ATM Baffling, open truss telescopes, goto motor drive, and daytime observing

["Tom Krajci" <tkrajci@san.osd.mil>]

I just wanted to pass on a testimontial of what an open truss (no
shroud), but reasonalby well baffled scope with decent goto pointing
(courtesy of Mel Bartels' software) can do.

This weekend we went on a camping/astrnomy trip to the mountains near
Chimgan, outside of Tashkent.  I set up and observed 90 minutes before
sunset:  Jupiter and Mercury.  Jupiter was about 15 degrees from the
sun, and Mercury was about 30 degrees away from the sun.  Jupiter was a
tough target, but dectable.  Mercury was a pretty, sharp gibbous disk.
(I aligned on the moon...four days old, and easy to find in the daytime
sky.)

See:  http://overton.tamu.edu/aset/krajci/
Specifically:
http://overton.tamu.edu/aset/krajci/dobsonian/dobsonian.htm    ... and
the bottom portion that talks about the 'baffle train' to get an idea of
the baffling system used.

Have other people observed in daylight, when the planets were 15 to 30
degrees from the sun?  What results did you have?

Tom Krajci
Tashkent, Uzbekistan
 

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