Cold and Clear – Great night for stargazing – 11/26/08
Spent a couple hours out on Thanksgiving Eve. It was cold, really cold. It was also very clear.
My plan for the night was to practice getting a good polar alignment and then check out a few deep sky Messier objects.
I was able to get the scope aligned on Polaris fairly quickly, then I used Deneb and Caph as the alignment stars and then Betelgeuse as a calibration star. Alignment Success!!! I typed M42 into the Goto hand controller and the scope slewed right to it – and it was fantastic!
Spent the next couple hours checking out M42, M31, and M33. The tour button on the Celestron hand controller showed me M34 and M82.
I used my 32mm, 25mm, and 15mm Plossl eyepieces, the best views of the night were with the 25mm.
Here is a pick of the Celestron C8S-CT set up in my backyard.
Celestron C8 with Dew Shield
If you check out the picture real close you can see the frost forming on the scope. Told you it was cold! The Astrozap dew shield did a great job at keeping the scope clear up until just before I called it a night.
While I was out I saw two very bright meteors. One nearly directly over head at about 10:15 PM that was very bright and one that was in the west about 11:30 PM that was not quite as bright. Very cool.
Hopefully the cool clear nights will continue through the weekend.
Have a Happy Thanksgiving!
