Re: XT6 First Light and First Thoughts (Long)

Well, I posted 1 day too soon.

It is 2:45am now and I am just calling it a night. The weather here
tonight has been far from ideal for sky viewing, with temperatures
around 26F, freezing fog and fast moving stratocumulus clouds from
horizon to horizon flying by all night.

However, in the gaps between the clouds, the seeing has been much much
better than what I previously reported.

I finally managed to get a rock-steady viewing of Saturn at 240X (10mm
+ 2X barlow). And oh, it was spectacular! I saw the Cassini division
and some streak-like features on the planet itself. And most
satisfying for me, I saw at least 3 (maybe 4) moons - haven't yet
viewed the online Java applets to determine which ones they were.

The cloud cover didn't permit any further viewing of DSOs. I was
tempted to leave the scope outside till early morning to take advantage
of the better seeing to take a look at Jupiter, but the freezing fog
and the fact that this is Oregon (clouds in sky = chance of rain) made
me put off the Jupiter plans for another day.

Thanks everyone for responding to this thread! And sorry for gushing
here in this post - seeing Saturn for the first time through a scope is
really a pretty amazing experience!

.

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