Its eventually stopped raining! End of the week as well, Elgin wasn’t too bad. Fillet steak for tea

watched another episode of Homeland, then decided to go out to Obbo.

Plus 3 degC to start, then opened roof. Switched on telescope, PSU working well, current next to zero, 13.7V. Humidity 55%.

Went though usual calibration of Synscan, used Sirius and Dubhe for two star alignment, Sirius almost due South at 10.45pm. Orion already into the trees and beyond my window of opportunity, WOP.

Then aligned on Jupiter with 28mm Edmonds RKE, what a sight, took it up the RKEs then onto the Axiom and finally the Nagler TeleVue; a bit of shimmering, but  switched off the humidifier to help this. Temp started to fall, prob cos the Obbo roof is open. The Bahtinov mask worked perfectly, both on Sirius and Jupiter. tried it on regulus too, perfect. Need to use it every time you chaneg lenses. The GoTo worked a treat too, and the sidereal tracking of the mount seems very accurate. Good start.

Then tried a few messiers- M44, Beehive was Fantastic with the 28mm, and spectacular in the Axiom 32mm wide 80deg FOV. Must try and take a picture of it.

Also M31, Andromeda- saw my first Galaxy, a big smudge, but spectacular.

Cassiopoeia is very inviting, open- swung the dome round and had a look at open clusters M52 and 103; not bad, preferred 103

The tried Leo Triplets, M65 and M66- a bit disappointing, prob cos of the residual  moonlight and lights of Inverness.

 

Temp now minus 1.5, around 0030, so called it a night, but a good start indeed.

 

ADM bar is on top of scope to piggyback camera once the Bogler/Manfrotto attachment arrives from the States; will try and photograph BeeHive

 

Need to take computer back out to Obbo, and network it, ordering the armoured IEEE/ ethernet/RJ45 this week. Minitron in place, but will need to see how it works, prob upgrade it to an ATIK 9 later this year.

So, getting somewhere at long last