March 22, 2009 Observing Report

I ordered the eyepiece off of William Optics Ebay store on Tuesday and it arrived from Taiwan on in great shape on Saturday. After a quick view tonight, I have to say it was $180 well spent. The eyepiece was brand new in a sealed bag.


I coupled it with the Orion ED80 and it really shone on M42. Not only was the nebula in clean view, but also the surrounding nebula. Also with that wide field of view it was lovely to not have to slew the scope as much. The mount jiggles too much as is.

Next I went to M45 and was floored with the amount of stars that showed. You have to remember that I am upgrading from the Orion Sirius 25mm. This eyepiece rocks!
There is one problem though. Now I want to round out the eyepiece set with the 4mm, 7mm and 2-inch 28mm. The latter will require a 2" Diagonal. Yeah, this is a serious issue, but first I have to address the mount problem.

After putting the little ones to sleep, I went back out for round 2 of the observations. This time I headed for some different objects. M44 was killer, the Beehive was sparkling with nice crisp stars. I then tackled M67 and was quite happy to see it for the first time.

I then headed over to Saturn and quite enjoyed the planet with several of the moons. After that I closed the session with another first, the Leo Triplet. I could never get this grouping with any of the other eyepieces, but with the 17mm UWAN, it was as clear as day. I was psyched.

Objects seen:
M42
M45
M44
M67
Saturn
Leo Triplet (M65, M66, NGC3628