Saturn – First light (for me) of the C6 and 9mm Nagler
I have had my Side-by-Side Celestron 6″ and Astro-Tech 66m set up a couple of times over the last week or so hoping that the skies would clear. Finally last night – cooler temperatures and fairly low humidity – except for a few passing clouds it was nearly perfect visual observing.
I spent sometime using the moon as a point of reference to get the C6, the AT66, and the finder scope on the C6 all pointing in the same direction. The C6 was very much out of collimation and I used the collimation instructions that were included with Bob’s Knobs that I installed on the scope to correct this. Collimation was tedious and it took a few tries to get a feel for which knob(s) needed to be adjusted to move the diffraction rings in the correct direction but after I got the hang of it I was able to get the scope collimated – first with the 25mm Plossl and then with 9mm Nagler. I had never tried/worried about collimation, it took a bit of patience and several tries before I got it right, this process should be much easier in the future. I can see a difference between collimated and uncollimated when bringing an object into focus, but once in focus I did not really notice a difference between the two, this is really much more critical for astrophotography than for visual observing. I can also see where this process would be extremely hard using the secondary screws instead of the Bob’s Knobs.
Since it was a school(work) night and I knew that I did not want to be was not going to be out very late I did not go through the usual precise polar and GOTO alignment process. I just did a quick solar system alignment and had the GOTO point the scopes at Saturn. Used the 25mm Plossl to get the ringed planet centered and then replaced the Plossl with 9mm Nagler – AMAZING!!! The 9mm Nagler gave me nice clear view at about 167x magnification with a 0.49 FOV with this little 6″ SCT. I could clearly see the shadow of the rings across the planet’s surface and I counted 4 visible moons. One moon was visible just over the planets rings. I was really amazed at the clarity and wide field of view. Compared to the view through my 8″ using a 15 mm Plossl (135x with a FOV of 0.37 degrees) the view through the 9mm Nagler was just incredible.
I was only out for about an hour before the bugs got bad (should not have been out there barefoot and wearing shorts) but that was OK since I have to be up early for work. If it had not been for the bugs I probably would have stayed out all night enjoying the views of Saturn (and others). Tonight it is Friday, no work tomorrow, and I am looking forward to getting Saturn (and hopefully Jupiter later in the night and then possibly another try at Comet McNaught) back in the scope. If the skies are clear I pretty sure I will be out most of the night.
I am glad I picked up this little C6 and I think I am really going to enjoy the side by side setup – especially after I get a chance to do some imaging.
