Several of us were observing from Henry Coe State Park (a little south of San Jose, Calif.) last night, April 7th. The sky was cloud free. There was some haze and fog below us filling the valleys and covering the city lights. The seeing was at least a 7 on a scale of 1 to 10.
| Aperture | Mount/brand/type |
|---|---|
| 18" | Obsession (Dobs) |
| 8" | Dobs |
| 8" | Celestron Nexstar SCT |
| 8" | Meade SCT |
| 8" | Meade SCT |
| 7" | Dobs (Starmaster) |
| 6.1" | AP EDF APO |
| 5" | Celestron Nexstar SCT |
| 5" | Takahashi FS-128 APO |
| 5" | Orion/Vixen |
| 4" | TV 101 APO |
If I've missed some please feel free to let me know, I'll add them to the list.
Thanks to Ray Gralak for showing me how to set up my new AP 900GTO mount for GOTO mode. It worked well but was noiser than I'd expected when slewing at the 1200 and 900 settings.
About a third of the people at the star party were taking photos or imaging. A few people were hunting objects on their observing lists. I think the rest of us were just looking for interesting objects.
I enjoy star hopping, so, after Ray and I tried the GOTO feature of the AP 900GTO mount, I spent the rest of the time finding objects with charts, a Telrad and a correct viewing 7.6x finder on my AP 6.1" f/7 EDF.
I looked briefly at Saturn. The Cassini division was easy to see but the image was fuzzy due to its low position in the evening sky. The Moon was showing a number of interesting features. The the big rill in crater Patavius was easy to see. It runs from the central peak to the edge of the crater. The central peak showed nice detail, so did the far wall of the crater. I was fun scanning along the terminator. I was using a 5mm Tak LE eyepiece giving about 217x. The hills around the edge of Mare Crisium I found interesting because I don't often look at the moon in this early phase.
The next objects, M42 and Trapezium. The sky was still light, with a 27mm Panoptic the I could almost the entire "sword" of Orion. Using a TV 26mm plossl and 2x barlow M42 was nicely framed. With 7.5mm and 5mm LEs the 6 stars in the Trapezium were easy to see as fine points of light. The brighter stars of the Trapezium showed nice Airy discs. The nebulosity showed lots of feathery structure. I looked at M78. Maybe if the sky had been darker it would be more interesting but last evening wasn't very exciting.
On to Gemini, Castor split nicely. Next was the Eskimo nebula (NGC2392). With a 7.5 mm Tak LE eyepiece the central star was bright with "shells" of gas around it. There was some mottling in the gas. Near by, the cluster NGC2420 was not very bright but showed many little stars.
Draco was next, I wanted to see the Cat's Eye planetary nebula again. It is a bright blue green oval. Near the Cat's Eye is a nice mag 10.8 Sb galaxy. It was easy to see. It looked like it's tilted so we see it as an elongated oval.
After seeing the outstanding image Ray and made of M65, M66, NGC3628 with his FS128 on an AP 1200 mount and SBig camera with large chip, I had to see them with my through my scope. I they looked very nice in my scope but for some reason NGC3628 didn't show as much structure as in Ray's image. ;-) I looked around in Virgo. I think next year I do the Messier marathon I'll use my 35mm Panoptic instead of the 27mm Panoptic when going through Virgo.
Over to Hercules. M13 was well resolved, as usual. NGC 6205 was easy to see if you know where to look for it. NGC6210 was a nice, small planetary. I moved to the northern end of Hercules and NGC 6229. It's a small globular cluster. It's edges were resolved. M92 looked great as usual. It has a high central concentration.
I did a little more observing but after little sleep for several night I spent a good part of the time talking and trying to see the really faint, small fuzzies Mark Wagner was hunting with his 18" Obsession. One was very small and required averted vision to make it "wink in".
It was another fun night. The Nexstar 8 gave very nice images. So did the Nexstar 5.