Poison

A couple of days ago, we held an observation session at Bishan Park for the public to come view the first-quarter Moon, Jupiter, and M42. It was a good time to put my newly acquired C6 SCT to the test. The collimation held even though it suffered a considerable bump on the door just as I was leaving home for Bishan Park.

I was foolish enough to think that I was satisfied by the views that the C6 SCT has offered. Boy, was I wrong.

Gary came over silently like a cat and deftly mounted his binoviewer onto the C6 when I was enjoying my dinner. I was just beside my telescope when both Dave and Gary turned and gave me a sheepish smile. My eyes widen upon seeing the binoviewer! I knew the view had to be awesome with it!

Not disappointed, I got the same feeling as I did when I first saw Saturn through a huge telescope about three years ago. I was awestruck, breathless, and dumbfounded all at once. The Moon looked supremely amazing through a binoviewer with a twin 20mm eyepiece. It really feels surreal to look at celestial objects up close with both your eyes. Dave and Gary left me for a brief time to entertain the crowd at their stations. I gave myself the pleasure of switching celestial objects - from the Moon to Jupiter.

Oh my goodness.......................................

At this point in time, no words can convey how I felt when I saw Jupiter with both my eyes at 75x magnification. It's totally different. The Great Red Spot was present and that was a huge bonus that only made the viewing experience wayyyyyy sweeter!

I think I am hooked by this binoviewer. In our group, when we are addicted to something, we term it as "poison". I think I have been poisoned by binoviewers.

Just when I thought that nothing else can poison me, here comes Dave 2" click-zoom eyepiece from Baader. Having used the regular 1.25" eyepiece, I personally know how tough it is to view at objects, especially when you have no tracking mount to work with. Due to Earth's rotation, I have got to constantly shift the manual mount to place the object into view again. I have to do this often as the magnification goes higher and higher. With a good quality 2" zoom eyepiece that offers a wide field of view (FOV), I figured that I wouldn't need to do the adjustments that often. It can be very tiring to amateur astronomers.

However, there is another equipment that I have got to get before getting the eyepiece. I have got to switch to the 2" diagonal with SCT treading in order to fit the 2" eyepiece.

Also, I thought of getting myself a better finderscope, the Rigel Quikfinder. I am now stuck with a 6x30 finder that requires me to set myself in yoga positions to find object in the sky.

Got to save money to get all these stuff, man. It ain't cheap.