Your first night with a Telescope :thumbsup:

[sebastien]

Hey everyone :)

I was wondering how your first night was with your first ever Telescope, or a telescope that you bought (could be your 2nd telescope 3rd, 10th :) I don't mind) Include the excitement of it all, what you looked at, and what telescope it was, and date (if you remember :) )

I'll start off.

Yesterday I took out (after patiently waiting for days and days due to the clouds) my first ever telescope!!! It is a 6", 153mm, Dobsonian Sky-Watcher telescope. I can't even describe to you how excited I was over the moon ;)
I observed the following:- (Please forgive me for the spelling)
-Pleiades
-Sirius
-Procyon
-Achernar
-The 3 Stars in Orions Belt
-Canopus
-Rigel
-Betelgeuse

I tried to locate these, but with no success:-
-Great Orion Nebula.

My experience: It was quite hard for me (due to the fact that it was my first time) to locate with my scope some of these things. I failed to locate the Orion Nebula, which was a shame, but better luck next time :)

I had to always stop and wait a bit because of clouds coming in and then drifting away, but after 30-45 minutes I had to stop due to the clouds :cloudy:

I had a great first time, look forward to doing it again :thumbsup:
Your turn now :thumbsup: :)

Regards,
Sebastien.

[sebastien]

Ohh and I forgot, it was worth the massive mozzie bites afterwards :)

Regards,
Sebastien.

[seanliddelow]

The Orion Nebula is next to the Orion Belt. It is the "sword" of Orion. You may be able to see it with the naked eye as the a fuzzy reddish star, in the middle of 2 stars. It is above and right of Orions belt. If you look at Orion you can make out a tea-pot shaped pattern in which the belt is the bottom, the spout is the Orion Nebula and it is is pointing to the East. Also dark skies are a must for viewing this object although you still should be able to view it from urban skies. Do you have lots of light pollution near your house?

Hope this helped, Sean

[sebastien]

Yea, I knew where Orions Nebula is but thanks for the help :) :thumbsup: :)
I just found it hard to locate it with my scope it's so much harder than binoculars:lol::lol::lol: but i'm sure I'll get used to it:thumbsup: And yes I live in Sydney and there is heaps of light pollution near my house :o :o, I can now see what the guy at the Bintel shop who sold me my scope meant when he said how much better in darker and less light-polluted areas :)

Thanks a lot again for the help:thumbsup:

Regards,
Sebastien.

[erick]

Get some roll-on repellent. Don't use any sprays near your scope optics or eyepieces. If you get it on them - Yikes!

[sebastien]

Will do, thanks for the advice :)

Clear Skies,
Sebastien

[mithrandir]

Your Sydney location doesn't match up with the distance from here. Are you sure you haven't made a typo in entering the latitude and longitude in your profile? Unless of course, you are hiding from us. :)

Andrew

[Benno18]

My first night was a shocker!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Almost through it all away there and then. Venus was high in the south western sky and i couldn't focus correctly, using a 2x Barlow lens with a 4mm EP, wasnt the right thing either, considering I was using a small 60mm refractor.

But we all learn from our mistakes. With in the next few weeks, with a heap of research on what i was using, I was able to spot Saturn (my first planet properly seen), Pleiades, Southern Cross, and so on so fourth.

With the small scope i was able to learn the sky well and then making the leap to a 10' Dob made me appreciate the skys a lot more.

[sebastien]

Haha, I probably made a typo :S, but meh. And to Ben, yea I guess that that is just life :) Must be so awesome with a 10" !!!! Tonight was so much better though!! Saw Jupiter and its moons, the moon, which was amazing, pleiades, Great Nebula in Orion, and for the first time (i've always wanted to see these) 3 star clusters!!! Packed up just in time for clouds to start covering up :) I am still though very bad at tracking objects :S I find it very difficult to find certain stars, to locate objects, but to find the stars is a challenge :S, I tried for example to track the Magnellic Clouds, but did not suceed, (mmaybe i'll have better luck next time when I go to check out the Astronomy Club of N.S.W, in Epping :), I also failed to locate both the Tarantula Nebula (next to Magnellic Cloud) and the Crab Nebula. I unfortunately cannot see the Andromeda Galaxy due to houses being in the way, but once again, better luck next time in Epping :) Till then,

Clear Skies,
Sebastien.

[seanliddelow]

You should just be able to see the LMC with the naked eye its near Arctaurus and Canopus. You gotta see 47 TUC in the SMC:thumbsup:

[barx1963]

Hey Sebastian. Well done sounds like you are making progress. One question, does your scope have a finder? If it does, make sure it is aligned so what you see in the finder is in the scope.
You will find that both the Tarantula and 47Tuc should be visible in your finder, I see them easily with an 8x50, unless you have really bad light pollution.

Malcolm

[GrahamL]

Sounds a great time your having sebastien :)

one of these used with your finderscope would help you a lot
in regarded to finding and revisiting objects .

http://www.backyard-astro.com/equipment/accessories/telrad/telrad.html

[sebastien]

Thanks everyone so far with the help :)

To Sean- Thanks a lot with the help :thumbsup: greatly appreciated :)

To Malcolm- Yes, I do have a FinderScope:) But I live pretty close to the City in Sydney, so yea.. Light Pollution is pretty bad up here :S but I can still see some things :) I am starting to find it easier to track down things with my scope, and I do align my scope and Finder :)

And finally to NightStalker- Thanks for the Web Site :) Helps a lot, I am really considering wether or not to buy one (I probably should shouldn't I :) )


Thanks a lot again,
Sebastien.

[Lumen Miner]

The pollution could be worse here. I would hate to be closer, to the city than us. Most nights around Beecroft, after 1am it gets darkish.
I read somewhere about the club in Epping. I should check it out some time too.

[ericc]

Hi Sebastien,it good to hear your really enjoying the new scope.
Now all we need is the sky to clear up!
As Nightstalker suggested --
I also will vote +1 for the Telrad,it does make things so much easier(I actually use it alot more than the finder on my dob--its a brilliant product).
Cheers-Eric

[sebastien]

Thanks for the replies everyone :thumbsup:

First of all to Mitchell- Good on you for checking that club out :thumbsup: and good luck!!

And to Eric- I definetly got to check that thing out!!!! I MUST get one, they sound awesome :thumbsup:
Thanks again everyone;)

Regards,
Sebastien.

[Manav]

I remember the first time I had my scope and I saw the moon without using the EQ6. :screwy:

With the OTA lying on the bed and using pillows as stabilisers, I twisted my neck in awkward positions and finally got the moon centered. That made my night!

Next day I ended up getting a more powerful EP but had to wait a month before I could get the mount PSU.

[sebastien]

Bad luckk :) Just as well you got a more powerful one the next day :thumbsup:

Clear Skies,
Sebastien.

[Gemini2544]

My first light with my 3rd telescope was a nightmare with Colimination issues & focal distant problems, Stars looked like the uniform badge in STAR TREK. All fixed now & I learned heaps from the experiance.

I looked at M42 last night I can see clearly four small stars hidding in the middle of the center star within the nebula. Never knew they were there till last night. So my scope is fixed.

I hope you enjoy yours as much as I enjoy mine. :D

[erick]

Keep looking, there are two more fainter ones that can be seen under good conditions - the "E" and "F" stars :)

[barx1963]

Well done Doug. The Trapezium is one of my favourite targets. The E & F stars are certainly visible in my 12" here with average skies if the seeing is steady, you shouldn't have any probs where you are. Just be patient they are very faint! Only saw them the first time in October at Snake Valley.