26-12-2004 observation report

From: md (not)
Date: 12/26/04 

Date: Mon, 27 Dec 2004 00:15:49 +0100

I cam home from a visit to family at 9pm. I immediately dragged my SCT into my backyard to let
it cool down.
The sky was clear, the moon was extremely bright, and it was very humid (so dew-alert) but I
wanted to do some observing anyway (as it is only my third opportunity to use my SCT since I
bought it 2 weeks ago).

while the scope was cooling down, I quickly found Machholz with my 8x35 bino. It clearly moved
since I looked at it yesterday evening. I guess that it moved approximately 1 degree in 24
hours.

I also looked at M31 even thought the scope was not cooled down yet. I used the f/6.3 focal
reducer and the 40mm ep. It looked fine, but the full moon made the whole sky quite bright.

While the scope was cooling down I was also trying some alignment. Automatic alignment with
this GPS enabled scope works fine, but the GPS signal in my backyard is not very strong. The
first time I tried it tonight it did not work, as I expected: the scope was too close to my
house. I wanted to measure where the GPS signal is workable. I moved the scope about 50cm and
now the automatic alignment worked. As before, I was impressed by the mount accuracy.

When the scope was cooled down properly, I slewed to M31 again. The moon caused to background
to be too bright to see anything else than the core.Then I moved to M45. I studied the rich
starfield with my 32mm ep. It is such a pleasure to work with this scope, with the mirror
locked, and slewspeed 4 or 5, it is nice to browse through M45: this mount is very stable!

My bino, 40mm ep and viewfinder were already suffering from dew, and the main scope also showed
the early signs of dew, so I slewed the scope to point toward the ground and decided to wait
for the moon.

After a while the moon became visible over the roof of my house. I used the moonfilter (ND96)
and still it was extremely bright.
I took some pictures through the eyepiece with my Kodak DC4800, which I will post in a.b.p.a
soon. Dew was already causing problems.... After taking some pictures, I had to stop.

I am now determined to get myself a dewshield. Every single observation night the last 2 months
ended too early due to dew! 

-- 
md
10" LX200GPS-SMT
ETX105
LPI

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