Late October EAA evening
Previous night (Wednesday) was supposed to have great conditions, so I started setting up early. But clouds started moving in. Left the gear partially setup outside and came back a couple of hours later but the sky had gotten worse so brought everything back in. Just before going to bed, had a quick look, and the sky looked great, I could make out six stars in the Pleiades with my naked eyes. Decided not to bring all the gear out since the moon was about to rise.
Gave it another try Thursday. Started setting up around 9:30pm and stayed until after 1am.
I recently got a filter adapter. Paired up with some 1.25" rings, it can be used as a shorter nose piece to attach the focal reducer on the camera. I estimated the FR to be 0.68x with that new setup. It is high enough to be able to achieve focus with the 50mm finder scope and can also be used on the telescope for small/bright objects.
I observed a good collection of DSOs through the finder scope and the telescope.
Observations:
- Started with the 50mm finder scope and 0.68x FR
- M31 Andromeda Galaxy, M32 and M110
- M45 Pleiades - saw some nebulosity
- Switched to the telescope but kept the 0.68x FR
- C23 Silver Sliver Galaxy - Andromeda
- Went back to the 0.54x FR
- NGC 925 Amatha Galaxy - Triangulum
- NGC 672 and IC 1727 - pair of galaxies - Triangulum
- M74 Phantom Galaxy - Pisces
- C62 Claw Galaxy - Cetus - large but very faint
- C65 Sculptor Galaxy
- Mel 3 Globular Cluster - Sculptor
- M1 Crab Nebula - Taurus - found it very easily
- NGC 2024 Flame Nebula - Orion
- IC 434 Horse head Nebula - Orion
- M42 Great Orion Nebula and M43 De Mairan's Nebula
- Switched back to the 50mm finder scope and 0.68x FR
- M42 and M43
- NGC 2024 and IC 434 - in one picture
- M1
- M36 Pinwheel cluster and M38 Starfish cluster - Auriga - in on picture
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| M31 Andromeda Galaxy, M32 and M110 (50mm finder scope and 0.68x FR) |
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| M42 Pleiades (50mm finderscope and 0.68x FR) |
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| C23 Silver Sliver Galaxy (0.68x FR) |
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| NGC 925 Amatha Galaxy |
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| NGC 672 and IC 1727 |
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| M74 Phantom Galaxy |
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| C62 Claw Galaxy |
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| C65 Sculptor Galaxy |
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| Mel 3 |
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| M1 Crab Nebula |
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| NGC 2024 Flame Nebula |
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| IC 434 Horsehead Nebula |
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| M42 Great Orion Nebula and M43 De Mairan's Nebula |
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| M42 and M43 (50mm finderscope and 0.68x FR) |
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| NGC 2024 and IC 434 (50mm finderscope and 0.68x FR) |
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| M1 Crab Nebula (50mm finderscope and 0.68x FR) |
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| M36 and M38 (50mm finder scope and 0.68x FR) |