First light objects for Christmas noobies

[gazob]

Being a total noob and having a few books and a scope (10" dob) wrapped under the tree, tomorrow evening will be first light.

Looking at the forecast (sunbury) it doesn't look too horrible over the next fortnight, Christmas night partially cloudy early with clouds clearing by the early hours of the morning, boxing day night foggy, then 2 clear nights, early January is also looking okay at this point.

So Tomorrow night, what and when would be good first objects?

At this point looking from my driveway so have darker skies nw through ne, but limited views all round below about 30 degrees. If the skies are good and there is something low on the horizon know of a few public spaces I could utilise not far from home.

GaZ

[Astro_Bot]

To start you off:

Orion Nebula
47 Tuc
Pleiades
Jupiter (after about 10pm, maybe later depending on obstructions)

Congrats and welcome to IIS.

Edit: And since it's the season, try the Christmas Tree Cluster/Cone Nebula (NGC2264) which will be above Jupiter or thereabouts.

[gazob]

clouds seemed to roll through all night, but fr a short spell 11:30 to 1:30 had a nice clear sky and saw Jupiter, in the first instance clouds drifting in front and lowish on the horizon, but later it was higher and clearer and made out some details, and think we spotted 3 of the moons. With Christmas lights going on all around was hard to get dark adapted but they should die down over the next week.

We saw lots of stars and lots of details, but didn't know enough to know what we were actually looking at. If tonight is clear I think we will head out with a vry limited list of what to look for and some maps that will confirm when we find it.

Biggest issue at this point would seem to be getting a really good alignment of finder scope to main scope. Im thinking after one nights viewing a telrad or similar may not be such a bad idea, always thought I could roughly line the scope to the area of the sky I wanted to look, but to say I sucked at this is a bit of an understatement.

Also suggestions of height adjustable chairs were well founded.

Aerogard is also high on the shopping list today.

GaZ

[noeyedeer]

hi GaZ, least Santa was kind. the situation with the telrad vs finderscope is the telrad has no magnification, and since being in the burbs that possibly will annoy you more because you can't see the fainter stars you need to star hop to objects. those you can see with a finderscope.

is it a 50mm right angle? if so they should be fairly easy to align. I take my finder off when I move my dob because my hair normally gets caught in it somehow when carrying the scope.

easiest way is to put in a low mag ep in the scope say 20mm. use the eyepiece to locate a star/planet/moon, then quickly check the finderscope. give it a quick adjustment to get the object in centre, then check the ep. realign the object in the center of the eyepiece then jump to the finder again, fine tuning ... remembering that the right angle is correct, so up is up and down is down. through the telescope it is mirrored .. so it will be the opposite.

the key is to be quick because by the time you've switched between finder and scope, it's already moved, so allow for this when fine tuning ... goto higher mag with the eyepiece to verify you are pretty close.

I probably explained it not the best but with practice you should have it spot on within minutes. the thing to remember is the view between scope and finder is not the same orientation.

on mine one side of the finderscope is nearly touching the side of the bracket. I don't know if that's good or not, but that's how far I had to go to get it aligned.

matt

[acropolite]

Gaz, re the aeroguard, keep it well away from your optics, aerosols have a habit of etching optical coatings.
Re the alignment of the findersopen, just use a distant streetlight or similar to adjust.

[gazob]

thanks matt / phil, tonight looks a bust as far as solid cloud coverage, try again tomorrow evening.

yes 50mm ra, got it reasonably close with a distant tree, thinking I could get it closer in the evening usig a bright star, problem being it wasn't just one star, will try a streetlight, although there aren't too many of them in my fov (which in all cases bar this one I a good thing).


gaz

[Wavytone]

Gaz, roll-on insect repellant is safest, or alternatively lay out about 8 mozzie coils around you and light these.

If you really must use sprays, stand downwind of your optics. As per the earlier post these really do damage optical coatings.

[gazob]

Good views till 11:30 tonight,

Earlier in the night had fixed the alignment on the finder scope as best I could, the furthest unique object I could spot was still bigger then the fov of the 9mm eyepiece. Not to worry, near enough is good enough and all that.

Concentrated around Orion and came across a green cloud and a small cluster of stars worked out it was most likely m42, filled the 15mm eyepiece nicely.

Jupiter by this stage had risen above the garage enough for some more looks, easier to site as the finder scope was close enough for the 15mm, and bar lowing the 9mm gave some better, if not a bit wavery views.

Clouds started rolling through about 11:30 so called it a night, would like to get a look at the moon but it will be a few hours after rise before its high enough in the sky to clear the neighbours on that side, so will leave the moon till it rises at a more respectable time.

M42 was quite nice anything else around comparable to tracker down over the next few nights?

GaZ

[barx1963]

Gaz
When aligning the finder, use the lowest power eyepiece ie the one with the longest focal length, will make life a lot easier. I usually use a TV aerial during the day(of course being very careful not to point anywhere near the sun!!).

Malcolm