Ain't she a beaut!

ShootingStars was out for first light Valentine's Day weekend. It was great! I had a mini star party with friends up in Ridgecrest.

We looked at Mars, Saturn, Vesta, Orion Nebula and Pleiades on Saturday night.

Mars was excellent in the scope. I used the 8-24mm zoom at first. At 85x it was a orange sherbet ball. At 254x you could see the South Polar Cap. Finally I switched to the 10mm guiding eyepiece with and without ED Barlow. (203 and 406 power). Then I added a red #25 filter. Woohoo - the markings came out! Most prominent was the band just north of the polar cap. I identified Maria Australis (band), Erythraeum, Acidalium-region complex, plus Syrtis Major and the Sinus Sabeus-Meridiani complex later with Sky and Telescope's Mars Profiler. The planet was high and seeing was excellent even though we set up on a parking lot (probably because it had cooled enough by 830PM).

Just for fun I popped in the 2mm SkyWatcher eyepiece given to me over the holidays by Wil. It was over 1000x and the planet was a bowl of orange sherbet blur but the cap did stand out.

Saturn was still too low for good seeing but my companions liked the olive on the toothpick appearance of the nearly edge-on rings. Occasionally you could see the gap between the planet and rings. The ring shadow was the most prominent detail.

I tracked down Vesta near Gamma Leonis (Algeiba). It passed right between the double star on the night of Feb 16-17. (I looked at it that night from San Pedro in a FirstScope, confirming the motion. I felt just like Heinrich Olbers!)

I changed to the 2" diagonal and Ultima 32 and we looked at Orion Nebula. Positively lovely colors of the stars in the Trapezium and great detail in the cloud at 64x.

Then we finished the party on the Pleiades, which overflowed the 70-degree eyepiece field. Too bad I didn't pack my focal reducer.

I forgot to take pictures of the scope - I guess I got carried away with the observing - so I did that the next day against the beautiful local scenery.

ShootingStars is an old Celestron scope from the early 80s that I rescued. It was filthy, completely neglected, the mount was in pieces. I decided to put the OTA on a new Celestron SE mount back in 2008. I completely disassembled the OTA and cleaned it by the beginning of 2009, collimated early in the year, got the SE mount arm, jumbo finder, got the vinyl wrap done in the spring then...the China eclipse trip intervened. Broken foot intervened, Life is what happens while you are making other plans.

The dovetail bar was the next issue. I had an aftermarket bar on a mounting plate. It didn't have a lot of travel for pushing the scope forwards for better balance. Plus I had to cut away my bezel to accommodate the mounting plate. So next, I bought a Celestron orange dovetail bar. Hector very kindly mounted it custom with a low-profile adapter to fit the old-school tube's different mounting holes.

The result of all this is a beautiful mix of old and new that I'll use to enjoy and share the sky with my friends and others.

First, take a look at the hardware to be assembled:

This is the scope, an old dovetail bar (from a 4SE) plus two dive straps from Sports Chalet (6 dollars)

Next, adjust and buckle the straps around the tube. Initially you'll leave about a finger's width of looseness to slip in the bar.

Slip the bar in with the narrow side against the tube under one strap.

Now slip the bar into the dovetail clamp on your mount. Here it is an Astro-Tech Voyager. Tighten the dovetail clamp.

Pull the other strap over the other end of the bar and tighten the straps. OBSERVE!

A tripod works too, because the dovetail bar has 1/4x20 taps.

Here I use a quick release plate and screw it to the dovetail bar after slipping both sides of the strap over the bar.

Voila! A tripod-mounted FirstScope.

All this without drilling any holes. Same straps will hold to many EQ mounts, like the PowerSeekers.

Next FirstScope adventures: solar filter! rings!