[AZ-Observing] Re: New scope
- From: "Frank Martin" <fmartin@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2007 08:25:29 -0700
So Steve, if the weather turns bad we will know who to blame!
Frank
-----Original Message-----
From: az-observing-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:az-observing-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Steve Coe
Sent: Tuesday, June 26, 2007 11:03 PM
To: az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
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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