On Mon, 20 Sep 2004 01:06:11 -0400, Craig B wrote:


Also observed :

The Double Double : Could not split the doubles , not even at 150X .


Just returned from having split the Double Double very cleanly at 72.8x on
my 4.5 inch Meade 4500. Tried for it at 50x and had my eyes been a wee bit
better, I might have convinced myself that I was getting something
suggesting more than two single stars.

The scope is very well collimated plus the mirrors were recently recoated.

NELM was about 5.0 so I decided to take a quick peek at a couple of other
DSO's.

M57 - With a 9mm UltraWide EP, the object was quite nice. The 13th
magnitude star was not visible (as expected), but the "hole" was very
distinct. Switched to a 6mm Expanse EP and found the image a little too
dim for my taste.

M33 - The 9mm UltraWide revealed a unevenly shaped mass of faint light. .
..quite clearly non-nebula and distinctly galactic in feel. A 25mm modified
achromat EP showed an image of the galaxy which was indistinct and faint
enough that, if I didn't know what I was looking at, might have been
mistaken for a nebula.

M31 - Pleasant surprises here. The 25mm modified acromat EP led my eyes to
a breathtaking package (for a small reflector) of M31, M32, and M110. And
what's this? Is this 18mm Orthoscopic EP of mine serving up the stellar
like nucleus of M31? Well, I believe it is!!!!



--
Martin
"Photographs From the Universe of Amateur Astronomy"
http://home.earthlink.net/~martinhowell