I've been out near Palomar with my 45cm f/4.5 last Saturday night (23.12.00), last night (28.12.00), and I hope to get out tonight (29.12.00). Three nights out near Palomar in one week is really doing well for me! I love winter! Temps around 8c and I can observe from 2UT to 8UT, and be in bed and sleeping by 11UT. Gotta luv it!
Couple of items from last night (28.12.00). Last night was a bit windy which kept 'seeing' over 2-3 arc-seconds. The big dob will shake in the wind. That's a shame because on the few occasions it would calm down, I'd whip the 45cm dob over to 36 And sure enough, two touching stars of roughly equal brightness. Cream colored or light yellow to my eyes. According to sources, it's separation is about 1 arc-sec. Not to shabby for a 45cm. Later seeing degraded a bit wind or no. When not shaking, Theta Ori was piece of cake for E and most of the time, but not all, F was visible.
I've been slowly working my way through Steve Gottlieb's Jan 2001 S&T article on the Peresus-Pisces supercluster. I've only tracked down the first two groups and the bridge of galaxies between them. Because I took so long (I am a slow poke observer who spends an hour or more on one tiny area), Andromeda sank towards the @$@$%! Temecula light dome, so I had to skip over three clusters and head to the last cluster in Peresus to get back to dark skies (LM of about 6.22 at Zenith using the Pleiades as a gage).
Unfortunately the wind, coupled with the heavy 80mm finder and the heavy
oculars, kept blowing the scope down towards the western horizon making it
impossible to observe anything west of the meridian. So I pointed the scope
'upwind'
By far I thought the cutest Herschel object of the night was NGC 1664. Does
not this object remind you of a heart shaped balloon flying NW up the Milky
Way? No? Oh... well never mind.
Oh, and did I mention, I saw B33? No filters at 191x (12mm Type 4 Nagler +
ParaCor) and 1/2 degree FOV. I am darn sure I saw it. Now when I said I saw
it, I mean I knew exactly where to look and saw a slightly darker area set
against a slightly lighter area. I call it 'just across the way from 'NGC
2023'. That's it. No real 'shape' per se. But a definite sighting! And I
confirmed the star patterns. I was seeing it, barely. However much to my
chagrin, I struck out for the umpteenth time seeing any of Sh2-240 (Simeis
147).
I also used the ParaCor all night. I am still not convinced of it's
usefulness and miss the arc-minutes it cuts from my FOV, but I'll keep it
for now.
Jeez, 7 hours sleep and time to get ready for tonight. Clear skies,