Quote:
Originally Posted by darkskybondi
Yes - dogstar you are absolutely right. I have all the house lights off and I am blessed with VERY dark urban skies here in my neighbourhood - the only thing apart from horizon light pollution (which kills much of my view to the south and west, but we'll get to that another day!) are a coupe of street lights from about 700 metres away. Not a big deal.
The problems as I see it were:
- I wasn't dark adjusted at all
- The seeing is not great tonight
- I am inexperienced
- Mirrors hadn't had sufficient time to cool
- The mirrors are ineptly collimated - in other words, really quite uncollimated
- the mirrors are a little dusty because mine was the display model in the shop.
However. Seeing the Orion Nebula - even though it didn't blow my socks off - gave me great faith that things will go only up from here!
CHEERS!!! 
DSB |
Add maybe that your expectations were not realistic.
Probably worth taking the mirrors out and washing them (there is a right and wrong way of doing this).
Also recollimating the optics will be worthwhile. (I'd try that first before washing the mirrors , that might be all that's needed, a bit of dust on mirror is tolerable).
Dark adaption is important (at least 15-20 minutes of no bright lights) will make a huge difference.
Pretty hazy tonight here (Gateshead), can see no clouds and can see stars , but there is a lot background reflected light off the haze. I wouldn't bother getting the scope out under that kind of condition - seeing is bad.
Concentrate on objects that are relatively high above the horizon, their light passes through less atmosphere and they look better than when lower in the sky.