I wanted to come down to Houge Park last night but I could not get away. I did however set up my new LX90 on my patio and observed the Moon, Jupiter and Saturn.
I am very impressed with this scope and with the TV Zoom EP. The eyepiece give me a sliding power range of 83X to 250X and when barlowed 166X to 500X in the LX90.
I can't wait to get this scope under dark skies. Last night I was seeing more detail on the Moon than I have ever seen! 5 craters inside Plato, more detail in Clavius than is described in Rukl's Atlas. The rocky terrain inside J. Herschel was unreal almost. I you look at the map of Copernicus page 31 except for the shadow, that is the view I had! I could easily see the slopping terrain and rough crags inside and outside the crater. Gassendi, page 52, was also well defined, everything shown in the map and more.
The seeing in S.F. only supported about 200X on Jupiter, but even then I counted 12 bands. There was also two dark areas in and around the North equatorial belt. At first I thought they were moon shadows but they were not one of them moved over the course of two hours from the northern edge of the North equatorial belt to the south edge of the North equatorial belt. Did anyone else see this and do you know what they were?
Saturn was a jewel as usual, and the six stars in the Trapezium were automatic!
All in all a petty good evening. For a time I was running at 800X on the Moon, what a blast!