Hi there
my name is Gino, I'm from Darwin, in my 40's and I've been lurking here for about 4 months.
After doing some research, attending a local astronomy course and joining the DAGs (Darwin Astronomy Group) for a couple of nights viewing, I decided to splash out and buy my first serious telescope. It's a GSO 16" truss tube dobsonian from Andrews Communications and boy is it big.
I was originally going to get a Skywatcher 14" GOTO but my research indicated that the GSOs had slightly better optics. I also weighed up the convenience of the goto compared with the less complicated (less to go wrong), cheaper and bigger aperture of the GSO and the big, black bad-boy won. Besides, I can always add Argo Navis later if I really need GOTO.
Now some will argue that my first scope should be of a more manageable size etc but I'll qualify my decision by stating that I made sure it would fit in the car before ordering it and that I'm 6'3 , 110kgs and go to the gym 3 times a week. But having said that, the 16 is a beast even for me.... but manageable and boy those views
First light was about 3 weeks ago and I've had it out twice since. Our dark site is located Just 60 kms out of Darwin and the skies are generally pretty good this time of year apart from the odd bit of smoke haze. The wet season however will see the dob hibernate for almost half the year I suspect.
First objects viewed were Saturn (easily saw 4 moons), Omega centauri
Alpha Centauri double and the Sombrero galaxy. I've since seen the triffid nebula, more globular clusters than I could count as well as familiarizing myself with the moon. A goto would have found more items once set up but I doubt the set up would have been faster than the GSO which takes me about 20 minutes including collimation with a laser collimator. Besides I'm rather proud that I found the triffid all by myself with a little help from Stellarium.
I've got one GSO wide view 30mm 2" eye piece and 1.25s in 25mm, 15mm 9mm and 6mm. I'm having fun with those and to my inexperienced eyes the views are pretty good. Only problem I'm having at the moment is finding things with the 30mm before scrambling with the adapter ring to fit the appropriate 1.25 eyepiece. Not in a hurry just yet, but I'm thinking of getting a TV 24mm Panoptic for lower power viewing with the new 10mm Delos helping to keep the planets in the FOV for longer. What do people think
I should also point out that the savings I made going for the 16 ($700) has been spent on freight, a Telrad, a lazer (using the DAGs as my personal biological GOTOs), a star-wheel and several books.
Below are some pics of the beast and I'd just like to finish off by saying that I'm really looking forward to learning as much as I can from the people here who have been doing this for much longer than I. What a great resource to have.
http://i669.photobucket.com/albums/v...f/SAM_1792.jpg
http://i669.photobucket.com/albums/v...f/SAM_1796.jpg
http://i669.photobucket.com/albums/v...f/SAM_1793.jpg
http://i669.photobucket.com/albums/v...f/SAM_1795.jpg
http://i669.photobucket.com/albums/v...f/SAM_1801.jpg