Posts Made By: Pete Samsury

Vince,

There are lots of very focused books, but the best overall is The Night Sky Observer's Guide, in my opinion. It covers double stars and DSO's of all kinds.

Pete

Hi David,

I was able to get out with my 16x60 Pentax's and observe Comet 8P/Tuttle this evening. It was at about 45 degrees due west. I star hopped from Alpha Triangulum and could just see it with direct vision. The skies here north of Dallas are not dark. The Andromeda Galaxy was not very impressive this evening so the comet must be fairly bright. It appeared to be elongated east-west. Tomorrow night should be a good viewing night and I will again try earlier when it will be directly overhead. Once seen these 'faint' comets are much easier to find again.

Pete

Hi David,

I am, but it's tough from light polluted skies just north of Dallas, Tx.

Pete

Hi Karl,

Remember that you have a Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope. It yields an up-side-down view when using a diagonal. This means that left and right movement with the four arrows will always be left and right. However, the up and down movement, if your using your eye through the telescope will be reversed. The best way I've found to get used to this is to go to a very bright object like a planet. watch the movement of the red dot in the finder as use use the arrows and compare that to the movement through the eyepiece.

I do not have a 6SE, but on my NexStar 5 & 8 Celestron reverses the action of the arrows (up and down)to conform to what you see through the eyepiece for slewing rates 1 to 6 (ie, fine adjustment.) For slewing rates 7 to 9 gross adjustment match the view through the red dot finder.

And then your ready to take on a dobsonian, which delivers an up-side-down and backwards view!

Pete

I managed to get going this morning at 4 am CST and hunt for Comet Lulin. Star hopping from Spica into Libra (alpha 1,2) to upsilon Libra and there it was.

Truly a faint fuzzy through my 16 x 60 Pentax binoculars, but clearly there. The skies here north of Dallas were above average. You could see the faintest star in the Big Dipper bucket with the naked eye. (That's how bad things are here folks.) A very dim tail seemed to be horizontal. The reddish,8 mag, SAO158995 was also in the field of view.

Plan to take advantage of the sky moon/window over the next few days to continue to view as it gets brighter.

Pete

Great Picture!

The Harvard ephemerides site as transferred to TheSky, indicates a magnitude of 7.02

TheSky positioning is exactly as shown in your photo.

Pete

Finally observed it tonight. Below the lunar crescent and slightly north. Very impressive , round with a distinctive tail. Observed with Canon IS 15x50. Should have a few more clear nights here in North Texas