Hi IceInSpacers,
I'm Tim, a n00b who unexpectedly stumbled across an almost-free Celestron 114mm Newtonian telescope. As in, it was at the tip shop, sitting there on what I now know to be a Germanic Equatorial mount tripod, next to the mandatory pile of bikes and discarded exercise equipment. I'm sure there are plenty on this forum who will scoff at such a low-end instrument, but hey, the price was right...
I'm an automotive R&D engineer, and my wife is a chemistry/physics teacher, so we have a bit of the geek gene, which we have passed on to our 7yo daughter who is extremely keen to see what our new telescope can show.
The problem (and I assume a major part of how this instrument ended up at the tip) is that our 'scope has no eyepieces. That's my first mission - to get a lens to look through, re-align the mirrors (they look to be not very straight from looking down the eyepiece holder, but have adjustment screws easily accessible, and I'm pretty comfortable adjusting and hacking lab equipment), and get me a look at some sky.
We're in central Ballarat, which has darker skies than a big city, and obviously we can get out to the middle of nowhere pretty easily from here
