Omega Centauri From Montebello Last Night ... And Canon 15x50 IS first light.

by Mark Johnston

Omega Centauri cluster was not as clear as M13 as Omega was about 3 degrees off of the south horizon and well, M13 was ideally overhead, but I got to try my new 35mm Panoptic and so it still looked 'FANTASTIC' (ok, dillusions are good, it was swimming a bit in all that atmosphere). A half degree field of dense cluster was worth the view last night. Clearly a massive blob-o-stars wit massive numbers of them resolving to make it worth the look.

Spent most of the time looking in Virgo and not a lot to report there as the mag 11-12.5 galaxies were slightly suffering from some softness. But basic form like elongation and dense cores were easily seen so they were not washed out completely.

Played with the very large setting circles on the Losmandy G-11 and I gotta say, I will be using them for any hop farther than 4 degrees or so as they are very accurate.

Canon 15x50 IS binocular report:
Checking out Jupiter and the Milky way (later) in my new 15x50 IS binonculars was very kool. Following planes in day or night is also kind of fun. When you tap the button on those things, they lock on. I have found that they work very well on high capacity NiMH rechargables and for quite some time on a set (have used for an hour and not out yet). There is an interresting very slow rate movement you see from time to time that if you were sea-sick prone may cause you some upset. I do not find it alarming as it is better than everything jumping all over the place all the time (with no is). Field of view is still 4.5 degrees so finding things is not hard.