Tonight was very clear before the moon came out. Transparency was about 7 out of 10. I got to test a new eyepiece. Ended up getting a used BO/TMB 4mm off of Astromart and I have to say I was very impressed. The FOV is great compared to the plossls and the eye relief is so big that it too some getting used to. Also, the 4mm eyepiece gives me a magnification of 150x, which is at the limit of the 80mm scope.
Jupiter looked good, but I think it suffered from late summer haze. I could see several cloud bands, but could remember a more contrasty image on better viewing nights. The size was still impressive though.
M27 lost some detail as I went from the 10mm plossl to the 4mm BO/TMB, but M57 was another story. The 4mm eyepiece brought out some extra detail in the Ring. I loved the view and could have stayed there longer, but the moon was starting to rise, and I wanted to see some globulars.
I moved to M13 and M92. Both looked great in the BO/TMB eyepiece. I could actually resolve some core detail in both. I was surprised at this, because I thought such a high mag eyepiece would cause some loss of detail. The moon was my last subject of the night. It ended up being my favorite too. What detail this eyepiece showed and with little loss of light.
Tonight I also split Albireo, in Cygnus, at 30x with the 20mm Sirius Plossl. It was quite the sight. The secondary star had a bluish tint to it, while the primary was yellow. M31 also provided some good views to it. I would like to devote some more time to it as it gets higher in the sky. It is definitely worth a trip to darker sky.
My only complaint tonight was the mount. I definitely feel that I am using it beyond it's capability. I had problems keeping some object in view and could not track as well as I wanted to.
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