Evening All,
I bit the bullet on Monday and ordered a brand new Skywatcher 12 inch collapsible dob. Arrived yesterday, and I was lucky enough that the sky was relatively clear come the night time, albeit with some intermittent cloud cover that got heavier as the night progressed...
I still don't think the scope is perfectly collimated, but I'm pretty sure its close enough. This is my first reflector, but I found the process to be quite quick and simple
Anyway, once the first few stars started coming out I raced outside and couldn't wait to get set up. The initial alignment for the goto was easy with Canopus and Sirius both bright, although not far apart. While I was there I had a good look at both stars, and wow, they looked incredible through this scope
I couldn't wait to see more.
We then went down to M42, and I was amazed and the detail seen there. There was a lovely green hue to it all, and the trapezium was clear as day. It really was some sight.
By then, some cloud hit so we took a break for 30 minutes. Once that was over we used the goto to find The Ghost of Jupiter and it could easily be seen, but it was hard to increase magnification on it as seeing was rather average. Still, it was quite a sight!
We were lucky enough by that time that Saturn was beginning to rise
Both my partner and I were so excited to see it, and we were certainly impressed. I could definitely see 5 moons, and the detail was wonderful. Again, it was hard to push a higher magnification due to the seeing conditions. We were able to get up to around 200x and it was amazing.
From there, we got the goto to find the Sombrero Galaxy, which could be rather easily made out in a 24mm Panoptic, but it was brilliant through a 13mm Nagler. Still very much a faint fuzzy, but the detail was certainly there!
The clouds began rolling in again, so we had time for one more target, Omega Centauri. Again, it looked great in the 24mm, but it pretty much filled the FOV in the 13mm and the resolution there was wonderful.
Unfortunately, I'm rather limited with what parts of the sky I can see from my house, anything south is very hard to see unless it rises high in the sky. However, when I go to my partners place, that part is very much in full detail and I can't wait to get there and see some of those sights.
I take this point to apologise to all Brisbane residents for the cloud cover tonight, I hope it clears up soon cause I really can't wait to get back out there and use this amazing telescope. Money well spent, I'm a very satisfied customer
