9-18-2007 Awesome Night!

SO, another moonless, beautiful transparent night.

Have this GOTO thing figured out, and while it was getting dark, decided to try to use the DSI CCD imager.

First annoying thing is that the EP's I have are not even close to parfocal with the DSI...they include a ring luckily, but it is so far down the end of my 26mm Plossl that you have to hold it or it will fall off if tilted more than 30 degrees.

I found the bright blob, the moon, cranked the focus knob CCW about 5 times and had a hazy bouncing image of the moon appeared on the screen. By the way, installation on the laptop was extremely straightforward and provided instructions worked perfectly. Camera plugged in, went to DSI imaging in the Autostar Suite software and it worked.

That said, it was super hard to focus, since the moon was almost ready to set, and the image is so zoomed in because of my 2000mm focal length, that I quickly gave up taking any images since it had almost set now anyways.

I decided to do Meade's "Best of Tonight" on the handset. I only knew 10-20 things I wanted to see anyway, and I figured this would be a great way to start off. I was super impressed with all the images I saw. Slewing was spot on, and I couldn't help but grin each time a faint nebula or cluster swung into sight.

The following were observed:
Albireo-beautiful double star with stunning color differences!
m13-very bright
m22,m34,m15,m92,m52 all nice clusters
m27-Very nice to see dumbbell, actually can see shape!
m57-had to have averted vision to see hollow core, but easily seen-very small though!
m31-nice bright core with smudges of light on either side
M11-very cool cluster Wild duck cluster
Swan, Ellip, Irr galaxy and nebulae could be seen
Coudn't see m51--this is the only part of the sky that still has LP even though 30 mi away.
Pleides is stunningly bright.

This made my day! I couldn't believe how much could be seen and how handy the GOTO was. I revisited my favorites, and by this time the dew was soaking all my manuals, magazines etc. Decided I was getting too cold (4 hours out) and packed up.

Best night so far! Imaging is going to have to wait though since obviously there is a huge learning curve.