Extracting the essense - where less is just fine

March 9-10 pm/am T5S2, T5S3

I really can't pin this one down, but I keep getting attracted to the 66mm scope and leaving the 15-inch Obsession sitting idle right beside it.

i think there might be two reasons - one is, more often than not the 66mm gives me the essence of an astronomical object. I don't need more to get the experience I seek. The second reason has to do with the human scale of things. The 66mm seems like an extension of my body, as any good tool can - the 15-inch feels like its own, independent machine. It allows me to use it. But it's not part of me.

I guess this is roughly akin to the feeling I get when I'm on the river in one of the small - 8-foot - fiberglass kayaks. These are wonderful little boats, though no one in their right mind would think they could match the trakcing, sped, and grace of a good touring kayak, twice their length. But the thing about the 8-foot boat is I feel like I'm wearing it. I become part of it, as it cuts through the water. It's low and sleek and even small waves will put its deck awash, yet with my legs pressed against the inside and my center of gravity near or below the waterline, I felt like an extension of the boat - I'm sort of a conning tower on a minature submarine.

So it is that the small refratcors - the 66mm, 80-mm and 100mm, all feel like extensions of me - sort of like super eye glasses. But obviously they can't do what the big mirror on the Obsession can do - drink in lots of light to reveal details in faint, very distant objects. But the difference, especially if you're an experienced observer, isn't as great as you might imagine.

Last night I was using both scopes to look at M81 and M82, a pair of galaxies about 12 million light years away, That's close by astronomical standards, but ridiculously distant for anyone who gives it a moment's thought. The simple fact is the 66mm showed me that M81 is clearly a spiral galaxy, angled in such a way as to give us a fine view. And M82 is clearly an irrregular, spindle-shaped galaxy of mottled appearance. (When I say M81 is a clearly a spiral I don't mean I can see the spiraling - I mean I can see the core and with averted vision see how that the spiral arms extend well beyond the core - but they don't look liek spiral arms - they look like a faint glow with no specific form. )

But that's the essence. Seeing that much my brain and imagination can fill in the blanks. and the 15-inch showed me that much - much better. But not so much better that I was able to extract any additional , meaningful information. Oh a scientist certainly would get more information out of the scene. And any dedicated galaxy observer would see more with either telescope than I do. But what i am looking for is simply the awesome experience of being in contact with - of interacting with the photons from - billions of stars, millions of light years away. I can do that with the 66mm.

Similarly, this morning I was using the same two scopes to look at M57, the Ring Nebula in Lyra. Now this wasn't easy. not with the 66mm, thought the ring is a mere 5,000 light years away. At low power the ring is next to impossible to find inthe 66mm unless you are very familiar with the star pattern surrounding it. It leaps right out at you with the 15-inch if it is inthe field of view at all. So score one for the 15 inch. However, increase the power on the 66m and again, the essentials of the ring are there - you do see a ring - a smoke ring - and with the small scope there's enough information available for your brain and imagination to go to work. Witht he 15-inch you certainly see more detail and the centrail "hole" is much darker.

BTW - high pwoer is the eyw ith the samll scope. we talk a lot about the real goal of a telescope is light grasp - gather inore photons so you can see fainter objects and more details. But additional power is crucial to seeing more as well. This is why the 66mm has a distinct advantage over something like a 15X70mm binocular. I like the two-eyed view of th ebinocular, but there's onlys o much you can see at 15X and the essence of the ring - or for that matter, M81 and M82 - ar enot really there at that power. You need 50, 80 of even the maximumf or this scope - 129X, to extract the essence of these objects.

Uh oh - I think I'm heading for a large binocular with interchangeable eyepices. Damn. Just when I thought I had the equipment game completely under control ;-(

Gotta sell - gotta sell more. Let's see. sell the 66mm and 80mm - sell the 8-inch Celestron - that would justa bout do it - maybe sell the 5-inch celestron as well so I get decent eyepieces for the binocular scope . .. oh boy. Here we go again. But I do love th esmall refractors. . . so sell the Celestrons.

But wait! First explore using the binoviewers. Less will be needed to make them to work, light grasp isn't critical to me, as I've justntoed, but pristine images are. with th ebinoviewers I get the quality of the Ed scopes.

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OK - more observing notes from these two sessions:

M65/66 - Hmmm . . . I see M66 as brighter. The author's of "Turn Left at Orion" see it as brighter. O'Meara is emphatic in seeing M65 as a half magnitude brighter than M66. I'll stick with my observation. In 12X36 binoculars and the 66mm scope I pick up M66 first, then M65. I only get hints of NGC3628. In the 15-inch all three re visible, though NGC3628 is ghostly.

Kemble's Cascade - checked it out again inthe 12X36 IS - counted between 20 and24 stars. Of course, it deepends on how you define the cascade. I may be including some bunched at one end that others might not.

Double Cluster - just gave it a cursory look in the 12X36 IS - two things struck me. One was how different these lcusters look, one from the other. The second was a long arc of stars to the west between the cluster and Cassiopeia. This consists of about a dozen stars between magnitude 6 and 9.

In the morning . . .

Double Double - Split acceptably with the 15-inch 211X. Only hinted of a split int he 66mm at 114X.

M11 - charming in the 66mm - despite morning twilight and low altitude - at 80X. Single bright star with a sprinling of granular sugar about it in a trianglular pattern. (In the 15-inch this takes on the feeling of flying over a city at night with reular, well-lit streets. No such detail seen in the 66mm - it's a much different object. Which is why one scope will not replace the other.