18 Feb Report

[Mike Q]

I stuck my head outside Sunday night and decided and the half moon was insanely bright. The thoughts of doing any deep sky stuff was immediately shelves. So i drug the ten inch out and grabbed the eyepieces and settled on the moon and decided to see just how much power i could throw at it. I started with a 11mm and worked down to a 4.5 which got me to 277x. I noticed throughout the process that the images was very steady, the seeing was good for a change. I added a 2x focal extender to the 4.5 for 555x and it came to focus just fine. I spent a little bit running up and down the terminator looking at the mountains and valleys. The image was very good, everything was nice and sharp.

I figured i would give Jupiter a go but the moon was just blowing it away, but it was worth noting that the image remained the same as i worked thru the eyepieces.

I ended the night with the Orion Nebula. I backed out to my 20mm/80 degree eyepiece and brought it to focus. I remembered why i used to use that eyepiece so much. I worked down to the 6.8mm and finally to the 4.5mm. I noted that the 4.5 was just a little too much as i was unable to get the nebula to a good focus, it was close but no cigar. The best image overall was my 9/100 at about 140x, it is hard to beat a 100 degree fov with the nebula in the middle of it.

Unfortunately i had to wrap early as i had to get up at 4am the next morning. Has anyone else noticed that your clearest nights are always a night where the moon is really bright and you have to get up early?

[Graeme1858]

Has anyone else noticed that your clearest nights are always a night where the moon is really bright and you have to get up early?

Sod's Law.

Graeme

[Unitron48]

Nice session! Not often you can push to 555x!! Lots to see on old Luna at that magnification.

Dave

[helicon]

Nice report on the high magnifications Mike. If you can use it successfully with good seeing on the moon and planets it is a real benefit. Also, congratulations on winning today's VROD award!

[Bigzmey]

Nice evening and congrats on the VROD Mike! Did you use any filters on the Moon?

[John Baars]

Congratulations on the VROD!

[messier 111]

congrat on the vrod , thx .

[Mike Q]

Nice evening and congrats on the VROD Mike! Did you use any filters on the Moon?

No but i should have lol. I was lazy and left my filter case in the house. What a dummy

[Mike Q]

Nice report on the high magnifications Mike. If you can use it successfully with good seeing on the moon and planets it is a real benefit. Also, congratulations on winning today's VROD award!

I can throw mag at the moon pretty much anytime i want. The planets ... Not so much. If i had grabbed my filter case i would have been tempted to put the variable polarized filter in and go for it, but i was lazy. In the last two years i have been to 300 a couple of times and 450 once. Saturn at 450x is pretty darn good

[Mike Q]

Thanks all. A VROD was the furthest thing from my mind when i posted that

[Unitron48]

Nice session! Not often you can push to 555x!! Lots to see on old Luna at that magnification.

Dave

And congrats on your VROD!

Dave