Although the sky condition Tuesday night was not top notch, we still managed to get a decent amount of observing in. Not only were there the odd patches of high cloud… but much overlooked was a very thin layer of smoke aloft (from the Montana forest fires) which I noticed on the satellite imagery during the day, but was hoping it would not make it out this far. As mentioned in Steve’s post I forgot my camera adapter so astrophotography was going to be out of the question. I ended up setting up my 80mm and 6in anyway but didn’t really make much use of them compared to normal nights. Instead I spent some time testing out my new binoculars and checking out the views from Steve’s 16in. I did make a few comparison views of m27 and m71 in my 6in and his 16in. Obviously it was not a contest 🙂 With the 16in, M71, a faint globular cluster, was easily seen with direct vision in Steve’s scope… and in my 6in, well lets just say it was barely detectable with averted vision. M27 was nice in both scopes. I’m sure in a darker sky with better conditions Steve’s scope will perform even more spectacularly on those Messiers. Mike challenged me to find a faint band of stars that go through m27 in my 6in but I couldn’t see anything until I took my cheap 1.25 diagonal off. It was a nice challenge… that also led me to realize how important a good quality diagonal is. Now turning my attention to the binoculars… They were a pair of Celestron 15×70 Sky Masters. I recently got them for my birthday and they are a replacement to my cheap and now broken 16x50s that I had since I was 11 years old. Anyway Jupiter and its moons were nice a sharp. The Milky Way was spectacular… I have to say this is where binoculars are a real treat to use. The tripod that Steve set up for me made viewing a little easier since they are a bit on the heavy side for the arms. With a little help from Mike I found a few Messiers including m27… which looked really nice, bright and condensed. It is pretty rewarding finding and seeing deep sky objects with out the use of a telescope.
Anyway that’s it for now, I thought this was only going to be quick report.
BTW Keep your eyes on the moon tonight!! If it is clear in the east when it rises, you will notice that it will appear really red and will stay orange for quite some time. This is from all the forest fire smoke that is still high up in the atmosphere. The smoke should clear out in time for tomorrow nights observing which Mike just posted about.
KerryLH
