Smoke season (a new season as of 5 years ago) began just a bit last night as twilight ended. With bad seeing, I almost gave up but then the whiffs of smoke turned to clean air and the seeing steadied. I am glad I pulled out the scope because it turned into a glorious night. Seeing and transparency kept improving all night long. There was also a blinding meteor that lit the landscape as if it were an atomic bomb blast, breaking apart, lasting seconds, ending in a sonic boom maybe 20 seconds later. Neighborhood dogs barked like crazy.
The stars were so tight and perfect, the nebulosity 3D; every object I looked at was beautiful and the best ever. The pillars of creation were incredible for example. Really effective was an OIII filter on the 25mm ES 100 deg eyepiece with the zero magnification Baader coma corrector, with a field of 1.14 deg. Something about the OIII filter sharpened the star images. I looked for an hour and a half up and down the western side of the Milky Way from the Small Sag Star Cloud down past M8 - the nebulosity never stopped.
The star test was perfect. I couldn't see the faint zone that appears when the mirror is brought into cold air and goes a little overcorrected. This reminds of how slight zones appear exaggerated when the mirror is heated from polishing. There is terrible quivering of the Foucault zones and Ronchi bands and the star test, but slight zones become more visible.
On the downside I am spending too much time finding objects. Even at 1 deg, the field is too narrow (I've probably become sloppy from years of using my smaller widest angle telescopes), despite the Quinsight finder. So I am looking to attach the 6 inch F2.8 scope to the 30 inch. This will also help with IFN, like below, where the IFN stretches far afield.
Reply With Quote