It’s actually quicker to drive to Grimsby than to Binbrook from where I live in Burlington; it took about 30 minutes including time to gas up the car (ok, it’s further than Binbrook).
I arrived to see Glenn and Gail’s sleek new Deep Space Hunter telescope set up in the Gem-n-I Dobservatory, and Glenn was busily aligning the finder-scope with the main scope, using Betelgeuse.
The DSH is a solid tubed scope, with a black body and is about 5 feet long. It’s got a well fitting cover for the storage, with some ports that may allow solar viewing also. Springs balance it for setting at any angle.
I decided to unpack the GWS just as a backup plan, in case the queues at the eyepiece got too long. Kerry arrived during the process.
Before the moon rose, the SQM read about 18.8 at the zenith, and about 17.0 in the skyglow over Toronto and Hamilton. It was down to about 18.2 at the zenith once the moon was in the sky. Kerry was keen to view M108 and it dutifully presented itself to her keen eyes. I tried with the GWS but the lack of protection from ambient light made it a very difficult project, which did not come to fruition.
The Dobservatory really cuts the ambient wind down. It’s a fine piece of architecture for the purpose. It also limits stray light from streetlights and neighbors backyards. The Orion nebula came out looking very nice with wings wisping off in 2 directions. The Eskimo nebula in Gemini likewise provided a treat, and we drank in long views of it as it slowly proceeded from one side of the Ethos to the other. We took advantage of the mobility of the DSH and repositioned it a few times in different parts of the floor space.
Saturn’s moons were visible, and the rings were well defined during times of good seeing, with a thin line of shadow above them on the planet. There was a bit of distortion at other times, so it was necessary to wait for the best view. We managed to detect 5 moons of Saturn, and one nearby star, and confirmed it with CDC on Glenn’s able laptop.
The limiting magnitude for stars in the sky to the southeast was about 4.0, and the stars of Monoceros were sometimes visible and sometimes lost in the sky. Nonetheless i eventually did manage to zero the GWS in on M50, but not until i saw it in the DSH and confirmed its star pattern on CDC. It’s times like this when a dark sky is really to be appreciated.
The moon rose at about 10PM and we directed our scopes to it once we ran out of other fuzzies.
Without a moon filter, it was very bright, and virtually full. The terminator was very close to the edge, and there was some crisp detail to be seen there. Taking advantage of a bright target, I see that the focal distance outside the GWS is about 2 inches now that i have cranked up the mirror screws. I am hoping my new combined t-ring-t-adapter arrives soon.
I was delighted to learn a few more features of CDC including the ‘more stars, less stars’ feature, which helps make the chart appear similar to the finderscope image. Thanks, Glenn and Gail, for a fine evening out under the stars!
