Saturn, Venus and Mercury

0030: Ventured down behind the barn just outside the Lake Wallkill entrance, on the edge of the Wallkill River Nat. Wildlife Reserve looking W/NW across the valley. Mosquitoes very bad, so I stayed in the Jeep much of the time as I waited for twilight. Venus appeared naked-eye just before 9pm (EST Friday). My 10x50 binoculars showed all three planets in the FOV. Jupiter was bright and high in the South. I'd love to set the scope(s) up here some night (after mosquito season); I should probably look into getting permission from the Feds. The actual view is not much different from Starry Night's grass horizon image (see below). I just need to add the High Point Monument.

S&T Article: Three Planets Bunch Up in Twilight

Saturn, Venus and Mercury (l to r)
Castor & Pollux at upper right
25 June 2005 • 0045 UTC
Naked eye view looking W/NW

Globs and such...

Set up the C8/TV85 stack just as the sun set with the hope of catching another glimpse of Jupiter in the evening daylight, but it was already well behind the trees. Thin, wispy clouds started rolling in as the light waned. I had to run to the A&P to by cat food, and by the time I returned it was semi-dark, and the clouds appeared to be held at bay. Alignment was difficult because most of the GPS Align stars were not visible (behind trees, house, etc.). Finally managed a halfway decent alignment on Polaris and Arcturus which put target objects in the FOV of the C8 with the TV Zoom wide open at 24mm.

After further tightening down the rear radius block on Wayne's rail, I used the adjustment screws to raise the front of the rail a small amount, then mounted the TV85 (with the thin washer) to find the alignment much better between C8 and TV85. Still have to fine-align it, but that is best done in the daylight. But at least a small object such as a globular cluster is in the same field of view of both scopes using medium magnification.

The TV Zoom was used with the C8 for the entire observing session, since the Vixen LVW's cannot sit flush in the crappy Celestron diagonal without contacting the two thumbscrews; the Vixen LVWs at this point are exclusively used with the TV85. I used this session to compare the C8 and TV under similar magnification levels - i.e., TV85 + 13mm Vixen LVW + TV Powermate 2.5x (5.2mm effective fl at 115x) versus C8 + TV Zoom set to 16mm (125x). When viewing globular clusters such as M13, M92, and M3, the C8 consistently resolved far more stars that the TV85, a true testament to aperture.

After midnight finds Lyra well past the treetops. The Ring Nebula (M57) looked less spectacular than in the past because of the poor transparency conditions. The TV85 with 13mm Vixen LVW (46x), on the other hand, yielded a much more pleasing view of the Dumbell Nebula (M27).

After breakdown I sat on the deck for a while and saw the Milky Way, dimly, south of Cygnus, which by 2:30 or so was fully visible. Summer is here.