The clouds finally parted tonight, and I had the Ranger on the tripod and pointed at Saturn about 5 minutes later. This ease of setup proved vital, as the fog rolled in after about half an hour of observing. In between, I saw enough through the scattered clouds and mediocre seeing to know that I am going to have a lot of fun with this little scope.

I used my old 26mm plossl as a "finder" to zero in on Saturn, then switched to the new 7mm Nagler. At 69x the shadow of the rings on the planet was stunning. Tiny, but stunning. I have seen the same sight many times through my pretty good 8" newtonian, and the improvement in contrast with the Ranger was obvious and beautiful. Banding on the planet also showed up well, better than in the 8".

Inserting the 2.5x barlow for 173x tested the seeing, but made the features easier to see during the brief steady periods. At first, I thought that the image had broken down terribly when I put the barlow in, but then realized that a small cloud had moved in front of the planet. Once it cleared, the disk became sharp-edged and quite detailed. The image was much dimmer than in the newtonian, but I never felt this detracted from the view. Titan was the only moon I could make for sure, but this was from my city balcony on a hazy night, with limiting mag around 4.0. It was clear that there was not as much raw resolving power as in my bigger scope, but the high contrast of the Ranger made for a very pleasing image. And with the seeing as bad as it was, I doubt the 8" would have showed any more tonight.

I also viewed the Pleaides with the 26mm. The 2.7 degree field was about perfect for the famous Sisters, but the bright, hazy sky reduced their usual sparkle. Next I spent some time scanning Auriga, and swept up the three open clusters M36, M37, and M38 in a few minutes. Switching to the Nagler allowed a several stars in each to be resolved. I was struck with the thought that my view through the 70mm scope must have been similar to that of Messier when he plotted these clusters (except for my gray 20th century sky :( and 82 degree apparent field :D. One step forward, one back, I guess).

When the fog rolled up like a curtain falling across the stage, I was hunting for M35 in Gemini- it's going to take me a while to get used to star-hopping with a diagonal! Tomorrow, if the weather gods smile upon me, I'll get the Ranger up to a darker site and really work it out. I can't wait to see Gamma Andromeda, and M31.