continuation of previous post...
And lastly, a few little tips I've learned along the way...
- Get warmly dressed at least 15 minutes before you go outside into the cold as this will keep your core body temp. warm as opposed to waiting till you get cold as your body will take much longer to stay warm- trust me, you will notice the difference and won't be as cold.
- Keep insect repellents away from your scope- apparently they will kill the glass on your eyepieces if you get that stuff on them, and also it's not advisable to use coils by the scope either.
- If the stars are twinkling don't expect to have a great observation session- objects through the eyepiece will be jumping about as the atmosphere is unsteady.
- Do not go outside to observe without an observing plan. Always be armed with "something" to look at. I have been caught a few times here thanks to the "evil" clouds
hell bent on a mission to ruin what seemed to be a good night.
Keep a ring binder folder (your best friend) with plastic sleeves to protect your pages from dew (evil enemy no#2
). In this folder (your working guide), a suggestion for its contents might be something like this...
Print out the Greek alphabet, how to measure degrees with your hand, objects you want to see (make sure you list constellation they belong to as you might miss that constellation season first up), your observing notes or little tips to finding the object (I usually scribble these on the printed maps (from software), you will also more than likely come across many useful links such as 10 best carbon stars, 100 brightest planetary nebula etc; so these will also go in your observing folder. Work out a list of what each magnification & fov (field of view) each of your eyepieces are and pop this into your folder; as you do reports/notes you will likely refer to this list to know you observed "X" object using 70x power but at 140x power not visible etc. A list of objects that interest you on a must see list awaiting for the next season that constellation comes around. There's loads of objects out there, so hard to remember all the ones you want to see
.
Sticky notes in your maps/books as page markers or for notes are my best friend and keeps me organised. They are right the way thru my observing folder too- I love stationery
, trees cry when I go near them.
Dew..
Learn when to quit.
If the view is getting darker (and this can creep up slowly, know that it's not your tired eyes or you're having an unlucky night finding anything. When it gets that bad that the star looks like it's dissolving- you have outstayed your time- forget determination (it's sometimes been my enemy
). Mind you things can look very interesting at this stage.. a whole other observing experience all together
. Btw, never admit like I have that you have managed to get yourself to this stage.
A quick hit with the hair dryer will help (on a dob the smaller secondary mirror tends to get affected first).
When you bring the telescope inside and if you have a dob, make sure straight away (you get loads more water through condensation when you bring scope into warmer temp. indoors) that you tip the tube all the way until it faces the ground as this will stop water droplets marking your larger primary mirror. Grrrr the one night I didn't do this I ended up with two spots. Don't worry, this shouldn't hinder your views- even lots of dust doesn't seem to- but to what degree I don't know, I just prefer to cover scope and protect from dust and take action with dew problems. There's no need to clean your mirror unless it's absolutely necessary (so I hear many times over).
Observe the planets first- you don't want to kill your perfectly dark adapted eyes.
Make sure you're comfortable- I recommend a height adjustable observing chair. Bintel sells them for around $175, to me its worth every penny. It's solid and heavy and trust me when you are doing gymnastics on that chair looking thru finders etc, you don't want to collapse with a heavy scope on top of you. They will take a lot of weight. It's narrow and folds nice and flat for storage/car so won't take up too much room.
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