Saturday night Clara and I helped do outreach at Fremont Peak. We brought the 10" Dobstuff and had an enjoyable night. Clara got more used to moving the telescope and was able to find Jupiter & Saturn on her own. Once it was fully dark I showed off the eastern Veil Nebula for the public. Before we packed up we had a go for the comet C/2018 W2 Africano, which I was able to find pretty easily. The finder chart got me in the general area and some spiral searching brought me to a faint but easily noticeable glow, about half a degree across, with a brighter central region and faint & diffuse coma. I did not notice a psudo-nucleus but I did notice the beginnings of a tail.
I like the 10" very well but I hate the Destiny secondary mirror holder, it cannot hold collimation. I am replacing it with an Astrosystems which is on the way. I want to replace the focuser too, since it doesn't handle heavy eyepieces. It could be a great little scope with some minor improvements.
CalStar starts on Wednesday, but the weather does not look promising. In any case I can't get out this weekend.
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