by Jeffrey Gortatowsky
Our evening out near Palomar started out just like yours Rich. I had some folks over at the TMB-180 f/9 who were oooh'ing and ahhh'ing over the detail on Jupiter (and the scope) through the very thin high haze. I was using a 6mm Pentax SMC Ortho for 270x. We too watched Io disappear behind Jupiter and saw the two prominent black barges along with a smaller, lighter one (or area) that seemed to precede those two across the CM. I saw later one or two 'disturbances' that had sculpted out areas in the NEB with perhaps a festoon or two.
Our skies cleared around 11pm and with marine layer and fog towards to coast, and good seeing, I had one of the more memorable nights in recent memory. Certainly the best performance of the TMB-180 since I bought it 10 months ago. Split all three components of Zeta Cancer and Porrima (Gamma Vir) was a fairly easy split at 0.98 according to my binary star obit calculator. I also did quite a few of the Springtime RASC Best of the NGC galaxies. While I was at it, I picked up a few 14th mag galaxies (NGC 4187 though the 15th mag B and 16th mag C components eluded me!<g>). Not bad for a 7" finderscope. :)
If I could only figure out once and for all to my own satisfaction if the STUPID damn lens cell was holding the rear element properly, I could finally pronounce the scope an excellent one.