We’re out at our new/old country home tonight. It’s supposed to be Bortle 4 here. It’s cold out, but it’s nice and dark since the moon is just a sliver. I can clearly see the milky-way. I can also clearly see the double cluster near cassiopeia and the Andromeda galaxy both naked-eye. It’s fantastic to have these dark skies to view from (and they really aren’t that dark).

Right on! Wish I was there with ya. Nothing but foggy, cold, wetness up here.

I was in a thread on an astronomy forum and noticed that one of the posters listed 8x C14 and 4x C11 scopes in his signature. I PMed him. Yes, he currently has and uses them all.

https://www.cloudynights.com/uploads...6278_thumb.jpg

Schaweet!!!

Right, eight 14" scopes and four 11" scopes all on piers 15' apart. His back yard must look like the Very Large Array.

On a related note, I took the scope that I bought from Mike out last night. It was only about a 2 hour session and not long viewing like I usually did in the past (years ago, in bright skies in a Houston suburb), but the sky was very clear and very dark. The scope is a C8 Nexstar Evo. It works great. I usually look at 10-20 targets for longer periods of time and often go back and forth between them, but since I knew this wasn't going to be that sort of session, and I hadn't planned anything, I let the mount/controller take me through a tour. I think I bounced through about 50 targets, double stars, galaxies, clusters (open and closed) nebula and even a couple of planets. It was really nice. Most of my viewing was only at 113x, but I also hit 156x and 226x. The seeing was marginal for 226x, but not bad at 156x. Although I reserved that mostly for double stars. I thought it was pretty funny when the handset said that it was going to show me the horsehead nebula. My site isn't that dark. Doesn't that one need a REALLY dark site and maybe also a filter? The Orion nebula was very impressive. I've never seen it that brightly or with that much structure. And while Andromeda is never really breathtaking, it was really neat to see M31, M32 and M110. I need to get my camera out there and play with shooting and stacking a bunch of stills. It's nothing spectacular that way (no GEM or tracking or anything like that), but hey, I took it.

It was a short sweet session. I'm looking forward to getting some more EP and spending more time outside.

I'm currently planning on getting an APM 24mm 65º or maybe a TV Panoptic 24mm 68º, although people seem to really like the APM and it saves some money from the TV. Then a Baader Morpheus 17.5mm 76º, TV Delite 15mm 62º and finally a Explore Scientific 11mm 82º. And I've got a 2x Barlow. I think those should give me a good range of views with decent TFOV.

I've gotten some stunning views of the Orion nebula and Trapezium in my WO 102 refractor. Andromeda has never been much more than a smudge visually. My CPC 800 crushes Doubles and planets. Now if only I could actually see the sky for a change.

CPC 800 looks like the upgrade to what I've got. Same 8" SCT OTA, but slightly beefier mount and tripod and optical finder vs red dot finder and built in GPS.

Yes, Andromeda is just a smudge, but it's a big smudge. I can see it naked eye at our place. And I've never seen the two smaller nearby galaxies before last night. I'm looking forward to M51 and the summer galaxies (Virgo, Leo, etc....)

Some of the most spectacular views are the Orion nebula and Saturn and Jupiter. No matter how many times I see them, they always impress.

I also can just sit and stare at clusters, and it's always fun to try to split tight doubles. Most nebula are also just smudges, but they are often more well defined than most galaxies.

It's always odd when you see that a galaxy is listed as being quite bright, but you can barely see it because the light is spread out across a wide area vs being concentrated in a small spot.

I've seen some nice gets at our dark sky site Cherry Springs. The Ring Nebula showed up beautifully in a 16" Dobs, at least I think it was the Ring. At 0300 I'm a little woozy.

Right, staying up until 3am is not the same now as it was at 21 or 30.

I don't think I've ever looked through anything bigger than 8", and our new place is the darkest place I've ever been.

I've heard of Cherry Springs. I think I've seen it mentioned in the cloudynights forums.

Was planning on breaking ground on a roll off roof observatory this coming weekend but it looks like the snow is rolling in. Project postponed again.

At least you've got plans!

I could use an observatory. It'd be nice to not have to worry about lights from headlights (hopefully, that'll be better when spring hits) and have some walls to help with strong breezes. I'm not remotely ready for that sort of planning. We have far, far too much other stuff that has to happen before I can go that route.

It is very weird not to have to worry about star hopping to find what I'm looking for. I need to get a good chair/stool to sit on too.

I had one of these when I was doing visual. Worked great.

https://www.adorama.com/pypkst70.html?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic &utm_campaign=organicshopping&utm_source=adl-gbase-o

Nice, thanks!

I want to build a RORO this spring but am very limited in space. So I'm thinking an 8 ft. hexagonal gazebo with solid sides instead of a square shed type. I'm struggling with the roll off roof aspect of the shape.

I might be selling my 8' NexDome if interested.

Since you guys were discussing the CPC800, I'll mention that I just got a zero use CPC800 fork mount (no OTA, no hand control, no tripod) for...ehem...free...

Dude wanted the tube, and decided that the quickest way with the long waits was to buy a CPC800 and have a local shop (not me...) defork it. BUT, other dude that works at said local shop is one of my customers, and contacted me that they had an unwanted mount now, and would I like it? YOINK. I'm going to convert it to a single arm mount, and then I think I'll toss my Meade 7 inch Mak tube on it, and sell that as a package :D

Nice Score!

Pix of the surgery when you do it please.

If you've seen one sawzall surgical procedure, you've seen them all. :D

Craigslist SCORE. 10" diameter scope, clock drive, HEAVY cast mounts and base. cleaned the mirror and dialed in the collimation. would you believe $100 bucks!


came with a 40mm 1.25" eyepiece, ordered a 26mm 2". Now just for some starry nights. What other eyepieces would people recommend?

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1617028897.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1617028897.jpg