[simmo]

Hello Again,

It's been several weeks now since I got my scope and I'm still hooked after the initial sparkle. The weather here in Perth has been great and the moon's been hiding so there has been quite a few chances to get out on the scope.
With the festive holidays I've become a bit of a web junky during the day reading up on as much as I can. Both of these combined has been great cause it's given me some time to reflect on the the comments you guys left and to find out what has worked or been needed to get started comfortably.
So here is what I've done so far.
I took what wavelandscott said and tried to just enjoy the scope I have without adding too many things so far. I haven't been dissapointed yet.

What I needed first is what nearly everybody suggested and that was an adjustable height chair. Luckily my next door neighbours were getting rid of their computer chair so I snagged that one for free and it works almost perfectly. (*almost - not quite low enough at horizon and not quite high enough at straight up but still better than a sore back!) I find that I can sit quite comfortably and really get a good look at what I'm observing.

*Important Edit - please see barx's warning 2 posts on concerning Aeroguard!
Next I tried to go out one night and totally got eaten alive by mosquitos so aeroguard was the cure for that. (I think my blood donations have provided for many millions of offspring).

My brother had an IPad with app so that was good for starters but I needed some charts when he's not around. I looked online and was about to buy when I spotted "Cartes du Ciel". It was free so that came aboard. It is challenging at first but you get used to it if you play long enough. I've found it great when used with stellarium. I can zoom around stellarium, find something for the night and then go to cartes and print the chart off for the night. Cartes has some cool options like being able to change the amount of stars seen to the naked eye so it can suit the area you live in (city vs country and in between). You can zoom in and print off what will be seen in your finder and again to see what will be closely around the intended target(great for hunting and referencing with the eyepiece). Also has a picture of the object so that you can somewhat recognise it.

Next I needed to see the chart at night. Went to woolies and BCF but due to mining boom we are being ripped off over here (apart from telescopes). $37 compared to $20 you guys are getting over east. So remembering barx's trick I cellophaned my wife's el cheapo torch that she's had since the '90s. Works a treat.

Next was lens cleaner. My wife is keen to share the views and so is her eyelashes (please, not to seem sexist so has mine, I saw what you all did to the guy that said that girls shouldn't get\lift dobs!) With just one look the lense (plossl) became unusable with oil that nicely deposited itself right in the middle. It was easily fixed with a lense cleaning kit from the local camera shop.
So far that is all I've needed to get through the first month of viewing.
So $ value it equates to
Chair - free
Aeroguard - $6 (and that was at a allnight servo) Edit - please see further posts concerning this product!
Stellarium - free
Cartes du Ciel - free
Torch - $2 (in the nineties)
Cellophane - $1 (a lot left over)
Lens cleaner kit - $20 (can get cheaper stuff, or just add spit and rag)
All this has added up to a great nights viewing in comfort. I'm sure though as the season changes there will be a few more things to add but so far so good.
As far as the gadgets are concerned I haven't forgotten about those either but they are a bit more about personal tastes of how much can you spend and what will you be likely to be looking at.

Collimation - I decided to go down old school road and buy an astrosystems dual sight tube/cheshire and autocollimator for extra precision. The catseye looks great but just too steep in price and lasers don't seem to be able to do the whole job and have their own collimation problems according to some threads (*might be not be totally true, please elaborate if experienced for greater good of sharing knowledge). Astrosystems imports to Australia and has a deal for both items + shipping. I'll report how that goes and how easy it is to use for a first timer.
Couldn't resist the eyepiece bug either. Old school again. After reading some reviews on orthos being very bright with good optics in a dob I decided to go with some from UOptics. I know this is probably against the trend in regards to wide fields as they have a smaller field of view than the plossls I have with the scope. The plossls to me seem wide enough to my small experience and have delivered good results. I would be happy to keep them for the future but my curiosity has gotten the best of me! I chose the 12.5mm and 18mm so that I could barlow them if it comes to that. I wasn't sure about sizes below that as the eye relief supposedly gets smaller and harder to use with non-tracking dobs. All this is heresay scattered on the web but I'm keen to see how they go and like I said somewhere on the thread I like a challenge! Again I will report back on how those go too. Aside they might not be around for much longer according to some sites so maybe an investment too? I'll see... Probably won't stop here and will have too seek out a wide field in the future and probably a planetary just to kill the cat curiosity. Oh, I forgot they have nine lives, Darn!
In the foreseable future though my next tasks are to put the az alt circles on and hunt down a good camera case to put all of my stuff in cause the cardboard box that came with the scope is already overflowing with goodies. Both of these are pretty inexpensive and will probably be very helpful. I think definately the alt az circles as I try to narrow in on harder DSO's. Apart from that I think this will do for now as from now on I'll save my money for the next scope upgrade.
This last section can be ignored if you don't have the money for them. The scope and eyepieces are good enough by themselves. If anything it is definately the things that bring you the most comfort that have been the most valuable so far.

Regards and clear skies
Simmo