Excalibur Does It Again!

Ok, so I'm a little excited. I just finished a great night under Montana's starry canopy.

The night started with sketches of Jupiter, Mars, and Saturn. The seeing wasn't great, but considering the low altitude of Mars and Saturn I couldn't complain. The observations and sketches were made at 218x. An Orion Mars Filter was used on Mars.

I took a break - avoiding unnecessary lights.

When I returned to Excalibur it was time to go after Pluto. Those who've read my earlier posts know that I've not had an easy time with the dwarf planet using The Beast. Tonight was different! Excalibur's 'perfect' optics combined with a great sky succeeded where The Beast's greater aperture struggled. Within minutes of acquiring the now all too familiar field I caught my first glimpse of Pluto this season with Excalibur. The 130mm apo was operating at a magnification of 172x. Additional glimpses came fairly quickly. Unlike my attempts with the Beast's 152mm f/6.5 achromatic objective, using Excalibur I had zero doubt! I had (once again) managed to see Pluto with Excalibur's 5.1-inch razor-sharp objective.

A sincere "Thank You!" goes out to Slurpy McDoublegulp.

Sketcher,
To sketch is to see.

On Thursday, June 9, 2016 at 5:33:30 AM UTC-4, Sketcher wrote:
Ok, so I'm a little excited. I just finished a great night under Montana's starry canopy.

The night started with sketches of Jupiter, Mars, and Saturn. The seeing wasn't great, but considering the low altitude of Mars and Saturn I couldn't complain. The observations and sketches were made at 218x. An Orion Mars Filter was used on Mars.

I took a break - avoiding unnecessary lights.

When I returned to Excalibur it was time to go after Pluto. Those who've read my earlier posts know that I've not had an easy time with the dwarf planet using The Beast. Tonight was different! Excalibur's 'perfect' optics combined with a great sky succeeded where The Beast's greater aperture struggled. Within minutes of acquiring the now all too familiar field I caught my first glimpse of Pluto this season with Excalibur. The 130mm apo was operating at a magnification of 172x. Additional glimpses came fairly quickly. Unlike my attempts with the Beast's 152mm f/6.5 achromatic objective, using Excalibur I had zero doubt! I had (once again) managed to see Pluto with Excalibur's 5.1-inch razor-sharp objective.

A sincere "Thank You!" goes out to Slurpy McDoublegulp.



Did slurp GIVE you the telescope?

On Thursday, June 9, 2016 at 5:33:30 AM UTC-4, Sketcher wrote:
Ok, so I'm a little excited. I just finished a great night under Montana's starry canopy.

The night started with sketches of Jupiter, Mars, and Saturn. The seeing wasn't great, but considering the low altitude of Mars and Saturn I couldn't complain. The observations and sketches were made at 218x. An Orion Mars Filter was used on Mars.

I took a break - avoiding unnecessary lights.

When I returned to Excalibur it was time to go after Pluto. Those who've read my earlier posts know that I've not had an easy time with the dwarf planet using The Beast. Tonight was different! Excalibur's 'perfect' optics combined with a great sky succeeded where The Beast's greater aperture struggled. Within minutes of acquiring the now all too familiar field I caught my first glimpse of Pluto this season with Excalibur. The 130mm apo was operating at a magnification of 172x. Additional glimpses came fairly quickly. Unlike my attempts with the Beast's 152mm f/6.5 achromatic objective, using Excalibur I had zero doubt! I had (once again) managed to see Pluto with Excalibur's 5.1-inch razor-sharp objective.

A sincere "Thank You!" goes out to Slurpy McDoublegulp.


Were you using the 152 and the 130 side-by-side?

On Thursday, June 9, 2016 at 4:33:30 AM UTC-5, Sketcher wrote:
Ok, so I'm a little excited. I just finished a great night under Montana's starry canopy.

The night started with sketches of Jupiter, Mars, and Saturn. The seeing wasn't great, but considering the low altitude of Mars and Saturn I couldn't complain. The observations and sketches were made at 218x. An Orion Mars Filter was used on Mars.

I took a break - avoiding unnecessary lights.

When I returned to Excalibur it was time to go after Pluto. Those who've read my earlier posts know that I've not had an easy time with the dwarf planet using The Beast. Tonight was different! Excalibur's 'perfect' optics combined with a great sky succeeded where The Beast's greater aperture struggled. Within minutes of acquiring the now all too familiar field I caught my first glimpse of Pluto this season with Excalibur. The 130mm apo was operating at a magnification of 172x. Additional glimpses came fairly quickly. Unlike my attempts with the Beast's 152mm f/6.5 achromatic objective, using Excalibur I had zero doubt! I had (once again) managed to see Pluto with Excalibur's 5.1-inch razor-sharp objective.

A sincere "Thank You!" goes out to Slurpy McDoublegulp.

Sketcher,
To sketch is to see.

Cool! I had a hard time seeing Pluto many years ago at the Riverside Star Party. I was using my 155 F7 Apo refractor. The sky at this star party was very transparent but the seeing was only marginally good.

Slurpie

That's a reasonable question. Excalibur and The Beast were not used side-by-side on that night. If weather, etc. cooperate I may be able to train both on Pluto tonight.

Conditions on different nights can vary quite a bit (transparency, seeing, auroras and natural sky-glows come to mind, but even physiological differences within the observer can be a factor - tiredness, what I ate for lunch, etc.). That being said, I think I've had enough experience with each telescope to attribute their differing performances on Pluto *primarily* on the differences in optical quality and design. I've used both telescopes under a wide variety of conditions. The Beast was trained on Pluto on three separate nights in the past few nights. Excalibur has only been trained on Pluto once this year, but it's caught Pluto several times previously - both as the 'ninth planet' and as a dwarf planet. I sometimes joke about the professional's current search for the "ninth planet", when I've already seen the "ninth planet" ;-)

Sketcher,
To sketch is to see.

On Thursday, June 9, 2016 at 6:38:00 AM UTC-6, wrote:

Were you using the 152 and the 130 side-by-side?

On Friday, June 10, 2016 at 3:33:54 PM UTC-5, Sketcher wrote:
That's a reasonable question. Excalibur and The Beast were not used side-by-side on that night. If weather, etc. cooperate I may be able to train both on Pluto tonight.

Conditions on different nights can vary quite a bit (transparency, seeing, auroras and natural sky-glows come to mind, but even physiological differences within the observer can be a factor - tiredness, what I ate for lunch, etc.). That being said, I think I've had enough experience with each telescope to attribute their differing performances on Pluto *primarily* on the differences in optical quality and design. I've used both telescopes under a wide variety of conditions. The Beast was trained on Pluto on three separate nights in the past few nights. Excalibur has only been trained on Pluto once this year, but it's caught Pluto several times previously - both as the 'ninth planet' and as a dwarf planet. I sometimes joke about the professional's current search for the "ninth planet", when I've already seen the "ninth planet" ;-)

Sketcher,
To sketch is to see.

On Thursday, June 9, 2016 at 6:38:00 AM UTC-6, wrote:

Were you using the 152 and the 130 side-by-side?

Pluto has a thin atmosphere, unlike Mercury. Plus it has its own Moon. Those to me makes it a planet.

On Friday, June 10, 2016 at 10:27:57 PM UTC+1, SlurpieMcDoublegulp wrote:

Pluto has a thin atmosphere, unlike Mercury. Plus it has its own Moon. Those to me makes it a planet.

You impostors never had a feel for astronomy and that a planet is defined by its motions as opposed to the Sun and moon and not size or composition -

"Moreover, we see the other five planets also retrograde at times, and
stationary at either end [of the regression]. And whereas the sun
always advances along its own direct path, they wander in various
ways, straying sometimes to the south and sometimes to the north; that
is why they are called "planets" [wanderers]. Copernicus

I so admire what this great man did even as he worked with the motion of the Sun through the Zodiac which would have prevented him from adopting a different perspective for the inner planets but he did this in an era which didn't require clocks or telescopes.

An anarchist is unable to feel anything right or wrong, no structure or discipline but despite all this there are signs that people do make connections to the past and to the future. It is living in the hope for the future and not the mistakes of the past.

SlurpieMcDoublegulp:
Pluto has a thin atmosphere, unlike Mercury. Plus it has its own Moon.
Those to me makes it a planet.

I suppose people will argue this for years to come. The tiny fraction
of IAU delegates that voted to demote Pluto are entitled to their
"official" opinion, but I'm with you on this. They "fixed" something
that wasn't broken, redefined something that was not in need of
redefining.

--
I agree with almost everything that you have said and almost everything that
you will say in your entire life.

usenet *at* davidillig dawt cawm

The change to dwarf planet has never made sense to me. A star is a star regardless of its size, where it's located, what it orbits, or what other objects reside in the same neighborhood. If we were to re-locate Mercury to an orbit around Jupiter we would refer to it as a moon, and *not* as a planet. To me, that's not "right".

Long ago, when Voyager results were being radioed back to Earth, I was taking a course in Solar System Geology. The course was taught by two professors - an astronomer and a geologist. Both were present at the same time to interpret the images being sent back of Jupiter's moons, etc. In that course all the large, round, solar system bodies (including our moon) were referred to as "planets". At the time, that terminology seemed a bit odd to me, but it makes far more sense (to me) than using an object's location as a critical component in its classification.

Sketcher,
To sketch is to see.

On Friday, June 10, 2016 at 3:27:57 PM UTC-6, SlurpieMcDoublegulp wrote:

Pluto has a thin atmosphere, unlike Mercury. Plus it has its own Moon. Those to me makes it a planet.

I don't agree with demotion from planet status, either. Vesta will always be a planet to me.