[Biscuits]

Hi Everyone,

I'm a complete and utter newbie to telescopes - I've always looked up at the night sky when I've gone camping and thought it would be cool to get a telescope so I've finally bitten the bullet and bought a cheapie just to give it a shot.

The postman dropped off my telescope last night - a 6" newtonian (f=750mm, ET-8 mount, chinese knock-off) from ebay - so I bolted it all together and decided to give it a whirl ... after a bit of mucking around I managed to get the moon in focus and gave all the various lenses a go.

Suitably impressed, I pointed it to the brightest star in the sky (i have a feeling it was Venus, but I really have no idea what im doing just yet). After 15 minutes of trying to get it in focus I gave up. The best I could get was a round white blur.

So i'm curious - was my blurry planet due to the fact I was using my telescope in my backyard (in the middle of 'bright' suburbia)?

Cheers,
Dave.