Autumn is pretty much my favourite season. I think it reminds me a lot of the first term at University which was generally always the least stressful. After a disappointing summer where I failed to observe any bright Noctilucent Cloud displays it has been great the last few weeks to see the nights drawing in and the stars peeking out ever earlier. The leaves turning, scarves coming out and crisp mornings all make this pretty much my favourite season. In the sky we’ll see the return of Andromeda and soon the first appearance of Orion in the evening sky. This is the time of the year when you remember how much you love astronomy and being out there under the skies.

To celebrate all of the above I recently bit the bullet and purchased myself a portable observing set-up which will compliment the 8” Newt I already own (but which is down at my parents house due to storage issues up here in Scotland). After much research into the burgeoning 80mm doublet market I am now the proud owner of:

Vixen ED80sf (80mm F/7.5 Semi-Apo Refractor)
Vixen Portamount (Alt-Az)
Moonfish 2” Diagonal
Moonfish 2” 30mm Ultrawide Eyepiece

It took a couple of Saturdays to take delivery of everything but finally earlier today I had everything in place and, coming back from the pub, I noticed that the stars were shining overhead in what initially appeared a reasonable, clear sky.

A big factor for me in buying this kit was being able to easily carry everything in one trip around to my observing location. With the diagonal and eyepiece finding a home in the telescope case this was achieved, although I still need to find a space for the mount’s plastic accessory tray.

It took only a few minutes to get everything ready, the mount extended and accessory tray attached, the OTA onto the mount via the dovetail plate, finderscope onto the OTA, 2” diagonal, then the eyepiece. It is all weighty stuff and although the tube is reasonably balanced I found that the tension in the mount axis was not sufficient to hold the scope when moved away from the horizontal. Given that it was (obviously) dark I didn’t want to spend too much time playing around with Allen keys so this is something I will sort before my next session.

With sky quality degraded by high level cloud I chose some of the more obvious targets for my first light and it was the bright, nearly full Moon that attracted my attention to begin with. The 30mm eyepiece gives a huge field of view, the Moon sitting nicely in the centre with plenty of black space surrounding it. The focus was pinsharp and the action very smooth. Colours were excellent with no hint of aberration. My only problem was internal reflections from lights across the way. It was a stunningly detailed view and I spent a few minutes taking it all in.

Next I used the wide Field of View to observe both M45 and the Double Cluster. The Pleiades fit perfectly into the field of view, their blue colour apparent against the jet black sky. The collimation looked good with symmetrical airy discs on both sides of focus. Unfortunately the sky was really deteriorating and by the time I swung up to the Double Cluster, almost directly overhead, it was a murky and faint target. Still, it fitted nicely into the FoV and this will definitely be a target to return to.

With more and more cloud moving in I packed up and headed back inside. Putting everything away only took a couple of minutes. I’m hugely pleased with my purchase and can’t wait to get more observing in as the season progresses.