First night out in a while.....

I took a telescope out tonight for the first time since the summer. It was more to dust off the cobwebs than to do any hard core observing. It was also fodder for a new blog I want to create about touring the night sky with a small telescope. Unfortunately the full moon played havoc with any viewing.

Comet Lulin

So the internet is abuzz with this Comet Lulin. I wanted to catch it on the 23rd when it was closest to the Earth. A cold and some clouds nixed that idea. Last night tho I had the dogs outside, and saw that I had a clear view to the Southeast.

I pulled out my ST80 and very gingerly shuffled my way down the driveway trying not to slip/fall/drop the scope. I set it up behind a large evergreen bush that somewhat shielded me from my neighbors resurrected yard light. I had looked up on Stellarium where the comet should be. I pointed the red dot finder at roughly where it should have been and started looking. I lucked out pretty quick, finding a small gray smudge. I nudged the scope a little bit to make sure it was a smudge in the sky, and not on my eyepiece. The comet looked similar to a globular cluster, or a roundish nebula, only a bit brighter.

I wasn't 100% sure I had gotten it until I got back inside and confirmed on Stellarium that there were no other faint fuzzies in that area of the sky. All in all it was a pretty good quick trip out. Having put a red dot finder on the ST80 makes it a lot easier to use, as you can then put a low power eyepiece in and then use the scope as your optical finder. I can hardly wait to try this new set up under darker skies!

POTD 02/25/09

A picture from a camping trip last summer up to Bobi's parents farm...

Back at it.....

So I was thinking that I hadn't posted here in a while, and I was right! Of course, lately I've been doing way more TV watching than anything else, and that's not very bloggable But in between assorted TV shows, I've done a few things that may be fodder for new posts around here including:

• A new red dot finder for my ST80 refractor scope
• Traded in my Digitrax DCC system for a new NCE Powercab!
• Scoped out a new Railfanning spot

Tonight's other project is to come up with plans for Benchwork for the layout plan below. I hope to have a scan of this on Monday...