Mystic Wig, Cats and BBHS Prisms

[Nightspore]

By about 18:30 GMT on Thursday 30th (festival of ‘Hekate Tri Via’) I had set the 72ED up, it’s been used as many times as the Titchy Sixty so far (although it’s now in the lead place, as usual). The ever trustworthy and sincere MET Office site claimed there would be no clouds, nothing, nada, zilch, not a sausage, nothing nebulous, until way after midnight. Naturally they were about as accurate as Mystic Meg. In fact they probably use her to predict the weather. I’m considering using the entrails of my next door neighbour’s cat for future weather auguries. The aforementioned feline’s guts may well be used for meteorological predictive garters if it defecates in my observing space again. Either that or I predict I’ll brain it with my crystal ball! The main jet stream had diverted from the Midlands and the overall residual jet stream wind velocity (Monty Python joke alert: African or European? lol) was only around 44 KPH. Which was hunky dory. However, I think the humidity was a bit high. Not sure what Hekate thought, probably too busy playing with her snakes.

 

 

The gear I took out with the 72 hasn’t really changed from last time, with the exceptions of the Baader Sitall BBHS mirror diagonal and 7mm Nagler. These have been changed for the Baader BBHS conventional prism and 6.7mm ES. The mirror might have been accidentally marked by a long eyepiece barrel. There is a mark in the mirror that I’ll have to check out later. Many Baader 1.25” mirror diagonals have no safety stop. I believe this is to eliminate any vignetting if used with 2” adapters or something like that (insert Baader BS of your choice). The prism has a slightly smaller housing than the mirror, although it is constructed to the same exacting tolerances and standards. Many people (well, Bill Paolini) claim prisms regularly out-perform mirrors. Visually, I can’t tell the difference between these two BBHS diagonals. I’ve added a spacer to the diagonal adapter to raise its height.

 

 

As for the Nagler swap, I know what you’re thinking. You think that I must have got too spaced out by my spacers, or I’ve inadvertently inhaled too much Baader Optical Wonder Cleaning Fluid. I think the Nagler’s great, it’s just that …. its overall ergonomics bug me! (is it just me?). Why are TV eyeguards so annoying? What’s wrong with bog-standard flip-up/flip-down guards like on something as mundane as most Chinese Plossls?

 

 

My guess is because TV EP’s are actually manufactured in non-Chinese mainland factories. Which is strange, because standard GSO (Taiwan) Plossl eyeguards are fine. Tele Vue Plossl eyeguards are a tad idiosyncratic at best. Don’t get me started about the TV undercut. I don’t even think there’s much between the visual quality of the two eyepieces. It’s nice to be able to see the field stop without needing a compound eye. Then there’s the magical kryptonite (obviously some form of witchcraft) the ES are filled with to alleviate misting problems (and confuse evil faeries, of course) in humid conditions. The 6.7mm gives me 62.6x on its own, 100x with a threaded Barlow element, and 141x (nearly 144x!) with the Baader 2.25x Barlow.

 

 

A near transit Saturn was my first target at 105x with the 4mm Astro Hutech orthoscopic. The colour separation and clarity were excellent. The rings were equally sharp and I could see Titan and Rhea. Titan’s yellow colour was quite apparent. Even at 141x there was very little degradation. Again I thought I got a glimpse of other moons (Dione?). Jupiter was very well defined, even at 141x, although 105x was sharper. Io, Callisto and Ganymede were nicely defined discs and individually had rich colour separation. Just as with the BBHS mirror. I dropped down to 100x (6.7mm + Barlow element). Of course, the white fluffy stuff took Big Jove away for a while.

 

 

I turned my attention to some open clusters. But first I split Zeta 1 Aquari and Iota Cass at 100x. It wasn’t long before the 14mm Morpheus was in the twistlock of the Baader BBHS prism. At 30x, the Perseus Double Cluster was magnificent and perfectly framed in the 76° FOV. I think the seeing was probably superb and well above average, it was the patchy cloud and humidity that let it down. That and the 87.4% illuminated rising Moon (Gemini) wasn't helping.

 

 

The Owl Cluster was great, the colours in the eyes of the celestial strigiform were intoxicating, with the ‘head’ at around the 10 o’clock position. The serpentine Melotte 20 and the Pleiades were very good at 30x with the Morpheus, but I actually preferred both of them at 12x with the 35mm Eudiascopic (better framing). Inevitably the evil faeries made the clouds cover the sky. So much for Mystic Met Office! It was Thursday, perhaps I should have invoked Thor. Knowing my luck he’d have got me with a thunderbolt, much to the delight of Mystic Wig and the ‘soon to be garters’ cat. I packed up and accepted the fact I was ‘Prism Boy’ now and not the ‘Mirror Man’. Twentieth session since September 5th done and dusted. Hold on … is that the bloody cat?