Best Night in Ages last night!!

Wow, what a night I had last night.

It was the first proper first light for a lot of things last night.

First proper first light for my new Howie Glatter Holographic Laser collimator. Well what I mean is, that I used the Glatter for the first time the other night when re-collimating after installing my new moonlite focuser. First I checked Collimation of the laser itself. Bang on and this thing is built like a tank, Reports are it will stay that way. Second I collimated the focuser. Then with the hologrid I accuratly centered with primary offset the secondary. I found that all along because of slop in my stock focuser and cheap cheashire and lasers that my secondary centering was way off. Bang on after the glatter. The 1mm apeture stop atttachment for the laser means I can accurately position the laser dot to the mm in the middle of my accurately placed center donut on the primary. The Glatter Blug, barlow target that attaches to the end of the drawtube means I can collimate the primary in seconds from the back of the scope by attaching a vanity mirror to a stalk on the front of the OTA and see the reflection of the barlow target from the back of the scope. When doing that initial re-install collimation I took advice I had read and tightened the primary screws down fully compressing the springs. Leaving one screw fully tightened, I only had to make small adjustments, loosening of the two others.

Well anyway last night after taking the scope out and even after bouncing it over a step or two on the trolley, when it came to set up I found that the secondary was only out by a mm. the dot was still within the donut but just the tiniest turn of one of the secondary screws got it back dead center. I didn't need to adjust the primary at all. The shadow of the center donut was bang on target on the Glatter Barlow Blug!!

First proper first light for the Moonlite and motorfocus. I had played with it for a few miinutes a few nights ago during some 'sucker holes' in the clouds but last night was the first extended session. The motorfocus works great. With manual on my stock focuser I could spend minutes going back and forth inside and outside focus and never being happy with the results and then tweaking again a minute later. With the motorfocus I could dial in great focus within seconds and be happy that it was as good as it could be. Also because there was none of the image shake caused by manual focusing, this also helped dialing in good focus quickly without Saturn bobbing around the FOV while I turned the knobs on the stock manual focuser. The compression rings and precision machined apetures on the new moonlite also held the EP's and Glatter securely and accurately centered in the drawtube.

First proper first light for the Computer on the scope too really. I've had the scope since December. While the Computer was working, I didn't really know what I was doing and didn't really get a chance to get to grips with it what with the weather and other commitments. It stopped working on the night of the CloonWood SDAS observing session back at the beginning of January. Typical!! Anyway, after a week or two I diagnosed that the problem was the Altitude Encoder of my DSC. The part was out of stock with Orion and I only recieved the replacement about 3 weeks ago. Cloudy ever since. Typical!! So last night was my first chance to use the Computer again really. In the period without it working I actually RTFM and knew how to get the most of it now.

Which finally gets me to the actual observing report!!

I knew Virgo would be well placed for me last night, due south at the time I would be observing. Its a pity transparancy wasn't great with moisture in the air meaning skyglow extended up to about 40-50 degrees. Virgo was within this area. I thought I would give M65 and M66 a try first being higher up in Leo. I was stunned to realise that I could see the third member of the triplet in the FOV. I had seen that NGC galaxy up in Cloonwood back in January but thought I wouldn't have a hope in my back garden in Bray. I thought wht have I got to lose and told the scope computer to list galaxies in Virgo. I'd observe, press the up arrow for the next one, move the scope on target, observe, click the up arrow etc Lets just say that I gave up looking at Virgo Galaxies after about 20 or 30 and
the computer had loads more to show me I think. They don't call this Galaxy Alley for nothing!! And the most amazing thing was was that out of the 30 or so I looked at, all but one or two were visible!!........even through the murky skyglow!!. Just the cores obviously but Wow!! I cannot wait to get this scope and computer back up to a darkish site like Cloon again!!

After all the virgo galaxies I realised that M13 would be well out of the murk at this stage. I had viewed this a few weeks ago but it was lower down in the murk and I don't think I was fully dark adapted at that time and tbh I don't think the seeing was great then either. I could only resolve a few outlying stars with the rest and the core of this Glob being a bit of a mush. Well last night I was dark adapted, and it was higher out of the murk......and the seeeing was decent.......and my collimation was spot on.......

Much brighter than the last time and resolved to the core with the stars all tiny pinpricks of light. Amazing!!. M3 was nearly as impressive too!

Next first light went to my new OIII filter. I had M97 in my head for some reason, not that I could have told you what type of object this was. When I entered it in my COL and the Owl nebula came up on the screen, I realised that this was probably a Planetary Nebula, so out came the OIII for first light. What a difference that made!! Without, it was a really really faint almost imperceptable faint fuzzy patch of light. With the filter it just popped out of the blackness. Still not much detail to be seen granted but what a difference to contrast with the filter on.

second to last target of this 3 hour observing session was M57 which had risen above the neighbours house at this late hour. I knew I would be in for a treat when I saw the unfiltered view of this object which was still quite low although over a roof and was still set within the skyglow murk and haze. Was preparing myself for great things when I popped the OIII in but alas the clouds finally rolled in. Drat, Foiled again!!

The last object of the night I picked because it in the only area of the sky that hadn't clouded over yet. Right at the zenith. The object was M51. Never did find this before with or without the scope computer. I knew the general area it was in with my Telrad and charts so I moved the scope there. Nothing. So I dialled it into the computer. I had the altitude nearly right but discovered why zenith is isn't called Dobsons Hole for nothing!! The Computer told me I had to rotate in Azimuth about 140 degrees!! and this is with me almost being on it already. Boy was that tough rotating the scope in azimuth with the scope pointing straight up!! Eventually I nailed it and for my first time ever I saw the core of M51 and its companion. I wasn't expecting anything from my back garden really but do you know what?? While I can't say that I saw the arms directly, I am pretty sure that I saw.....like...... contrast differences around the core of M51. Can't wait to get to a dark site to view M51 and maybe even get a peek through Philip Lardners 20inch if he is there!

Anyway, thats it. Story told. A most enjotable and satisfying night..........

..... THE END ........

Great report Keith, I love the Owl Nebula and remember seeing it in a 10" dob with an O-III filter, the "eyes" were so prominent and the roundness clear to see.

Hi Keith,
Thats a grand report, some nice objects got there,
That collimator sounds the business, must look it up on the web.

Kieth,
Sounds like you had a super night.
Those kind of nights make you forget momentarily how
bad we have it here.
It just go's to prove you have to 'observe while the sun don't shine!'

Thanks for taking the time to write up such a detailed report also!

I can't wait to 'really' observe it Paul. Being honest, with all the hardware working last night and with knowing that there probably were clouds on the way, I have to admit I was a bit like a kid alone in a sweet shop trying to eat as much sweets as he could before the shopkeepr/clouds came back I didn't really spend enough time on M97 to start to see the detail. But its definately something I want to properly check out the next night. I'll have a look at it in SNP to help me recognise the details beforehand.

The collimator is great Dave. Now, I am under no illusion that it is expensive and nearly the same results could be gotten with some carefully made homemade tools and some patience. ie. Cheaper Laser, homemade target on a cheap/old barlow etc. This is what I had been using previously. I think I may have mentioned it in another post here but the reason I decided to go with the glatter in the end was that I wanted spontaneity in Observing. Thats why I bought a plastic shed and hand trolley so that I could quickly start observing with a precooled scope and not have to drag it out of a cupboard and through the house etc. Well the spontaneity advantage there was negated by both my cheaper lasers going back out of collimation after 2 or 3 sessions, such that I had to check and re-collimate the actual laser before each session to be sure. Because of slop between the laser (and cheshire) tools and the stock focuser I had to use tape around the barrel, except one layer of even cellotape was just a bit too thick. So the tape would do the job but be shreddded in the process, meaning I had to re-tape before every session. The there was the fact that my homemade barlow target being up the drawtube meant I had to use a vanity mirror and go backwards and forwards while collimating.

Basically knowing I would have to do all that before observing would put me off taking advantage of all but the most guaranteed cloudless nights, and you know we dont get many of those!

The large glatter 45 degree face barlow target that goes in the end of the drawtube is even easier to use with a truss Dob. With no solid tube in the way one can just point the face of the target backwards towards the primary end and adjust rather than what I do with my solid tube which is rig up a mirror on a stalk so I can see a reflection of the target (facing forwards in my case) from the back.

Frank, I am trying to take a 'glass half full' view of our weather 'Absence makes the heart grow fonder' or something like that. The large gaps between sessions because of the weather makes the good nights even more special.

The only problem with the bad weather for me is money!! I was chatting to Deirdre kelleghan yesterday in our local supermarket and she was telling me all about her sketching and astro paintings. Even showed me some pictures on her phone. Even on such a small screen...WOW. I wish I was that artistic. But anyway, I was saying to her how great it was that she got her astro kicks during cloudy periods by astro painting. That was her fix. Me?? When I'm jones'ing for some astro action I'm trawling the internet and astronomy forums soaking up all the info. Inevitably being a big kid I come across some astro related gadget or other and before I know it I have pnched in my credit card number without even realising. :oops: :oops: .

I don't know how I am going to pay for everything! :oops: All because of the cloudy nights.

Keith --

Nice report.

You shouldn't need to borrow a 20" to see M51's arms. Get that 12" out under some dark skies and it should oblige. The first couple of times you see them they may be pretty vague, but after several gos your eyes/brain will start to get used to the target and you should even be able to trace out which way the arms wind around.

Cheers,
-- Jeff.