Observing in Greece and Oxford

themos — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 10:13:33

I found myself in a Greek mountain village on the night of 30th of December 2007. The sky was unbelievable. Orion alone seemed to have more stars than an entire Oxford sky. Andromeda (M31) was easily naked eye but so was Holmes. It was actually quite tricky to get one's bearings because the familiar constellations were swamped with stars. I was only carrying a pair of 10x50 Bresser Lidl-specials. Saw one meteor as well but can't remember now where in the sky it was (well, high towards the east, I think). Next time, I should do some homework so that I have a set of targets to check out.

Back in Oxford, I got the 12" Dob out on the 7th Jan. I found M1, the Crab Nebula, with the help of Stellarium, the Wixey and the Turn Left at Orion book. A faint smudge but quite extensive in the 12mm Nagler, perhaps 1/8th of the full moon. I managed to lose it and find it again but it was a tricky one, needing patience. I then used Stellarium to get Altitude readings of the open clusters M35/36/37/38 in Auriga and Gemini. I used Betelgeuse as a calibration point for the Wixey. I set the Wixey to the required altitudes and easily found M35/36/37/38. Some were visible in the finderscope too. Of course, no night is complete without a look at Mars, the Pleiades and the Orion Nebula. I am pretty sure I saw the blue wisps blowing around M45. Mars showed some detail but my eyes are just not up to the task, the longer I stare the less I see. Cassiopeia is well advanced these days and I must visit the clusters there before it's past its best.

Wish List

themos — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 14:29:34

A wish list to keep things in one place:

A decent Barlow to replace the plastic x3 that was included in the Powerseeker 114EQ package. The Tal x3 beckons. The Ultima x2 sounds under-powered. I got a TeleVue 2.5x Barlow (not the Powermate) from 2005mersh@ebay for £38, delivered. It is the "Mk 1" Barlow, not like the ones they currently sell.
An RA motor for the EQ1. Would it be good enough to track a planet with the ToUcam and at an effective focal length of 2700 (900x3) mm? I got the RA Economy Motor Drive from FLO for £34.85, delivered.
A nice manual focus 135mm f/2.8 camera lens with a T-mount. Or a Takumar/Zeiss with an M42? This will be used in the configuration shown by KaptainKlevtsov. Need some adapters from modernastronomy.com for this to work. And how to mount on tripod/EQ? I got a Carl Zeiss Jena 135mm@f/3.5 with M42 fitting, for £34 delivered, off htsoz@ebay.
Is it time to do an LX/SC mod on the 740K ToUcam? Or splash out on a DMK?
UHC-type nebula filter. Baader, Lumicon, Astronomik or something else?
An eyepiece mount for my Canon PowerShot compact to enable afocal photography. I got an Ultra Deluxe digital camera support (AC295) from Andrew, for £13.52, delivered.
A RemoteCapture-enabled PowerShot to do time lapse via laptop control (I can't believe that neither of the TWO PowerShots at home support it!).
Dew shields.
The new Synta electric focuser that can drive my 300P Crayford.

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Observing in Greece and Oxford

Wish List