Darwin dark sky night

[bn1777]

Hi all , here are a few shots from last night , the 2 big Dob's are 20 and 22 inch and the black Dob in the back ground is a GSO 16 inch collabsable ( very nice optics that scope ) , my Istar was there as you can see and it got very positive remarks thru the night by every one . The 22 inch is fitted with 'Argo Navis' and what a sweet system its so easy to use , I saw more 11th-15th mag faint fuzzies last night than I have seen in my entire life up till then , cool stuff .

While I was on Venus the 20 inch owner 'Clinton' remarked , is this scope a triplet ? , he owns a nice TV 127mm and is keen to put our 2 127mm scopes up against one another .
The night was murky at about 5-6 out of 10 but I got some good views of the early moon , Venus , Saturn and at 4am Jupiter , nice .

Note my refractor was up and running before the big Dob boys were even 1/2 way thru setting up ,,
A great night and I hope you enjoy the photos .

Brian.

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[bn1777]

Here are a few more , the moon was low down in the mirk but note the lack of colour on Venus ?? this is one seriously good achromat .
Zero work , raw shots as usual .

I took a slightly out of focus star field shot to bring out the colours and check the lense columination , spot on I think .

Brian.

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[bn1777]

Here is Venus , zoomed in , still zero work , awesome !!! .
Brian.

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[mikey cee]

Yeah those big dobs are a hoot. Those guys spend easily half the night setting up and tearing down. If I wanted a hobby doing that I'd of got a job at United Van Lines. Pack and unpack then pack and unpack again. Faint fuzzies are about all they excel at anyways. A nice medium to large sized refractor is all anyone with good eyes could ever want or need. Heck Messier used nothing but speculum reflectors and 2"- 4" refractors period....it was all he could get. 8-)Mike

[Mike]

Brian, thanks so much for sharing and love the pictures. Landscape reminds me of here in southwestern Florida with the horizon to horizon views.

Mike