For this session, I wasn’t looking to log any “new” objects (usually asterisms or open clusters) requiring my largest
I could have used Interstellarum Deep Sky Atlas to select the targets (especially if I were using one of my larger scopes), but in the spirit of my recent 60mm double star observations, I used as my source “Astronomy with a Small Telescope” by James Muirden, published in 1985. In this book he says, “It is being assumed that you are using a 60-mm refractor to observe the objects in this book”. Which of course, means that I attached a 60mm refractor to the mount.
Unfortunately, none of my long focal length 60mm refractors, including my Meade NG60-SM or any of my 60mm scopes with 0.925” focusers, allow a dovetail to be attached to the
In the past I’d never use this scope because of the misshapen starry and planetary views it gave (which is why I took its smaller version – the Meade 50AZ-T 50mm refractor – as a grab-and-go for my first trip to Australia back in 2017 instead). I suspected it to be caused by pinched optics because I noticed the objective lenses on this scope were screwed on too tightly - and I couldn’t unscrew the retaining ring by hand. So, I finally got a strap wrench and after a few tries, was able to unscrew the retaining ring holding the lenses off the front-end, give the scope a very gentle shake, and then re-screwed the ring back on very lightly so you could no longer hear the lenses rattle inside:
Doing a collimation test with a Cheshire refractor eyepiece showed that the
But with the lenses loosened, no more misshapen stars and planets, with the disc of Jupiter looking good despite the heavy chromatic aberration (purple fringe) expected in such a fast refractor.
The EPs that I used: Plossl 32mm (11x) – primarily for
Here were the
M29 (
M39 (
M27 (
M71 (
M11 (
M15 (
M2 (
M31 (GLX) – obvious at 20x.
M52 (
Although this session was fun at first, the tougher objects on this list took their toll so that after these 10
It was good to get the Celestron NexStar SLT mount up and running after 2 yrs. of inactivity. It's a lot more fun doing automated astronomy than doing it manually via star-hopping, especially when you are working from heavy