Yeeeeeeeha! I have had the best evening ever [/geek out]
After getting my first ever telescope for Christmas, and being foiled by clouds that evening, I got to have a look tonight. I took out my old pair of binoculars (having read repeatedly on this site and many others about the merits of binoculars - though my eyes seem to have trouble with binoculars; I can't seem to get rid of some diplopia
) as well as my shiny new 150mm Celestron Newtonian. I wish wish wish I had a "real" camera with which I could have recorded at least something of what I saw (naked eye stuff if nothing else) but that'll come later. I have yet to see how horrible the results with my point-and-click are
Anyway, I wasn't expecting Hubble-icious pictures through my eyepiece
so thankfully I wasn't disappointed. Hell, I've always loved the naked-eye sky, so it was always going to be at least that good through a telescope.
Being surrounded by bush, and therefore having no visible horizons to use in the methods described in my telescope manual, I was not exactly polar aligned
but I was having a blast looking at some of my favourite "sky stuff" as I found it. I started with Orion, which along with Sirius is one of my all-time favourites. It didn't look terribly different through the scope; my eyepiece is a 25mm so total magnification was only 30x. However, I did totally geek out on looking at Orion's belt, then sword, through a telescope.
I then had a peek at Mars. My first pleasure there was that I actually identified it naked eye.
Again, it was not much different through the scope with my low magnification - just brighter, really - but it was cool nonetheless.
Next was Sirius. Same story: immeasurably cool that I managed to point the telescope accurately at it, and that I was looking at my favourite star through a telescope.
Somewhere in there I noticed something rather bright, moving at a hell of a clip; one end of the sky to the other in maybe half a minute or so. Satellite??
The weirdest thing is that I couldn't find the moon
I dunno whether it was just rising (which could explain the glow in the East) and I couldn't see it for bush, or whether it hadn't risen (meaning the glow is bloody Penrith or something
) or whether I just had some fit of temporary perceptual loss.
On the topic of light, if there weren't a dirty great streetlight directly outside our house, I'd have a much better viewing spot. The sky is waaaaaaaay darker ... except for the damnable lights - especially the aforementioned one right outside our house. I might try out front, further up or down the road tomorrow night (maybe I should also try ... ummmm ... "inhibiting" ... the streetlight
)
Anyway, mammoth post over. I'm feeling like such a geek, and totally loving it.
Roll on tomorrow night.
... or if I happen to wake up in the early hours I might just have to have another look
Sorry for the essay. Byeeeeeee
