My Second "real" Fuzzy!

Last night's conditions were marginal at best but it has been so foggy
here and I had a brand new William Optics Dielectric Star Diagonal and
Televue 35mm Panoptic to play with so....

I got home from Umpiring about 2030 local time, quickly changed into
"viewing" clothes, and headed outside. Somebody must have been
smiling at me because I had set the tripod up before leaving and it
was almost dead on to Polaris so Polar (well, at least "Polaris")
aligning only took about 5 minutes. The Telrad went dead (low
batteries) after only about 20 minutes but that was no biggie.

After taking a few minutes to view Saturn (more to evaluate seeing
than anything else), I decided to find M35. Now, I have only viewed
this once, from outside of Lemoore Califormia in pretty dark skies.
Last night there was a LOT of moisture in the air and I couldn't make
out stars dimmer than about 3-3.5 even in the spotter scope. I
decided to try anyway.

Unfortunately, there were very few stars to guide my way. I star
hopped to where I thought I should be and swept the sky, but couldn't
find much of anything there. I did the same a couple of more times
before I decided I needed to cheat a little bit. I used the
telescope's "Identify" function and found that I was still almost 3
degrees off. After examining the star atlas again and the viewfinder,
I figured out that I wasn't seeing as many stars as I thought I was.
I located the correct star and put the finder scope about where I
thought I should be. BINGO! I had about 1/4 of the cluster in the
eyepiece and easily centered it.

I was able to resolve perhaps 40 stars in the cluster with a hint of
many more. I'm looking forward to viewing it again from a dark Sky
Location.

Unfotunately, high clouds were rolling in at this point and I was
fighting a losing battle with dew (rare down here) so I packed it in
after only about an hour.

Still, I got my "fix".

Clear Skies.

Mark

Hi, Edward,
Good observing report. Reminds me of my early days finding M35 in a
4.25 Rich Field reflector, hand held. But what telescope did you use? I
missed that? Was it a William Optics 80 mm refractor? And where were you
observing from? (what town or area of the country, for example?)
Clear skies,
Bill Meyers

Edward Smith wrote:

Last night's conditions were marginal at best but it has been so foggy
here and I had a brand new William Optics Dielectric Star Diagonal and
Televue 35mm Panoptic to play with so....

I got home from Umpiring about 2030 local time, quickly changed into
"viewing" clothes, and headed outside. Somebody must have been
smiling at me because I had set the tripod up before leaving and it
was almost dead on to Polaris so Polar (well, at least "Polaris")
aligning only took about 5 minutes. The Telrad went dead (low
batteries) after only about 20 minutes but that was no biggie.

After taking a few minutes to view Saturn (more to evaluate seeing
than anything else), I decided to find M35. Now, I have only viewed
this once, from outside of Lemoore Califormia in pretty dark skies.
Last night there was a LOT of moisture in the air and I couldn't make
out stars dimmer than about 3-3.5 even in the spotter scope. I
decided to try anyway.

Unfortunately, there were very few stars to guide my way. I star
hopped to where I thought I should be and swept the sky, but couldn't
find much of anything there. I did the same a couple of more times
before I decided I needed to cheat a little bit. I used the
telescope's "Identify" function and found that I was still almost 3
degrees off. After examining the star atlas again and the viewfinder,
I figured out that I wasn't seeing as many stars as I thought I was.
I located the correct star and put the finder scope about where I
thought I should be. BINGO! I had about 1/4 of the cluster in the
eyepiece and easily centered it.

I was able to resolve perhaps 40 stars in the cluster with a hint of
many more. I'm looking forward to viewing it again from a dark Sky
Location.

Unfotunately, high clouds were rolling in at this point and I was
fighting a losing battle with dew (rare down here) so I packed it in
after only about an hour.

Still, I got my "fix".

Clear Skies.

Mark

The telescope is a 7 week old Celestron C 9 1/4 and I was viewing from
my home in San Diego, California (only about 5 miles from the coast
and thus, the fog problem). I realize that M35 isn't really a
challenge to view in a telscope of this size, but for somebody new to
telescopes (or at least to having his own telescope), it is certainly
a challenge to find.

The Williams Optic Dielectric is a brand new 2" star diagonal I
purchased because I realized I REALLY wanted a wider FOV after finding
M41 (my first real fuzzy) and realizing I couldn't view it all at
once. In my search for a greater FOV, I was taught that I needed to
move up to 2" eyepieces (and thus the purchase of the 35mm Panoptic,
thanks Dave and Jon).

Clear Skies.

Mark


Hi, Edward,
Good observing report. Reminds me of my early days finding M35 in a
4.25 Rich Field reflector, hand held. But what telescope did you use? I
missed that? Was it a William Optics 80 mm refractor? And where were you
observing from? (what town or area of the country, for example?)
Clear skies,
Bill Meyers

Edward,
Enjoy your new scope! The Celestron 9.25 has a reputation for high qualtiy.
You will love it on globulars this summer. And on the planets now.
Clear skies,
Bill Meyers

Edward Smith wrote:

The telescope is a 7 week old Celestron C 9 1/4 and I was viewing from
my home in San Diego, California (only about 5 miles from the coast
and thus, the fog problem). I realize that M35 isn't really a
challenge to view in a telscope of this size, but for somebody new to
telescopes (or at least to having his own telescope), it is certainly
a challenge to find.

The Williams Optic Dielectric is a brand new 2" star diagonal I
purchased because I realized I REALLY wanted a wider FOV after finding
M41 (my first real fuzzy) and realizing I couldn't view it all at
once. In my search for a greater FOV, I was taught that I needed to
move up to 2" eyepieces (and thus the purchase of the 35mm Panoptic,
thanks Dave and Jon).

Clear Skies.

Mark

Hi, Edward,
Good observing report. Reminds me of my early days finding M35 in a
4.25 Rich Field reflector, hand held. But what telescope did you use? I
missed that? Was it a William Optics 80 mm refractor? And where were you
observing from? (what town or area of the country, for example?)
Clear skies,
Bill Meyers

"Edward Smith" wrote in message
...
The telescope is a 7 week old Celestron C 9 1/4 and I was viewing from
my home in San Diego, California (only about 5 miles from the coast
and thus, the fog problem). I realize that M35 isn't really a
challenge to view in a telscope of this size, but for somebody new to
telescopes (or at least to having his own telescope), it is certainly
a challenge to find.

When you are starting out, finding anything on your own is an accomplishment
to be justly proud of!

Congrats!

Chuck Taylor
Do you observe the moon?
Try the Lunar Observing Group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lunar-observing/
Lunar Picture of the Day http://www.lpod.org/
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