Wed 5/17/2006 MB: Binoviewers and Black Cloud Nights... That's what I'm talkin' about, baby!

by Michael Swartz

And by Montebello standards last night was one of the best I can remember. And even though I've seen it before it always amazes me how galaxies and globs look through binoviewers. I think I had the best view of Jupiter last night ever. During those moments of still seeing the detail in the central belts was so clear and crisp, even with my poor seeing. It was like a picture. I felt like I could almost see the texture.

Marek used an aperture mask on his 18"O and that was pretty cool. I on the other hand went binoviewing. But even with the predicted light loss of a binoviewer Jupiter was still overwhelming. So instead of a color or neutral density filter I decided to try a v-block on it so I could get a little dampening but not too much. I have never tried a v-block with a reflector and I'm not really sure why I decided to do it actually, but it turned out that the end result was just the right amount of light and a very pleasing hue. So that during moments of steady seeing... the detail in the bands was astonishing. It worked out really well. I just sat and stared at it, blinked, adjusted my breathing, distance and/or angle from the eyepieces, tried putting Jupiter in different positions in the field of view, etc.. to try and get just another really good glimpse at it. Wow! That was fun!

It was also fun bringing the top of the scope down to the ground and catching a look at the big Alpha Centauri cluster. Although I must admit that although it was kind of cool being able to see it and I could clearly identify a lot of stars and see structure in it, I was underwhelmed by it. Maybe because it was so low in the horizon the stars did not appear to me to be bright or white. It just wasn't very bright. And it was kind of brown. After looking at m3, m13, m5 and so on, the big brown cluster just didn't look so pretty. oh well, maybe it's an aquired taste.

And then looking at globs and galaxies via binos... now that's cool. And it's always fun listening to Marek'ss superlatives and gasps of awe when he is looking at something really cool.

I'm looking forward to doing that again.

Posted on sf-bay-tac May 18, 2006 16:15:21 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.4 Jul 18, 2006 18:12:54 PT