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Every two years, Mars is in its most favorable position for viewing from Earth. I decided to head out and see if I could find any detail. I also wanted
to try out my new Panoptic eyepiece and my new set of basic Wratten filters. I hauled everything out to the parking lot of the apartment building we live in. There are horrible globe lights
everywhere but I was able to find a spot where most of the lights were blocked by trees.
I was out only a short time that night and headed back in after only 45 minutes. I just didn't have enough energy to stay out late. I'm working 30 hours
a week and taking
16 quarter credits at the University of Minnesota so my life is a little crazy right now. I should be done with school next year so I'll have much more time then. Anyway, I don't think the scope really cooled down because it looked as though the planet was boiling. It's like looking down a hot summer road and seeing an object in the distance with the heat from the road causing the image to move and become blurry. Just for fun, I tried using some of the filters anyway but it didn't help. I couldn't see any detail. I'm not too discouraged though because to get a good view the scope should be cooled, there shouldn't be stray light entering the tube like there was from the parking lot lights, and you have to be experienced at seeing detail in an object.
My eye still isn't trained to see detaill well. It sounds funny but you really can learn to see more detail. I've had so much fun lately just finding
things that I haven't
really taken time to look at them closely. From now on I'll be spending much more time on each object looking for as much detail as I can get. I haven't really tried using anything but low power on deep sky objects but others have had a lot of success using higher powers.
Other than Mars, I quickly saw M44 (the Beehive Cluster) and M3 (a globular cluster). I've seen these both before but this time I found them using my
new Panoptic 22mm eyepiece instead of my 26mm Meader 4000 Plossl. The Panoptic has a shorter focal length giving it higher magnification but because of its 68 degree field of view as
opposed to the Meade's 52 degree field, the Panoptic gives a larger true field of view. It's a magnificent eyepiece. The Panoptic gives me a much better view with pin point stars all the
way to the edge of the field. The eyepiece is designed for steeper light angles such as those in my f4.5 reflector and gives a much flatter, brighter, and crisper view than the Plossl ever
did. I'm quite happy to have purchased it.
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