Our first stargazing evening since April coincided with the International Observe the Moon night. We took this opportunity to try out out new acquisitions. In operation, we had:
- Meade LX200R 10″ Aplanatic Schmidt-Cassegrain on HEQ6 Pro
- The Mighty Howitzer (7″ achromatic refractor) on HEQ6 Pro
- The Pashley (a donated 10″ dobsonian named for it’s late owner)
- The Messier (a minimalist 13.5″ truss-tube dobsonian which is the most bizzare thing …)
- Meade DS-2080 8″ Schmidt-Cassegrain (de-forked on a Celetron CG5-GT)
- William Optics 72mm ZenithStar (refractor mounted side-by-side with the 8″ SCT)
- SkyWatcher Heritage 72mm mini-dobsonian (to show what you can do with not a lot)
Steve Jackson also brought along his newtonian with the Raspberry Pi camera which you can watch over WiFi! This is an amazing bit of kit and you really have to come along and see it do it’s thing. It is a truly brilliant innovation.
All the equipment performed well, although it wasn’t a perfectly clear night with some high-haze. Saturn irritated by diving behind the tree-line before it was dark enough to get a good view. An iridium flare made a good show at around 8pm, and the food and drink at the Sportsman Inn were to the usual excellent standard.
Special mention of the Pashley telescope which surprised everyone with the quality of it’s optics. The primary mirror has seen better days, however in spite of this the views it gave were splendid.
A big thank you to everybody who came along!
