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Sunday, January 10, 2010

I was going to go out east tonight but cancelled due to poor transparency (and had a bunch of stuff to do tonight, one of which was blow off the mirrors of the N5 and recollimate (selling it)).  So tonight was on the porch with the N5 only.

Equipment:

5SE, running off the AA batteries, 25mm Celestron and 15mm Stellarvue.  Notables: collimation session, SkyAlign off Sirius, Capella, and a Great Square. 

Location: Porch

Weather:

cool but not cold, light wind, some haze west of the meridian, relatively clear east.  Transparency and seeing were poor enough to cancel driving out east, light wind, pretty dry.

Goals going in:

collimate, test SkyAlign, do a couple of objects.

Summary

Stayed out a lot longer than I planned.  Quick and Easy.  My grab and go will now be limited to the unguided 102, which will be darker and lower power.  Hopping to the next Menu Item in the Tour is a heck of a lot easier than Knowing the Sky.  But it's time for me to learn it.

Saw a lot in a short period of time.  Good night.

Highlights: 

Double Cluster looked really good, well framed w/ the 25mm (50x);

Mars looked really good for Mars (which is always very bland, but there was clearly grey on peach; I've seen it bigger but seldom clearer (I was using the 15mm, 83x).

M82, always cool to see a galaxy.

Split Rigel and was able to split all three stars of Beta Monoceras

Andromeda w/ M110 in same field of view (M110 was much brighter than I expected).  Andromeda still cracks me up because it looks exactly the same whether you're using binoculars, a 102, an N5, an N11 or a big 24" dob.

Orion Nebula: trapezium very clear, M42/M43 clearly the same structure bisected by dark cloud in front.  Good view.

Misses:

M74, a 9.5 magnitude globular, I couldn't see.  That's kind of been on the lower end of visibility in my bright backyard, but still a surprise.

Owl Cluster, it was the last thing I attempted to see before going in but didn't see it.