Emma Cemetery 35 miles due east of Lubbock.

Don Fritz 12.5 dobsonian, 24mm Panoptic, 8.5mm XF, 12mm XF

Collin Smith AT80ED Hyperion 24mm.

Per Andersen, Celestron C8-SGT, Orion ST120, Meade UWA 6.7mm and 14mm, Televue Plossl 20mm 32mm, 10mm Radian.

I arrived at 8:40pm for setup, Don and Bob where already there setting up. A Three day crecent moon was in the west looks like I'll have about 90 minutes for the C8 to cool down. Collin and Lars arrived at 10:03pm, Collin setup his 80mm Astro-tech.

I was keen to try out one of the object's in O'Meara's Hidden Treasures, NGC 1535. I was able to get some views of it and it appeared as a small fuzzy ball I'll try it again on another night. I then checked out Mars for while, it looked best in the 10mm Radian with the Orange #21 filter. Tonight there was no really details showing on the planet, just a small dark spot that moved slowly across the top of the planet in my C8.

A recent article in S&T covered Siruis B, although I could not split it I could split Rigel, which was also covered in the article I used my 6.7mm UWA.

There then followed a lot of eyepiece testing and evaluating, specifically between the 24mm Televue Panoptic, 24mm Hyperion, 24mm Meade SWA and the 32mm Televue Plossl. The double cluster was used for the evaluation. The general consensus was the Panoptic was number 1 for edge to edge performance there was little difference in contrast between it and the 32mm Televue Plossl. I would say we called it a tie between the 24mm SWA Meade and 32mm Televue Plossl, (I prefered the Plossl for its contrast). The Hyperion came in last based on it's edge to edge performance and contrast, but the general consensus about the Hyperion was that it was a good eyepiece for the price.

We then checked to see if the 24mm Hyperion, 24mm Panoptic and 32mm Plossl could get M81 and M82 in the same FOV on the C8. All 3 eyepieces could with the Panoptic having the best edge to edge performance. The 32mm Plossl did a really good job edge to edge but at a lower magnification. The Hyperion did show some distortion at the edges.

We then checked out M42 to see how many stars we could resolve in the trapezium, on the C8 with the 6.7mm we saw 6, the four main ones a small one between 2 of the four that makeup the trapezium and a smaller one off to the side.

I was then asked to goto M1, which I did, I could see some detail with the 14mm Meade UWA. The 6.7mm Mead UWA also picked it up but not as well as the 14mm. The 12.5 Dobsonian showed a lot more light from M1 than the C8, but seemed to have a little trouble with its focus. Don noted that he would have to check the collimation and was sure that was the problem.

Saturn was up and we checked it out. Rings are close to being edge on. I switched to the ST120 so that Bob could use it since he was considering it but was concerned about chromatic aberration and had read some negative reports. After viewing the double cluster, M81 and M82 and saturn the ST120 was not a problem for him and he would go ahead and buy one.

Despite the cold temperatures the CG-5 did well although it seemed a little nosier than usual. I still have problems reading the display in the cold, it seems like the words overlap each other as they move across the screen. During the summer this is not a problem.

We packed it in at 1:11am, temperature was 28F.