by Phil Chambers
There were about 6 scopes up there tonight.
The ED80 is a wonderous thing. No color IMO on sirius, jupiter, saturn (gorgeous view), etc. 5 stars in the trap. This scope is definitely underpriced. I was especially impressed with Venus. The phase of venus showed perfectly which to me says the thing has good baffling also. It split some 2 sec or less doubles in addition. Very nice. That view probably cost me some money. One of the disparate doubles split nicely too (sirius or rigel).
It is a wide enough field that the double cluster was wonderful. It will show M31-32-110 with no problem. It is a definite plieades getter.
It has a very smooth 2 inch focuser also. F6.
It was a pretty cool night although warmer than down in the valley. The sky seemed very transparant which helped mitigate the lights of the cities. (nothing to reflect off of).
I left when the moon came up about 9 or so. The 15x70 oberworks are pretty nice. I had them on my 1/2 mount and looking at high angles made one wish for 45 deg eps. 3 stars in the trap (maybe 4 but it was too high to look for long). Moonrise through the binocs was a thing to behold. Marek and I took turns watching it come up through the bushes on the hill. 3D effect was in full force with that perspective.
A short, cool, very nice, montebello evening.
Posted on sf-bay-tac Sun Feb 8 23:16:28 2004 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.0 Mon Feb 9 20:09:19 2004 PT