by Jamie Dillon
Felix rides again! By 11:30 pm I had the staggers and wobbles, and it was in fact off to the Pinnacles at 9 am this morning, what Auntie Mame called the middle of the night, but in between I got in 3 hours of observing.
Jealous of you cats at Coe and the Peak, to be sure. The sky was 4.0 transparency at zenith, 3.5 at best elsewhere. with fair seeing moving occasionally to moderate.
But whatthehell, I had a new 22 Panoptic to try out, my birthday present.
So I'll spare you some of the squalor, like a distorted M42 with a mash of light where the Trapezium was supposed to be, and tell you about what was more up toward the meridian.
Spent a good bit of time studying M67. which I'd only glanced at earlier on the way back and forth from the Beehive. A tight open cluster, it was ideal for last night's conditions. Layers of stars moving toward the limits of vision, looking like a sackful of tiny jewels. And of course I compared the 22 with my old standby stock 25mm Celestron SMA. Yes, as good and serviceable as the SMA is, the money wasn't wasted. I knew the 22 is famous for contrast, which was what I wanted. It's so clear, with that expansive FOV. We're gonna have fun.
This was with an 11" Celestron Dobs, f/4.5, with those two EP's, a 17mm Celestron Plossl, and a Televue 2x Barlow. The 6mm Radian, at 210x, ran right into the mushy seeing.
Ran down M65 and M66 in Leo. Even though I knew where to look for 3628, it wasn't apparent. The sky to the south, even high up where Leo was now around 11, was milky and bright, with the wet air reflecting town lights. Nothing below 10th magnitude was showing, to my eyes anyway. M95 and M96 showed only as non-stellar, alone in their neighborhood.
Admired Cor Caroli for the first time in a long while. Some double. Went looking for M94, new to me, right there, which I couldn't find. I'm capable of landing an 8th magn galaxy. But beta CVn, a 4th magn star in the area, wasn't naked eye, so figure that's what hilltops are for.
But I did end with a treat. Right, M3. Soon as Arcturus was high enough above the rooftop, went and caught that great globular. Put the Barlow on the 22 for 114x and got nice resolution toward the core. What a cluster.
Bring 'em on!