Finally some CLEAR SKY!

Tonight looks great, a little breezy but hey, thats better than fog!!
Looking out my patio doors right now at Venus clear as a bell.
...I wish my dam battery pack would hurry up and charge so I can get out there!

It was lovely here last night & looks like it's going to be so tonight as well!

Let's hope nobody near us buys some new equipment or the weather gods will take notice of us again

Trev

Yep, viewed Venus this evenng, as too the Moon, lovely crescent shape (and plenty of Earthshine to boot!).

Looking forward to stepping out later on...

Trevor i might be bringing some BAD weather iin that case! itll be hovering over our houses! Ill be buyin an 8" Lx90 and accessories in a week so make the most of this week! :lol:
I saw venus just after sunset! it was amazing! greens blues and reds surrounded venus which was burning bright!

In between some low clouds, we had NELM 6.0 skies up here in Louth (and that's about as good as they get). (SQM was 20.9.)

I broke my mount a few weeks ago (shredded the RA/Dec cable by forgetting to turn it off), so I did a bit of testing first -- synched on Schedar in Cassiopeia and then did a GoTo to the Plieades. The cluster was well-centered in the piggyback refractor (it won't really fit in the SCT's field), and a subsequent GoTo M1 was well-centered even in the SCT. The RA motor was making more noise than usual, so I spent 20 minutes adjusting the backlash.

After that, I had a great observing session:

Crab Nebula (M1): good extent, even without filters. Fairly well mottled, but no indication of threads. Dim spot to E.

Rosette Nebula (NGC2237): requires considerable panning in the SCT, but the nebulosity is much less visible in the 4" refractor. UHC worked better than OIII, but either was way better than no filter.

Thor's Helmet (NGC2359): much brighter than expected. Still, looks more like a bunny than a Viking war helmet to me. OIII slightly better than UHC, but again, either would do (nebula was -barely- visible without either one).

NGC1587/1588/1589: a nice little composition of small galaxies. Well, not really so nice: mostly just some smudges (1587 did show some elongation, and 1587 and 1589 both showed vaguely condensed cores). All in all, pretty boring.

Saturn: seeing not great, but not terrible either. Cassini and Crepe ring visible at ansae, but not in front of disk. One band on disk, and the shadow of the rings. Enceladus, Titan, Dione, Rhea and Tethys. Did a bit of study at 500x, but despite the image settling down for a few seconds every 3 or 4 minutes, never saw more than at 350x.

Equipment: 16" LX200GPS OTA and Tak FC-100 on AP1200GTO.

I was hoping for another go tonight, but it's cloudy right now....

-- Jeff.

Mathew

Congrats on getting your new LX90. Hope you have lots of fun with it as I have with mine

I take it that you wont have it in time for the connought star party tis a pity.

DB