August

[Nightspore]

August seems to have been the month of the Maksutov sandwich for me. Right at the start I got to see a bit of the Saturn opposition with the ‘Middle Mak’ (102mm SkyMax).

 

Little Mak, Middle Mak & Big Mak

 

I then got ten sessions with my 72ED Evostar.

 

 

On the 8th I got a good 140x on Jupiter and a nice view of the Andromeda Galaxy at 47x with the 72mm doublet. The 9th was brief and it rained on me, but I had some decent views of Jupiter and Saturn. On the 12th, the supposed Perseid peak, I witnessed a Europa shadow transit (I didn’t see many Perseids).

 

 

I caught the Jupiter opposition briefly with the ‘Big Mak’ (127mm SkyMax), but a couple of nights later I had a really good Jupiter session with the 127mm. It was so bright I had to wear shades! Well, I used a polarising filter lol. Although it was a tad cloudy on the 23rd/24th I was surprised to get pretty detailed view of the Petavius Rille at between 150x and 220x (Orion zoom).

 

 

The bigger aperture of the 127mm Mak (0.91 arc seconds Dawes limit) must have made it easier considering where the terminator was positioned. I expected it to be a bit bleached-out but the rille itself was quite detailed. On the 27/28th I saw Uranus with the Big Mak and even witnessed a rising naked eye Orion. Uranus was near the Moon so easier to find.

 

 

Finally on the 28/29th I caught an Io transit from start to finish with ‘Big Mak’. Although in-between I split some doubles and had a pretty nice view of M57 at 62x with a 25mm Takahashi orthoscopic. All in all I managed seventeen sessions in August, only rivalled so far this year by seventeen sessions in April.

 

Images by courtesy SkySafari 6 Pro & Moon Atlas

 

Edited September 1, 2021 by Nightspore