...of stars.
I decided to take advantage of the priviledge HVAG members have of using Grant Ranch on non-starparty nights, and went up on the 23rd. A couple of other people were supposed to come, but something must have come up because they never showed. So, as the sun set, one lone C14 sat out in the field, with one observer, and a few of the wild pigs. There was a wedding over at the ranch house but it was well hidden by trees and no light leaked through, although I did have the benefit (if you can call it that) of their live entertainment most of the evening.
Conditions were good. The sky was absolutely clear, and the seeing was pretty decent most of the time. Temperatures were mild. No wind. Some slight dew later on after 10PM.
Started off by using Vega to align the finders, and of course taking a peek at its spectrum. The only problem here was that Vega was straight up, and I was having a fun time crawling almost under the NJP mount to get to the eyepiece. All four hydrogen lines were visible in the spectrum, which is usually an good indicator of a steady atmosphere.
Poked around in Aquila a little, mainly because Altair wasn't at the zenith and I could use it for a starting point for starhopping without under-the-mount gymnastics. Looked at M71 and M11 and hunted for a planetary without success. Ah well. It wasn't that long after sunset...
When Cepheus was discernable, I went to look at the spectrum of mu Cephi. This star really sticks out as deep orange when you see it in the finder. It was a little dim with the diffraction grating, but I could still see color. There were a number of bands in the orange and red, though not so many, nor so obvious, as those of either Y Canes Venatici (another carbon star) or, for that matter, Antares. Of course, the latter is far brighter and probably that has a good deal to do with how easy it is to discern things.
After that, Cassiopeia beckoned. My first ever "real" observing session was clusters in Cass, and this was my first time through it with the C14. I started with 7789, then 7790, then a slight change of pace looking for I.10 (a little galaxy that I couldn't find), then 0129, K14, 225 (not sure on this one. There was a bunch of stars at the location, but it was quite similar to other clots of stars in the Milky Way), 281 (no trace of its attendant nebulosity evident), 457, M103, little Tr1, 559, 659, 663, and 654. Aperture makes a difference; clusters that I had either not found or had a good deal of trouble with before with the C8 seemed much easier with the C14. The sky was not especially dark, so I don't think it was the conditions that were more favorable, but the scope.
Slipping over in Perseus, I found that Stock 2 is so large it just doesn't show as a cluster at the C14's lowest available magnification of 98X...it fills the whole field. Double cluster, on the other hand, was magnificent as always.
Another object that had always been a C8 challenge for me was 891. So I hopped over that way, stopping first at double-star Gamma Andromedae. Tried the diffraction grating on it, hoping to see two contrasting spectra at the same time, but the primary overwhelmed the secondary and I essentially got only one spectrum.
I found 891, but it was very faint and visible only with averted vision and then not even all the time. Well, OK, it was there but hardly a visual stunner.
So, in search of the visual tour-de-force, the scope ended up going to M15. Ah. Photons. Many of them. Really fine view. The seeing was steady and all the stars were quite sharp in the 14mm eyepiece (280X). That was as high as I could go without cutting off the outer edges of the globular.
For some reason, I'd never gotten around to looking at 7331, and so it became the session closer. Very evident. Some hints of detail. Stephen's Quintet (which were in the same eyepiece FOV when using the 40mm) was not visible.
Fun night.