22 May 2023 (again)


I wasn't originally going to bother setting up tonight because there were a lot of high clouds out before dark. But later as we were sitting there Anne noticed that the sky had cleared, and asked if I was going to out with the 'scope. Yup! The Moon and Venus were visible in the west above our hill, with Vega and Arcturus just becoming visible. There was still an ice halo around the moon.

By the time I got set up the moon had moved into the tops of the trees, but Venus was still visible. To save time, I didn't bother with alignment, just used the hand controller to slew over to Venus so I could catch it before it went int the treetops. Using the 25mm eyepiece the image was sharp enough easily to make out that Venus appeared at about half phase. I tried the 2x Barlow for the first time. Paired with the 25mm eyepiece the view was much closer and defined. The edges were starting to waver some from the seeing conditions as it neared the top of the hill. The picture above is of the sketches I made at the eyepiece.

As Venus went behind the trees, I decided to go ahead and do a two star alignment, using the new reticle eyepiece. Used Arcturus and Capella as alignment stars. The eyepiece works great, I just need to get better at hitting the correct buttons on the controller at the right time! I looked at Polaris, then tried unsuccessfully to get M81 and M82. Seeing and transparency were deteriorating again, so couldn't even tell if the were in the Field of View. Decided to shut down for the night.


 

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