Last Night At Mt Pinos

Started by Rod Kaufman, 01/13/2013 11:21PM
Posted 01/13/2013 11:21PM Opening Post
Er, ah, make that in front of my house as Mt Pinos was snowed-over.
NEVERTHELESS...
Saturday (1-12)saw awesome seeing and transparency, even better than the forecast from the clear sky clock, with only one unforeseen problem, that of clouds rolling in at 11:00pm. I was able to view from 6-11, booted and suited as if I were up on Pinos as the temperature dipped to 27 degrees. Mt Pinos was probably more like 10 degrees or thereabouts. Now to the eyepiece observing report:
First up, the obligatory observation of M42: 14mm ES 100 eyepiece in my 16" dob, paracorr in place, nebulosity filling the field and the E and F stars of the trapezium shinning steadily like tiny needle points. Power up to the 10mm Ethos and pop in the 0111 and, wow!, mega nebulosity everywhere! Power down to the 30mm ES 82 AFOV eyepiece and O111 in place and milky white nebulosity overflowing the field. Powered back up to the 10mm Ethos, popped in a astrotech broadband filter, and the the E and F stars could still be seen while simultaneously enhancing the contrast of the great nebula of Orion. Nice views!
Jupiter: Virtually the only eyepiece utilized was the 5mm Z planetary eyepiece, even less focal length when you factor in the paracorr, and bands and belts everywhere with the only let-down being the absence of a transit of one of Jupiter's moons. I did notice quite a bit of flare from Jupiter with the image just outside the field of view but nothing on-axis. Still, no complaints given the higher power and the amount of detail visible.
I find the 14mm ES 100 AFOV ideal to view DSOs as it provides an immense field along with enough power to darken field in order to enhance the contrast while making it easier to find objects with my DSCs. I then power of with my 10mm Ethos to get an even better view if the seeing permits. But last night the seeing and transparency was so good I could even pick up IC objects! I was able to view objects in Puppis sitting low in the polluted muck of Santa Clarita (yuck!) with my scope nearly horizontal. To do it, I used a Lumicon 0111 filter with the ES 14mm and I was able to get NGC 2438(next to M46)I also picked out at magnitude 11! I mean I got right into the wavelength with the 0111 and pulled out of the muck. Talk about Floyd Blue specs and pushing the envelope...
I also plucked out planetary nebula NGC 2440 in Puppis with the aforementioned combo but it's less of a challenge at magnitude 9.4.
I bagged a couple of galaxies in Leo which is beginning its springtime sprint into the winter skies and the astrotech broadband filter helped a bit here. Ditto for M81 and M82. I believe I could see a bit more detail with the broadband filter in conjunction with my 10mm Ethos on M82 but either view was decent with excellent seeing and transparency.
I tried but failed to detect NGC 1491, a fan-tailed emission nebula in Perseus. I didn't use my 0111 filter or UHC for this one and I read later that it responds well to either so that was my mistake.
I hit several more galaxies and planetaries and had no trouble seeing nebulosity around the Pleiades with an O111 in my 14 ES.
Filter up, guys!
Posted 01/14/2013 08:54AM | Edited 01/14/2013 08:57AM #1
Rod....thanks for the report. Kinda like a vicarious astro outing. Nice to have a review of some equipment.
Gerry