by Peter Santangeli
As some of you may know, my family and I are spending the month of August at our family cottage north of Toronto in Canada. I'm actually writing this while at the eyepiece of an 8" dob that is now a permanent resident of that site - more on that later.
We are about 2 hours north of Toronto, a city of about 3 million people, in a region known as the Muskoka Lakes area. It's a region of the province of Ontario that contains thousands of separate lakes, ranging in size from a fraction of a mile wide, to the great lakes Ontario and Huron.
It is far enough from the city to have quite dark skies with minimal light domes - somewhere between the darkest bay area sites (coe, etc) and shingletown. This evening though, there is a cold front coming in, creating a strong wind and unsteady conditions. I've had a couple of excellent nights now, and hope for many more this month.
As for conditions in general though, if ever I start whining about observing conditions in the SF area, somebody please slap me about the head. I had forgotten just how often the east coast is cloudy during the summer, and the incredible pain in the neck that mosquito's are for summer observing. The current fears surrounding west nile virus only highten the tension they create.
Some observing notes on comet Hoenig. It took me about 10 minutes to track it down in Cepheus. Not bad really. Cepheus has enough stars of a reasonable magnitude to make the star hop fairly easily. I am using the Sky, with updated comet positions from the web, and the data was right on the money. I was able to jump from Zeta Cepheus, to Epsilon Cepheus, to Delta Cepheus, to NGC 7380, and from there move right to the comet.
My notes indicate it being a fuzzy ball, about 2.5 arc minutes wide. I'm not sure if I am seeing a touch of elongation roughly north - it could be my eyes playing tricks on me. Were I to come across the object blindly, I would almost certainly mistake it for a globular. As others point out, it is moving quite fast.
As for the scope I'm using, I purchased it at a small shop in Toronto called Khan Scope. A good small shop carrying a variety of equipement, with knowledgeable staff. The scope itself is the (quickly becoming ubiquituous) metal tubed Dob variety with some interesting differences.
It is actually manufactured in Taiwan not mainland China (as are most of these dobs it seems). Acording to the shop keeper, the manufacturer of the Chinese equivalent would not commit to a figure accuracy statement, but the Taiwanese manufacturer would. It was packaged quite well, and despite having taken at least one good bump on the way out here, it is in perfect conditions. The optics (8" F6) are really quite excellent, providing some of the best views I've had through an 8" scope (of which I have owned a few). The included eyepieces are 25 and 10mm plossl's that are clearly the same eyepieces as Orion's plossl's. The included 2x barlow is a plastic tubed joke. So bad in fact that Khan Scope also throws in a reasonable 3x metal tubed barlow as a substitute. Not being a big barlow fan, neither have been tested. The scope will become a permanent resident of the cottage - waiting for the occasional visitor that wants to do some observing, and probably doing occasional double-duty checking out a passing boat or two.
Hope all is well with my TAC'y friends.