I finally scored the combination of GWS, Saturn above the horizon, and no fog at the same time.

Unfortunately, i had 2 equipment failures, both related to dead batteries. My red dot finder and my equatorial platform both ran out of gas.

It did not take long to align the scope. I finally decided to label the struts and cans, so that i can reconstruct it again the same way. It will be an interesting experiment to see how far out of alignment it is on restoration. The laser is spreading out due to dirt on the secondary. It’s time for a cleaning.

My friend was there when i arrived, and he helped me lift the base of the GWS from the car. He did not want to stick around while i assembled the whole scope and aligned it, but i was keen to show him Saturn.
I whipped out the GWS finder-scope (a Nexstar 3.5) and first lined it up on the moon to focus it. At that point i discovered the lack of the red dot finder.

(It turns out that home depot is selling ‘tea lights’ powered by LEDs that use the same cr2032 batteries as the red dot finder. For $2.99 you get 2 lights and 4 batteries. I highly recommend them.)
Especially if you keep them with your scope instead of in the living room.

He was impressed by the view of the moon. I failed to align the scope sufficiently to show Saturn. Turns out it was just as well… the 25 mm eyepiece on the finder-scope can render Saturn as not much more than a yellow oblong dot. He would have been disappointed.

I was not disappointed once i finished aligning the GWS and put the 26 mm into it. Saturn came out reasonably crisp and with distinguishable gaps between planet and rings. I could not discern the Cassini division however. I could see 3 moons to the right and 2 or 3 to the left depending on whether one was a star…

My configuration of Cartes De Ciel does not show Saturn’s moons, so i will have to wait on that one. I made a sketch of what i saw for future reference.

I then put in the ‘Big Barlow’ and replaced the 26 mm meade. Saturn dutifully doubled in size. At this point i realized the platform was no longer tracking, and established it was not simply that i had left it on ‘moon speed’… the batteries need charging. I thought about running an extension cord to it and charging it, but decided to carry on.

The 7-21 mm zoom eyepiece was next. I put it on the ‘Big Barlow’ to see what i could see. The zoom eyepiece is not a very high quality gadget, and it made the image worse than the 26+Barlow, even when set to 21 mm. At 7 mm, i could not see the space between planet and rings anymore.
(I guess that works out to 1829/3.5 = 522x magnification)
Without the platform i had to constantly readjust the position of the scope to get Saturn back into view.

It was remarkably cold: just touching the scope to re-point it at Saturn was hurting my fingers… and i even put on gloves at one point. The scope was cold to the touch, and my water actually started to freeze towards the end. (In all fairness, it was in my car overnight too). It was -11.5 degrees according to the thermometer in my car.

The moon in the sky is the bane of all messier hunters (except those seeking M45, i think). It washed out the sky so bad that i could, with difficulty, barely see the stars in Virgo which are connected by lines in the constellation diagrams, but no more than those. The finder-scope, on the other hand, shows more stars than the pocket sky atlas, further complicating star hopping. Directing the GWS into the realm of the galaxies, i expected to see something faint and fuzzy to start with, but the uniform glow of the sky was too much for me. Even M51 failed to show up. I knew i was going to have to wait for the moon to bow out.

Then, dreaded frost started appearing. At 1 AM i had had enough. It took a while to carefully repack the scope and close up the car. I need to get some frost busters going for next time.

However, i did establish that Virgo will be visible during the lunar eclipse and that i can scoop M49 then. And the Big Barlow does not significantly degrade the view through the 26 mm.

I tried focusing on Spica to see how good the seeing was. It resolved to a small disk, with a sparkle that made it look like it was on fire. Unlike mars which i have seen on some occasions to be quite ‘alive’ these flames were only about 1/3 the size of the disk, so i would have to say the seeing was pretty good tonight. Saturn also looked steady.

Someday i will learn not to seek Messier objects while the near-full moon is up, but i had waited too long through cloudy nights to pass up this opportunity. Astronomy is excellent exercise.