[AZ-Observing] Re: New scope

Steve - in many GOTO mounts/scopes the calculations to find the Moon/Planets 
are subject to rounding error in the process and they frequently miss when 
asked to find same.  Sometimes you just have to point and shoot.
David Shafer
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Steve Coe<mailto:stevecoe@xxxxxxxxx> 
  To: az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> 
  Sent: Tuesday, June 26, 2007 11:03 PM
  Subject: [AZ-Observing] New scope


  Howdy all;
   

  Well, I have a new scope and I am very pleased.  I sold off an 8 inch SCT
  that used to be in my observatory and put the Nexstar 11 into the
  observatory.  I think that it will be good to have a little more aperture in
  the light pollution.  I will give a report on that once I have a chance to
  use it for a few months.

   

  I purchased from Starizona a Sirius Mount, it is a GOTO German Equatorial
  mount, the smaller version of the Atlas.  I had previously traded for a 6
  inch f/8 refractor to go along with the 80mm ED scope that came with the
  Sirius mount.  I may try some astrophotography with the small scope, but
  right now I am planning to observe with the big refractor.

   

  Tonight in my back yard was "first light" for this set up.  The mount was
  easy to get working after having the Celestron system, the Orion SkyScan
  computer is very similar.  I did a three star align and then the mount did
  its magic.  It found the Ring Nebula and Double-Double in Lyra with a 12 mm
  LV eyepiece that gives 100X.  The view was quite nice and I was pleased to
  see a pretty clean split of the famous pairs on a night with mediocre
  seeing.

   

  The only object it missed was the Moon, and that may be user error for all I
  know.  But, once the 65% illuminated Moon was in the field of view it was
  excellent.  Sharp detail with excellent contrast using a 7.5mm LV eyepiece,
  the 5mm was too much for tonight's seeing.  The crater Aristarchus showed
  striking bright and dark detail inside and outside the crater.  There was
  the tiniest hint of some purple fringing, but I have a filter on order to
  take care of that.

   

  I completed my tour with Jupiter and again, for a pretty sloppy night, I saw
  a prominent festoon in the North Equatorial Belt and two other belts with
  some polar darkening.

   

  All in all, I am very happy with the new setup and look forward to lots of
  years of enjoying this telescope.  Actually two scopes, since I can put the
  6 inch or the 80mm onto the same Sirius mount.

   

  Clear Skies to us all;

  Steve Coe


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