Oh, the stress levels have been high lately! Work, family stuff, life. I spent an hour out in the front garden unwinding with my 6" Dobsonian tonight. It's really been a long time since I have enjoyed visual astronomy. With a big near-full moon out, there wasn't too much to see. I blinded myself (no Moon filter!) with the Moon for a good while, touring the full landscape using a 10mm Radian. Even though I did not collimate the scope (and haven't done for a year or so) I still got great, crisp views. I then moved onto Jupiter, which again I had not observed visually in over a year. Despite the unsteady seeing conditions, I got a nice, sharp view. Its two cloud bounds looked great, and all four of the larger moons could be seen. It really was an enjoyable hour. I need to get my poor 12" Lightbridge sometime later this month. I haven't had it out this year at all - too much astrophotography. Maybe stepping away from astrophotography for a while will do me some good.
Hi there Phil. Nice blog I take a look at it many times, I have simular stuff going on here, I Live in a small willage north west of Iceland only 250 people living in my town. Check out my webside,, all in Icelandic but u can use google translate to follow.
ReplyDeletehttp://sky66.weebly.com/
Regards Jon Sig.
Hi John,
ReplyDeleteGreat site! I'll add it onto my links list later this week. You must get some great skies up there!
Cheers,
Phil
Ah, the grab and go! Makes me want to head out to the backyard!
ReplyDeletehello Phil!
ReplyDeleteIt s great that you relaxe with a good night out. I have the same felling, I love to go out and look at some easy targets and just wonder off in the Universe.
Good luck with your observations and keep up the unwineding with your smaller telescope.
ps: I have also a smaller scope that I have in the back of my car trunk, very easy to stop on the road and have a look at something in the night sky!
Cheers!
Stefan Lamoureux, turku, Finland
Val - Was great to be behind the controls of a visual scope again! Astrophotography is fun, but doing the visual stuff once in a while is much more relaxing IMHO.
ReplyDeleteStefan - Hi! Thanks for visiting the blog! I checked yours out and it's excellent. I envy your view of the Draconids the other night. A good mate of mine from High School now lives in Helsinki and loves it there. Hopefully one day I'll visit!