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Old 26-09-2009, 10:59 PM
mac (Matt)
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mac is offline
 
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: New Zealand
Posts: 138
First light, 10" GSO Dob

A few days ago I bought a GSO 10" Dob. I haven't owned or even looked through a telescope in years, and what I owned back then was nothing compared to this beast.

Unfortunately the weather has been awful recently, so it was only tonight that I got to take it outside for a look at the heavens. However, my observing location was restricted to my inner-city apartment balcony.

Despite this, I managed to get quite a bit of observing done, starting with Alpha Centauri (splitting the stars) - then NGC4755, the Moon, NGC6530, M22, the Butterfly Cluster, NGC6441, and Jupiter. I've never seen so many objects in a single night. It's partly thanks to the aperture of the scope, but mostly thanks to the use of Stellarium!

Jupiter was really something else. At first I could only see the two main cloud bands but after a while I could see four or five bands, as well as the dark spot in the lower atmosphere. I even tried my hand at taking a photograph of the planet afocally using my little Canon 40D, which worked out okay.

I'm a happy chappy. If only dark skies weren't so far away...
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