by Robert Leyland
We had a great turnout Saturday night.
With extra visitors for the Perseid meteor shower, and regular third quarter moon observing we had a great turnout. Telescopes ranging from small refractors to big Dobs, and SCTs is between, with Norman and Linda's new Nexstar 11, and my new Dob, there were plenty of views to share.
Driving up the scattered clouds caused some concern, but conditions were very nice, a little moisture early in the evening caused some concern, and most of the optics were well protected against a little dew. It seemed drier later, and the only problems were with tables and charts.
The one downside, was that we had an unusual number of people drive in, scan us with their headlights, turn out and leave (probably because of publicity generated by the meteor shower). Those that came and stayed were much more considerate!
There were many spectacular Perseids, clearly directed from the radiant, bright with good trails, and trains. We also saw one very nice sporadic, running at a right angle to the majority, that left a very persistent trail.
This was also my first time with the new 'scope under dark skies, and with so many people there it was a fun night of bright eye-candy objects. I was very pleased with how well it handled old favourites in Sagittarius and Scorpius, and picked out a number of fainter objects too. On my way to M4, I was initially confused by NGC 6144, as it looks like M4 in my 8".
Optically the Discovery 17.5" is great, it needs balancing, as it is a little top heavy. Some gaffer tape, and diving weight from Dave Staples helped considerably. It was fun comparing views with Dick Flasck, as his 17.5 is also a Discovery mirror (F4.1). There were only a couple of times that we could see any difference, and that was as much from different eyepieces. The F5 mirror makes mine a bit taller, and I do need to get a better step ladder, as the one I had was a stretch when we were looking at the Ring Nebula and the Veil.
I have a couple of new lists (thanks Linda) and several past lists that I can now go through with new vision. I'm really looking forward to next weekend. Maybe I'll sneak in an evening before then too :-)