The clouds finally relented! It was clear tonight with a couple of hours of dark sky before Moon rise. I've had my new APM 11x70 ED
APO Binoculars for two weeks already so I was set up ready to go as soon as darkness fell. I've got a sun lounger ordered but it's not been delivered yet so I set up on a patio chair, not ideal but it was that or the patio! I had Stellarium running on the laptop on a table next to me with the brightness turned down low. So away we go, first light anticipation after a two week wait. I intended to follow up my
previous session in Cepheus but I started with Cassiopeia and used the brighter stars to focus on. The APMs have a focus adjustment on each eye instead of the usual centre focus and single diopter adjustment which is a bit different but not a problem. Once focused I moved up to Cepheus and immediately found the mini Taurus V lookalike in the Kurhah Star Field and stayed for a while, the colours were so clear. Just above,
NGC 7160 was easy to spot. Moving west to the wow that was Erakis, the Garnet Star! It stood out, shining with the reddest red I have ever seen a star display.
I moved back down past Cassiopeia to where the Andromeda galaxy sits above the two cocktail glass stars and there it was, no hesitation! I've only ever seen this galaxy in a telescope or just the core in my old binoculars, now I could see a good amount of nebulosity around the core. I swung round to Hercules and quickly found M13 sitting between the two stars that I can't usually see with my 2350mm focal length telescope!
Then on to Jupiter. My lack of tripod and binocular viewing skills made me wonder if I needed a focus readjustment. Jupiter was clearly a disc but not completely circular, but I could see two moons. Turns out, after a later look at Stellarium, I had seen Io and Calisto. The odd disc shape was Ganymede and Europa in a very close conjunction.
Moving on to some Milky Way action, the star density around Sadr was awesome! I moved down to the Scutum area where naked eye there is nothing but empty sky usually, enjoying the star colours and sheer numbers! I found what I think was M26 just East of the 4 stars that include α Scuti.
By now my back was starting to go a bit, leaning back in the patio chair, so I ended the session there. I need the sun lounger to get delivered and I need to put some thought into attaching the supplied tripod bracket to my tripod. Other than that I am well pleased with my purchase. 11x70 ticks the right box, I didn't want to narrow the field of view that my old 10x50 binoculars have but the extra
aperture is excellent. My eyes are not what they once were and that's part of the reason for moving from visual to
AP but the tip top quality of these bins gives me the best chance of enjoying some visual action again!
Well pleased.
Regards
Graeme
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Celestron 9.25 f10 SCT, f6.3FR, CGX mount.
ASI1600MM Pro, ASI294MC Pro, ASI224MC
ZWO EFW, ZWO OAG, ASI220MM Mini.
APM 11x70 ED APO Binoculars.
https://www.averywayobservatory.co.uk/