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Finally caved and moved my scope off the patio slab, and I feel a bit silly about it
For about 8 months I kept my little 6 inch dob on the back patio slab in Columbus because it was flat and easy, and I figured the concrete was fine. Last Saturday a guy in our club, Ray, kept telling me to try the grass strip 30 feet out past the fire pit, so I did it just to shut him up. Same scope, same eyepieces, same night, and the difference on Jupiter's bands and the Ring Nebula was not subtle, it was like someone swapped my eyepiece for a better one. Turns out the slab was soaking up heat all day and dumping it back out after sunset, which was blurring everything, and I never put two and two together in nearly a year. My yard even has a slight dip out there so I had to shim the base with a piece of scrap plywood to get level. Now I'm second guessing why I ever trusted a slab that sits in the sun until 7pm. If you've got a choice between concrete and grass in your own yard, have you actually compared them on the same target or are you just guessing like I was?
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