[The Mrs]

Originally Posted by erick

Just remember, Christmas night, come back on and ask all the questions needed if you run into any problems getting set up. Pity no evening Moon, nor evening Saturn that night. Go for Jupiter and Venus in the dusk - the brighest points of light to the West! Then as it gets dark, try 47 Tucanae and the Tarantula nebula (NGC 2070 in the LMC = Large Magellanic Cloud). You should be able to see them.

You might want to print out the Southern Hemisphere Dec 2008 map from this site:-

http://www.skymaps.com/downloads.html

And have it handy to help find things. Note that it doesn't show you the location of the Moon or the planets.

Happy Christmas Viewing!

Thanks Eric! Will definitely come back on and introduce my husband to this site.

Originally Posted by Coen

Now, realise that as soon as you open the box, have it set up and ready to use that it will rain or be clouded over for at least a week

I hope you and hub enjoy the telescope. I have been enjoying mine, as have the two oldest kids.

Get hold of some good star atlases, planisphere or some such other navigational aid (if you have not already). I recommend Taki's star charts (free, downloadable PDF's down to magnitude 8.5); he even has build your own planispheres. There is also the Tri-Atlas series but the maps are more cluttered (lots of great information) and some free to magnitude 7 atlases too. These help with either finding things to try and look at or finding out what you have just looked at. Plenty of free star-charting/planetarium type software to help as well, some are small downloads others (with lots of catalogues of information) are not so small. There are a number of web-sites that have a constellation by constellation break-down of objects to see. There are plenty of lists too.

If you want/need some suggestions on what might be good to start looking at, only need ask. The great thing is this time of year - Orion, Canis Major, Puppis through to Carina/Crux are all starting to rise again. Lots of great open clusters, globular clusters, double stars, nebulae and the like.

Note with the EQ1: if it comes with the motor drive, I found once it was situated where indicated I tended to find either the telescope tube or the counter weight would bump into it. I took it off (don't really use it anyway). I have since rigged it differently, screwing the motor mounting bracket on one of the tripod legs and getting an old long "slow motion" control cable from an old telescope mount and using that to extend the drive. The cable is a bit stiff and so there is a bit more pressure on a few points but on the whole it makes the motor drive more useful as it does not nearly interfere as much now.

I've heard of the astro Murphy's Law! I'll get him the Astronomy 2009 book and maybe a planesphere too.

I'm pretty sure it's not a motor drive but that's a nice little tweak you've done.

Originally Posted by xelasnave

Great news... I just thought of something...the image is upside down so dont be shocked...but you can get an erecting prism which could be worth looking into.. I cant remember if we covered that...
alex

Oh, no, I didn't think of that! Doesn't matter because really, I don't think we'll use it for terrestrial viewing. I think the binos would be good enough for that. But interesting to know that you can get something to flip it back around!