by Marek Cichanski
I got home from a grocery-store run around 10:45, saw that the sky was still clear, and put the goodies away as fast as possible. Ran out to the garage, slapped some gaff tape on the nearby parking lot lights, threw the ED80 on the tripod as quickly as I could, and popped the 12 Nagler in the diagonal. Pointed it at M42.
After a run of bad weather like this, that simple view of Orion's sword was a tall, cool glass of water. Sure, I was under a bright suburban sky, and sure, I was 'only' using a 3" scope. But as far as I was concerned, I could have been on Mauna Kea, looking through the Kecks. Both of 'em. At once. With a binoviewer. To me, the sky might as well have been as ink black as those skies over New Zealand were. It was wonderful.
I thought that the seeing was quite good, too. At least a consistent 3 on my scale of 1 through 5, with a lot of 3.5 and probably a fair amount of 4. In fact, maybe a lot of 4. The trapezium looked great in the ED80. I went up to 120x (5 Nagler), and all four stars showed nice crisp Airy discs and diffraction patterns. In fact, I could swear that I saw the E star on several occasions. Am I nuts for thinking that with this scope? I could swear, though, that the E popped in to view whenever I looked at the middle of the Trapezium. (In other words, I was using slightly averted vision.)
I also took a look at M35. The OTA was pointed just about at the zenith, and I had to rack the 12 Nagler out a ways to achieve focus. I wasn't sure if I was pointed in the right place, until... the stars started to come into focus... oh yeah. Oh baby. If I were to write out my reactions to seeing M35 tonight, it would read like a transcript of an obscene phone call. Let's just say it was good. Looked at M46 and M47, too. Also sweet. Split Rigel, too. All kinds of fun.
And then, of course, there was Saturn. The seeing must have been really good, because I had the best small-scope view of Saturn that I've had in a long time - maybe ever. Very crisp, sharp edges to the rings and the planet's disc. Very three-dimensional appearance to the whole thing. Nice sharp Cassini division, too. I won't claim that I really saw it all the way around the planet, but I saw it for a good long way around the rings. Titan was very distinct - crazy to think that the Huygens probe is falling towards it right now, and that Cassini has just gotten off of its collision course. Perhaps the neatest thing about Saturn tonight was how a trio of faint moons would all pop into view at once when the seeing would really stabilize. Now you don't see them, now you do.
Once again, I was really pleased with the ED80. And I was oh so grateful for a bit of clear sky. Sometimes the powers that be don't give you what you really want, but they give you just enough to hang on.
Posted on sf-bay-tac Jan 05, 2005 00:09:28 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.2 Jan 25, 2005 19:39:35 PT