I'm one of those brave TACos you mentioned below.
The finderscope became fogged just after I aligned it.
Through the finderscope, each star brighter than mag 4
looks like comet and one dimmer than mag 4 can't be
detected at all. But image in eyepiece was good. I did
my Marathon warmup, for the first 33 objects, I missed
only 3 (M74,M32,M110), not bad. The secret behind my
XT10 was I armed it with homemade alt/az setting circle
(<$10), a palm gave me an objects's alt/az. Without
the setting circle, my Marathon warmup would have become
Marathon cooldown.
At about 11:00pm, light cloud covered about 50% sky, and I left
with satisfaction.
Clear skies!
-Wei
From: Alexander Avtanski ^lt;alexander_at_avtanski.com>
Date: Sun Mar 06 2005 - 10:15:03 MST
It was Wet. :-(
First, the eyepieces started fogging after change. A bit
later my daughter's 4.5" StarBlast gave up - the secondary
was completely fogged. Then, the finder of my 8" fogged,
and finally I couldn't see almost anything through the
scope itself. Some brave TACos stayed behind, but we
started packing. Around 10pm we were on our way home.
Anyway, it was better than nothing.
- Alex
Received on Mon Mar 7 19:01:32 2005