First Light Orion Stratus Collection

Date: March 11, 2008
Equipment: Skywatcher 10" Dob, Stellarium 0.9.0, accessories
Viewing Duration: 8:52pm to 10:05pm
(not including set up and take down)
Location: Back Deck.
Light Pollution: Heavy light pollution to the east. Very good seeing. One house light on timer south of me that came on occasionally. Was only set to stay on for a short period.
Weather: +3.1 deg C, Wind W 19 to 31 km/h, baro press 100.9
First Light: 17mm, 13mm, 8mm, 5mm Orion Stratus
Observations: First target was mars. Amazing views. Second target was Orion Nebula looks great with the 68deg Field of view on the Stratus. Was Particularly pleased with field of view on the 8mm. Next Target was the Pleiades cluster. With the 17mm the field of view was a little narrow but still a nice view. Next target, Sirius, looks great. Preferred to use the 17mm on Sirus. Next was the Andromeda galaxy. This is the first time I found it. My preference was the13mm. At this point I made minor adjustments to my finder scope to fine tune it. Next target was Saturn and enjoyed it particularly with the 8mm and 5 mm. Finished looking at Saturn with the 13mm. Dragged my daughter out to have a quick look even though it was after her bed time. Next stop, Regulus while I still had the 13mm in place. Then it was off to the moon started with the 8mm, then 13mm, and the 17mm ended up the best. Pulled out the antares nd25 filter to cut back on the light and examined the moon for some time. Great terminator viewing this evening. lots of crater in crater views and great viewing. At first the antares filter made it seem like it was cutting the view back a little to much but once my eye adjusted to it I liked it alot! Using the 2" 28mm that originally came with my skywatcher I snuck in a final wide view of Orion Neb and the entire sword (with some minor movement) and one more view of the moon. Temp was dropping pretty fast and I had to get up early so I called it a night and packed up.
Summary: Love my new Orion Stratus eye pieces! Glad I got them. And I love Stellarium as it helped me to star hop to Andromeda and view it for the first time. Thanks also to everyone at Cloudy Nights for the information and help!