Full Moon Feber (A)

So... it's hot and muggy/buggy and I'm doing my best to tolerate the full moon :(



Seeing wasn't great, but I was looking to the west to get some Mars/Venus action and I've got trees overhead, so you get what you get.



Venus - white and featureless (no big surprise since no one ever sees much when looking at Venus, still... it was nice getting up close and seeing a big white ball rather than a small white ball.



Mars - orange and featureless - the seeing was particular bad for this target and it was very wavy to look at. I'm sure the heat was an issue, but nothing to be done for that... Checked out the Beehive Cluster with my new 32mm Televue and it was very nice. Usually I end up looking at it through binoculars, but this was a pleasant change. For some reason it looked like it had less stars or something. I'm sure it's just my imagination and the single eye vs. both eye effect.



Discovered that collimating with my new laser tool showed me that you probably need to do your alignment with the scope pointed in the right direction (alt wise) since the motion of pointing from down to up can flex the tube and cause the collimation to be off quite severely. A different mount might improve this, but who knows?



During collimation I realized I need some Bobs Knobs to go tool less.


Spent a little time looking for about 5 galaxies in Leo with no luck, but they were 9th mag galaxies and that's pretty faint. Need to study up on my City Astronomy book to see what targets are the least susceptible to light pollution. My new filter is blocking some light, but I can't really tell if it's working the way it's supposed to.



I'll be honest. Reading my astronomy books and reading things like "easy to see details in a small scope" is depressing since I can't seem to pull it off with my largish scope. I'm sure it's a skill deficiency on my part, but I've not been able to pin down the problem yet. Anyway - I'm still learning and having fun, but toting that big mama-jamba isn't easy. I think next time I'll have to drop the cash and get something w/ capability, but lighter and smaller... easy to say when I don't have the cash :)