Opening my first telescope..

[Mars]

Yay I can finally open my new Skywatcher 8" Dob tomorrow!

So frustrating.. it's been sitting in a box at home since Monday (which was a beautiful clear night) and not to mention Tuesday (which was a beautiful clear night and a lunar eclipse) but unfortunately I've been told not to open it until tomorrow (Christmas)!

Apart from the weather forecast being shocking for the next few days.. all is good :)

Just thought I'd post as I'm quite excited to finally have my "first" telescope.

Patrick

[astroron]

:hi:Patrick Enjoy your scope when you open it tomorrw and may you have many many nights out under the AUSSIE SKY'S :thumbsup:Cheers and a merry Christmas to you

[Suzy]

What a fantastic Christmas present Patrick! :D
I too got my first dob. last christmas (tho I didn't wait for Xmas :rolleyes:). So exciting isn't it! Especially getting it on Christmas day!! Congratulations and a happy Christmas to you. :)

Kind regards,
Suzy.

P.S. If you would like to learn to be a keen visual observer, perhaps you might like to join us in the observing forum - lots to learn and lots of support. You'll be surprised at just how much you will learn to "see" after a while.

[justme]

I hear you Patrick!

We will be opening our first proper telescope tomorrow as well. Like you, we have got an 8" dob. I'm very excited. I'm hoping that the kids will just as excited - they have a love affair with the solar system so I imagine they will be very keen to start spotting moons and checking out Saturn's rings.

It's been sitting in my cupboard for weeks and weeks and I too wished I could have opened it for the lunar eclipse. Oh well, plenty more to see and we had a pretty sweet view of the eclipse anyway.

Enjoy your new telescope,
Merry Christmas

Cathy

[M110]

I have been away from astronomy for a number of yrs and I got rid of all my gear. So I had to buy another scope and I got exactly the some scope as yours. Mine arrived on Monday. Now if the damn sky would clear down here I can take it out and try it out. It's been nice clear all day today, until the sea breeze got up at about 4 and blew all this cloud in.

[Mars]

Thanks all for your kind responses!
I hope you all had a very Merrry Christmas also!

Upon awaking yesterday morning I enthusiastically opened up each of the boxes containing the telescope parts, though it wasn't until later in the day that I found time to assemble everything.

Although my "first light" viewing was met with scattered clouds and even complete cloud cover at one point in the evening, I was quite thankful that to be out under the stars, getting some real views through the new scope wherever the clouds were not :)

Still getting used to everything being reversed in the scope view and the associated difficulty of tracking in the right direction. The finderscope really made the job much easier once I aligned it with the scope. Even when trying to navigate from one point to another I'd sometimes lose my place and have to dive back to the finderscope to locate it again :)

Got to see the Great Nebula in Orion as a real shape through the scope, rather than just a slight blur through binoculars which was amazing! I attempted to view the nearby Horsehead Nebula (a long time favourite of mine) but I'm convinced this may not be possible at this aperture. Guess I'll save it for AstroImaging later on.

Jupiter provided some excellent viewing, along with four of its moons (most I could ever spot was two in the binoculars). I did observe that the image of Jupiter was not clear but shimmering, which I would put down to either bad seeing (combined with being low on the horizon by the time the clouds cleared) and being directly over a neighbours roof. So not ideal conditions. (To the more experienced observers, was the seeing quite bad last night?)

The moon provided some breathtaking images compared to what's possible with binoculars.. although I definitely need to get a filter for this type of viewing. The thing is astoundingly bright! I know it's not the right way but I did use a pair of sunglasses to try to cut down on some of the incoming light to manage a look without going blind.

Andrew, I just realised, it was not you who got the same scope as me, but me the same scope as you :D Actually, it was your post earlier this month in the classifieds that prompted me to look into the Skywatcher in the first place! Is it the Black Diamond flex-tube you ended up with?

Cathy, which brand is your new scope? How did you and your family find your first night out under the stars?

Thanks for the invite to the Observing Forum Suzy, I'll be sure to check it out.

Looks like the weather is going to be a big shocking for the next few days so we might be bound to the pc and books for the time being. Also for those of you (like me) also just starting out, make sure you check out Stellarium (www.stellarium.org (http://www.stellarium.org)) I cannot rate it highly enough! It is completely free software which shows you the night sky exactly as you would see it at your location and time. I take my touch screen laptop out with me now instead of a star map. Perfect!

Happy viewing to you all.

[Liz]

Congrats on the 8" Dob Patrick - sounds like you had it sorted quickly, and saw some bful sights!!

[astro_nutt]

Another congrats to you patrick!!! Soon you will be buried into info to find the wonderous sights that await you. Enjoy!!

[justme]

Wow! Sounds like you've had a great time so far Patrick.

We've been a little bit slower off the mark. The first night I let the kids stay up until full dark and it clouded over so much we decided not to bother. We may have been able to see something but I didn't want the kids first shot at it to be too frustrating.

Since then it's mostly been cloudy. Hubby and I took out the scope (Saxon brand) last night and had a general look around. We didn't really know what we were looking at, but the view was spectacular. Thanks for the link to Stellarium, I think it's just what we need to get started. I've already identified a few things to hunt for tonight although the kids might have to wait until tomorrow night. They'll be up for New Year's so they will hours of viewing if they want it.

Cheers,
Cathy

[Mars]

Thanks Liz and Astro Nutt :)

Hi Cathy, yes, the clouds sure have been a bother! Last night was actually pretty good viewing apart from some scattered cloud (unlike all the other nights since Christmas which have been terrible!) I spent quite some time stargazing last night, (only the second time out with the scope) so still coming to terms with the inverted image and physically moving the scope around the sky and locating objects, but I think I'm getting much better at it all. Managed to view Jupiter, the Pleiades, the Great Orion Nebula and a few other sights. I even accidentally spotted (and then followed) a satellite when I wasn't even looking for it!

In my opinion, the easiest thing to point the scope at for the kids would have to be Jupiter. It's bright and easy to find in the sky (no starhopping necessary) and using Stellarium you can even tell them the names of the moons that you're looking at (which adds to the cool factor!) There is actually a bright dot you'll see in the viewfinder to the bottom right which is masquerading as another of Jupiter's moons, near them but not in line with them, it's actually just a background star. The other four in a line are moons. Assuming I’ve set it up correctly on this computer, I’ve attached an image of what Jupiter should look like tonight at 8:30PM through a reflector, if it helps!

Note: The images you see in your scope will be inverted to what you see on the screen in Stellarium (or on a printed starmap) but using the Oculars plugin (Configuration Window F2 > Plugins > Oculars > (tick) Load at Startup, Configure) you can actually set it up so that using a key shortcut (Ctrl-O) it will show you a preview of exactly what the view would look like through your telescope/eyepiece with all the correct mirroring.

So far, looks like tonight and tomorrow will be good viewing, with conditions deteriorating on the weekend.

Good luck!

[Mutley]

Uranus is pretty close to Jupiter at the moment, Did you manage to spot it aswell ?? :eyepop:Clear skys and happy viewing :thumbsup:

[Mars]

Thanks Paul. I did actually pick it out on Christmas day as I had my laptop with me to help. Last night I didn't take the laptop outside so I had to guess which one it was. I knew it was near Jupiter just didn't know which of the nearer dots it was :) About to go out now so will definitely have a good look at it!

[justme]

Thanks Patrick, with the use of Stellarium we did manage to locate Jupiter and spot four of it's moons. Other than that we've just been having a look around. I think we may have had the Nebula in Orion last night as well as looking at Jupiter again. We had a few families over for new year's so of course all the kids wanted a look so there wasn't much viewing time allowed for anyone. :lol:

It's clouding over now so we might give it a miss tonight. I noticed Saturn should be up and about in a few days. We might make that our next target. Well that and the moon when it next makes an early(ish) evening appearance.

Happy stargazing,
Cathy

[astro744]

Some clarification on image orientation and terminology. A reversed image is one that is mirror reversed and shown back to front. Such an image will never match a star chart unless the chart too is mirror reversed. A mirror reversed image is formed when there are an odd number of reflections, eg. Refractor with star diagonal has one reflection (the diagonal) and will give a mirror reversed image as will a typical SCT with star diagonal which has three reflections (primary, secondary and star diagonal).

A Newtonian has two mirrors and will not give a mirror revesed image as will a refractor without diagonal or SCT without diagonal. However the image through such telescopes can be upside down which is NOT the same as mirror reversed. Depending on how you turn your head the image may be on its side but still NOT mirror reversed.

Next time you look at Jupiter determine North & East by nudging the telescope and seeing which way the planet moves and start to look at the sky in terms of N/S/E/W. With a very low power eyepiece and a good star chart you can hop from one location to another easily once you know your orientation and your directions.

Enjoy your new 'scope; an 8" is a very good size telescope and will show you many many objects.

[Mars]

Thank you very much for that clarification and information, astro744.

I must admit I did not even realise the image is actually only rotated (up-side-down I believe) in the dob, not "mirror reversed" as you described. Interesting to know that I can just turn a star chart upside down for the orientation to be correct!