, not like what I intend to do when conditions permit, but just as a measure of light grasp in adverse conditions. I used two targets of comparison and the only galaxies that I looked at during the evening. First of the two was the Whirlpool Galaxy. I found it with the 25x100s quickly, it was only a faint smudge washed out by the moon with no discernible detail, but easily seen with direct vision. I was using the WO 20mm in the 82XL-ED to closest approximate the magnification and exit pupil of the 25x100s. It was much harder to locate as I had to use averted vision to see the galaxy. I put in the 14mm and I could barely make it out with direct vision and it became even more pronounced when using the 11mm, so the added magnification was definitely helping at least in that situation.
Second target of comparison was the Andromeda Galaxy. This one didn't show nearly as much difference in the view as the other one did. I saw no detail with either instrument, just the glowing core fading out quickly to the edges. But when the time comes, a showdown is on the way.
Overall it was a good evening just to be able to get out and enjoy the skies. The new scope is nice and the views it provided were as good as expected. I mean you can't really go wrong with an ED refractor for each eye now can you.