[Leica] IMG: 6 inch reflector

[hlritter at bex.net (Howard Ritter)]

Douglas,

Don?t be deterred by light from your neighbor?s house! If you have a clear 
shot at the planets? location as of twilight, go for it! Or rather, don?t 
go?to a better location. In terms of light pollution and planetary viewing, 
no location is better than another ? Jupiter and Saturn are bright enough to 
be seen under any conditions of light pollution. In fact, the best time to 
view them (to reduce contrast) is as soon as you can make them out in fading 
twilight. If you know exactly where to point your scope, they can even be 
seen shortly before sunset. 

I had the opportunity to use a pair of those Fujinon binoculars mounted on a 
reclining and swiveling chair at the Oz Sky Safari in rural Australia a 
couple of years ago. Talk about splendid excess! Mine are mere 100mm 
binoculars from the German firm APM. I?ve attached a photo of my small and 
medium astronomical optics in the hope that it will make it to your personal 
email in the BCC list. 

Also, I?ve added a couple of more versions of the Orion image to the album 
<http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/hlritter/Nikon+Astro/>, these from 
stacked-and-combined frames to reduce noise.

?howard

> On Dec20, 2020, at 1941, Douglas Barry <imra at iol.ie> wrote:
> 
> Thanks Howard, I'm very much the neophyte in this area, but unfortunately 
> in the ASS (Avoidance of Spousal Screams) factor, I have an awkward 
> counter tendency towards excessive GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome), 
> currently downsizing from a peak of 60 cameras, and this new rabbit hole 
> looks like it just might need expensive ladders. When I saw 25" Dobsonian 
> and then 100mm binoculars, my interest was immediately piqued. Eyeing my 
> downcast looking 12x50 binoculars, I just had to look up binoculars of a 
> size commensurate with my astral ambitions. As a man who has Fuji, my eye 
> was caught by a 25x150mm Fujinon weighing in at a lightweight 18.5kg and I 
> thought it would grace one of the windows until I saw the ?38,450 price 
> tag!!
> 
> Yikes! I could buy a nice secondhand Porsche for that. It cured my GAS 
> anyway - for a while... Seriously, on the conjunction, I took the 6" out 
> this evening onto my patio, but knew that I wouldn't get the maximum 
> darkness as my neighbour's house intrudes on final 5 degrees. So going out 
> slightly earlier I found the two planets are very low, too close to the 
> setting sun and resolution was pretty poor compared to when they were 
> higher in the sky. I think I may have to give it a miss tomorrow as 
> travelling to a better location in this pandemic isn't too wise. Better to 
> fight another day.
> 
> Your pictures are excellent and certainly whetted my appetite. I'll head 
> out to see the Orion Nebula over the next week or so.
> 
> Douglas