Brief OR for 5/28, driveway

by Sander Pool

Last Saturday I set up on the driveway with the intention of trying to resolve some of the goto-problems I'd been having. I took my time setting up my Atlas mount, leveling it carefully and using polarfinder to properly polar-align it. I then used two stars in the Eastern skies which is where I intended to observe, making sure I actually aligned with the correct stars :) For the alignment I used an illuminated 12mm ep which in a 2800mm fl gives a lot of magnification, obviously. As I was aligning the stars I was struck again by how smoothly the Atlas moves around. At 2x speed there is hardly any vibration and it's trivial to put the star in the cross hairs. Not bad for a $1500 mount.

After aligning I went after my favorite objects, globulars and every one I selected was right in the 1 degree fov of my 50mm plossl. I played around with different magnifications trying to determine the sweet spot for my scope so that I can buy a high end ep of the correct focal length. The globulars did not disappoint and I used various magnifications and focus positions to try to get as much detail out of their cores as possible. M5, M92, M13.

I also checked out Jupiter (goto found it without trouble which is a good indication of accuracy). The views were very pleasing, best I've had them at home yet. I then checked out M81 and while it was there the picture was underwhelming because of the light pollution so I did not persue it any further.

It was just a short night but rewarding.

Posted on sf-bay-tac May 30, 2006 10:25:08 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.4 Jul 19, 2006 11:45:27 PT

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