This night is “first-light” for the Giro-II mount in Sena de Luna. Certainly, it’s a pleasure to set-up the telescope in less than 5 minutes. Without the list of doubles for the project nor maps of the sky, I only can find Polaris.

As usually, it’s an easy split at low magnifications and both Naglers offer splendid views, but seeing is seeing, and I remember the split was more clear using a Televue Ranger at 48x on a night with Seeing and Transparency = 10 than tonight with the Takahashi. It’s what I repeat night after night: the most important part of the optics in a telescope is the atmosphere!

This night was also the “Neat Comet” night. Loveley view in the Tak with a 35mm Eudiascopic at 23x and with the 16mm Nagler. The wonderful thing was the fact that the Neat comet was in the same field of view of M44, producing an unforgettable sight. Interestingly the best view was obtained with a pair of 8x40 Pentax binoculars that perfectly framed the event.
 

 I've looked at Polaris so often I almost know by instict where to look
for the secondary. It's interesting when you read old texts that
splitting Polaris used to be a test of your telescope optics. Now
almost any scope can do it and at quite modest powers. It's still fun
to split which I do almost every chance I get.