[masraum]

I took my new EP out last night, Televue Panoptic 24mm, Televue Delite 15mm, Baader Morpheus 12.5mm and Televue Nagler 9mm. Wow! Nice wide FOV EP really make a huge difference. The EP that I have now provide "wow" views, compared to the Plossls that I'd previously had with this scope. And with a focal length of 2000mm, I really "need" the extra FOV, especially when looking at things like the moon, Andromeda galaxy, or Pleiades.

I also made a dew shield which may/seemed have worked really well, or maybe we just weren't that dewy last night. Every other time I've been out observing, I've had tons of dew on the corrector plate when I packed up for the night. Last night, I didn't have any dew on the corrector, but there was some due on the grass and the scope.

I spent a fair amount of time looking at Jupiter and Saturn. I checked out the moon, and i took a tour of about 25 other subjects. I'd never before seen the Cassini division because when I got my first scope, Saturn was nearly edge on, and by the time the angle had opened up enough to see the rings well enough, I'd moved and sold the scope. Jupiter and Saturn, while relatively easy subjects are always fun and exciting. Seeing the GRS, bands, storms, and moons of Jupiter is always exciting. Seeing the rings and bands and moons of Saturn is always exciting. Hell, just looking at the moon (especially if it's only partially lit) is also exciting. Last night, I bumped the magnification on the moon up to 450x. That's one of the subjects that seems to take to high mag despite bad seeing, I assume because it's BRIGHT and BIG.

Some of the globular clusters that I looked at were amazing. The swan nebula was also breath taking.

Clouds rolled in and it was only about 2 hours of observing, but it was still great to get out and take the new EP for a spin.

The one thing that seems a little odd to me is how small the Televue EP are. I was expecting the Nagler, for sure, to be like a hand grenade. The Baader Morpheus are much larger by comparison, than any of the TV that I've got, although that seems a little less surprising since the Pano is only good for 68º and the Delite only 62º. Usually a wider FOV seems to be associated with larger size.