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September


Nightspore

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I managed fifteen sessions in September, five more than in September 2020. Interestingly all of September’s sessions were with one scope; my 72ED Evostar. September the 5th was its third year ‘first light’ anniversary. Coincidentally I also got first light with the ‘unusual’ 4.8mm orthoscopic on the fifth. 

 

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I had some pretty good views of Saturn and Jupiter as well as splitting a fair few doubles. The 4.8mm went out with the 72ED the rest of September. I like the fact that it’s a small, very lightweight eyepiece, which is an important consideration for a grab and go rig. However, it does have some occasional chromatic and ghosting issues. Overall though I’d say it was a fair attempt at an orthoscopic eyepiece. I don’t know exactly who manufacture these, no doubt somewhere on the Chinese mainland, but I have seen them for sale at quite inflated prices. I reckon anything much over forty quid and it would be preferable to obtain a reputable Japanese orthoscopic. The main high power eyepieces I used were a 4mm TS Optics Planetary HR and a 3.2mm TMB clone. Although I did have a couple of sessions with an Orion zoom and a Baader Barlow. 

 

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On the 6th I got a nice view of the Alpha Persei Moving Group at 17.5x with a 24mm ES 68° eyepiece. Which was great as I hadn’t seen it for a while. As I swept the bottom of Cassiopeia with the 24mm ES I had a nice view of NGC 281 (aka the Pacman Nebula) and the Andromeda Galaxy.

 

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I made a mental note to take the broadband ES OIII filter the next time, especially for the Pacman. Conditions were very good and I believed the OIII would make the nebula a lot easier to define. Reverting to higher powered eyepieces I got to see a Europa/Ganymede conjunction. 

 

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On Tuesday the 7th I went out for an hour at about 22:00 and split a setting Izar before searching for more doubles in Bootes. I went out on Wednesday at about 21:00 but I didn’t even set-up as the sky was basically a blanket of cloud. I’m seriously going to have to find a better weather app. I did go out early on the 8th though. When I say early, I mean at 04:30, to view Cr 70 (Serpent Cluster) M1 and especially M42 in what was essentially a winter sky but with summer type weather.

 

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I was seriously over the moon seeing the Crab Nebula and I’m pretty sure this is the earliest time of the year I’ve seen it.

 

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On the 20th I got my one hundredth session this year. This time I remembered the OIII and got good views of M27 as well as NGC 281. On the Equinox (22nd) I got to see the Petavius rille after initially packing up at the end of a session due to cloud, and then setting up again to see the Moon. The rille itself is only really observable two to three days after the Full Moon. The 23rd was my 103rd outing this year equalling the total number of sessions in 2020. On the 27th the conditions were very humid but the sky was cloud-free for hours. Naturally I had a pretty decent session, although splitting Mu Boötis was very difficult. The weirdest thing was witnessing an Atlas V rocket deorbit burn from my back garden. Of course, I had no idea what it was at the time. The last session of the month, on the 29th, was barely an hour. I did get a very nice view of the Draconis 17 triple system and a bit later I glimpsed an Io transit shadow before everything clouded over. September is often very damp and humid with excessive dew problems. I’ve noticed the finder dewing a bit but as a whole it hasn’t been too bad for this time of the year.


 

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2 hours ago, Glafnazur said:

Great report as usual. Over a hundred sessions is quite some going, well done 👍

 

Thanks. I just got my 107th session.

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8 hours ago, Streetbob said:

Thanks for sharing your September report. 

 

You're welcome. I'm pretty sure September was a bit drier than last year. I've not been getting particularly bad dewing.

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