Saturday, July 14, 2007

Settling Back In...

Well and truly home now. The last week has been a shocker due to a serious bout of jet lag. None of us could get over it very quickly, and we've been sleeping and eating at rather odd hours up until today. Couple that with having to work regular work days (in my case) and you have a recipe for disaster.I found myself having little patience for folks due to how tired I was, and trying to catch up with my major projects at work was, as a result, trying to say the least. Anyway, I think we're all caught up now, so hopefully life can somewhat return to normal.

I took the LX200 out two nights ago, as we had a nice clear night and could, by 10:00PM or so, actually make out some of the Milky Way (not bad for Austin). I tested out the Panoptic 22mm that my parents gave me, and worked out just great with the scope. Lovely wide fields and colorful images of star clusters. It also provided me with the best view yet of Jupiter, when coupled with a 2X barlow. I also checked out the Whirlpool galaxy (M51) for the first time and could make out the two central galaxy bulges, but not much else. Not bad, though.

Now the clouds have rolled in so no more observing for a while.

2 comments:

imjeffp said...

Welcome back!

I'd like to compare your 22 Pan to my 22 Lanthanum Superwide when we get a clear night sometime. I've always referred to the LVW as my "poor man's Panoptic," and I'd like to see if that's true.

Of course, it may be September by then!

Phil said...

Mate - let me know a good time and we'll do the comparison. And yes, bad skies up here lately.