Starting out in astronomy again..

[Binca (Bianca)]

Hi guys!

Around 7 years ago I got really into astronomy, did some research, and bought my first telescope. It was a Celestron Astromaster 130 EQ. I never read the manual properly, but I managed to use it reasonably well considering, although I never worked out how to align it or use it properly, I was just about to sort of point and shoot and find what I was looking for.

When I moved house, I started to lose interest because there is so much light pollution where I live now, and my car at the time struggled to fit the scope. I then had less and less time for astronomy due to uni. I still kept the scope in easy reach though, just in case.

Then came the dreadful day when my dog decided to jump on me, bowling me over onto the telescope, and sending it flying. The stand snapped, and I didn't know what damage might have been done elsewhere. So I gave up on astronomy after that, which was 1 and a half years ago.

Yesterday I decided to pull the telescope out of storage, and we fixed the stand. Yay! As soon as we get a cloud free night, I am going to test it to see if everything else is working. I'm no expert, but if the images look clear I will be happy.

I have also downloaded the telescope guide, so I can learn how to use it properly this time, if nothing is too broken! I do have a bit of a crappy back though, and I do remember that it always made my back sore after a while. I'm hoping learning to use it properly so I can find things quicker will help. If not, I'll just sulk and load up on pain killers, and maybe eventually consider a new scope.

But yeah, I thought I would re-introduce myself here, because I'm sure I will end up with lots of questions, especially as I get back into it. I'm testing the scope out in my backyard first, because even with light pollution I should be able to see things reasonably well, just obviously not as well as I could.

I look forward to meeting everyone!

[Chippy3476 (Danial)]

Hi Bianca,
I would dare say that if your scope fell hard enough to break the tripod then it will almost certainly need to be collimated, i have been using a 114 newtonian for a year now and the other night I realised that it needed to be collimated, i have never done it before so im a little worried but yesterday I picked up my brand new 8" dob so I thought that I can practice colimating on my 114 becouse inevitable one day I will need to colimate the 8" and that terrifies me!! but it sounds pretty easy but we will soon see
Anyway welcome to iss you will meet alot of nice helpfull people on this site I guarantee that, I have been helped out so much by alot of members of this site,
Dan

[Binca (Bianca)]

Thanks! I don't know what collimating is, but I'll look it up. I honestly don't remember how hard the scope fell, but the point where the tripod snapped turned out to be a weak point, which looks like it can break quite easily. We have reinforced it with plastimake, which is actually a lot stronger!