Off to M42. Five stars in the trap with the 102 and 9 with the 16. Not to bad given Orions position. I am still amazed of the amount of texture the 16 inch delivers with 9mm/100 degree eyepiece.
I was bound and determined to get the flame, but it didn't happen as I wax distracted by the Horsehead. So I traded the flame for the Horsehead and called it good.
The Hercules Cluster was up and it showed well in the 102 with a 6.7mm, in the 16 a 9mm gave a view that won't be forgotten anytime soon. The
Numerous galaxies were observed including M84 and 86, M101, M51, M104 and wrapped up the night with M81 and 82. As expected they revealed themselves smudges in the 4 inch, in the 16 structure could be seen in all of them.
It was well past midnight and teardown was going to take a bit so I packed it in and finally rolled into bed around 0130. It was a great night that I am going to gladly pay for all day today.
A couple of takeaways from last night. The iOptron mount was aligned using its GPS alignment and the Orion using a 2 star alignment. I thought it was interesting that when the slewing was done they both were looking at the same point, I had really expected them to be a bit different, but I am not complaining. The frac gave its usual pin point stars, but the big 16 was perfectly collimated was delivering pin point stars as well. I also noticed that the defraction spikes of the big reflector were almost imperceptible. They were there, but very small. You couldn't ask for better iamge.
