Location: home,
Equipment: Celestron 8”
EPs: Pentax XW 10mm, 14mm and 20mm for 8”
For the past two months I have been using SkyWatcher 180mm Mak and Stellarvue 102mm ED/
I kept Stellarvue frac but equipped it with binoviewer for planets and replaced the Mak with 8”
Binoviewers and filter wheel added some weight to the rear, and it took me some time to rebalance the rig. I have marked their positions for easy setup next time. AZMP is a great mount but very sensitive to balance.
18:42 Planets (with SV102ED)
My effort was not waisted, binoviewing of planets is definitely more relaxing and engaging than mono setup. Smaller details are easier to resolve, they just pop into the view. I have used a pair of Vixen 6mm SLVs which taking into account OPC produced ~230x.
Jupiter – Great Red Spot was transiting and for the first time this season it was of bright salmon color and well resolved from the Red Spot Hollow. The South Equatorial Belt which houses the
Saturn – North Equatorial Belt and North Polar Region were well defined, Cassini division evident all around, but the main surprise was that Ring C was not only detected as a shadow against the globe, but also as a darker band next to the bright Ring B in the portions of the ring system to the left and right from the globe.
Mars was still too low, so I have switched to 8”
Planetary Nebulae (with 8”
Lyra
Cygnus
Egg Nebula (PK 80-6.1) – mag 13.5, size 1' x 0.5', SB 12.5 – small faint oval with OIII filter at 145x.
PK 86-8.1 – mag 12.7, size 0.5' x 0.3', SB 10.6 – fuzzy star at 203x, nebulous nature confirmed with OIII filter.
Orion
PK 190-17.1 – mag 12.9, size 26" x 14", SB 10.2 – fuzzy star at 203x, expands to tiny disk with OIII filter.
This was a good run. It shows that I can hunt faint PNs from home and reserve prime time at Anza for faint galaxies.
Mars
Around 22:30 Mars has cleared the huge ash tree to the north-east. The seeing was not as good as last week. Still, I was able to resolve a few low