First Light Tradition?

[morls (Stephen)]

Hi,

I'm a complete beginner, picking up my first scope this weekend, a Skywatcher collapsible 8" dob. Very exciting....

Anyway, I've seen a few people mention 'tradition' for first light being Alpha Centauri....is this a commonly held tradition?

Just curious.....

Stephen

[mozzie (Peter)]

dont no about tradition!!!but a lovely sight!!!after youve finished there rip the scope around to saturn and it'll blow you away

[mental4astro (Alexander)]

First Light! New Scope! First Scope! Did I hear right!

Right, so this explains all the rain we've had!!! Finally the culprit own's up!!

With all these 'firsts', man, we are in for a fortnight ++ of poor weather here in Sydney, .

Congrats on the new scope!

I don't know of a tradition, but it is a nice start. Then, the mighty Omega Centuri. You are in for a treat.

Mental.

[morls (Stephen)]

Thanks Mental....yep, looking forward to checking out the cosmos, been waiting a while, checking the classifieds and finally decided to jump in. Then the rain came.....oh well, don't get the scope till the weekend anyway, hopefully the skies will have cleared by then....

[mental4astro (Alexander)]

If you can, maybe come to Katoomba Airfield on June 12. A few of us will be there with a scope or 3, or 5...

Have a look in the 'Star Parties' forum.

[ausastronomer (John Bambury)]

Hi Stephen,

The usual first light tradition with your first telescope is to set fire to it and watch it burn to the ground as a sacrificial offering to the weather gods, so that your second telescope will get clear skies and see some starlight. Only Joking

Welcome to IIS, congratulations on your new purchase and I hope you have many happy years of observing from it. I have been observing on and off for over 30 years and still enjoy it and still see many new targets.

As a first light target I couldn't think of a better target than Saturn or Omega Centauri, which are both very impressive in an 8" scope, well placed at the moment, and easy to find.

Cheers,
John B

[Blue Skies (Jacquie)]

There's no tradition that I know about this side of the Nullabor. My 8"s first light was Venus, because that's all we could see at the time with cloud about!

Anyway, I always enjoy a new scope with lovely super-clean optics straight out of the box, there's nothing like 'em...

[morls (Stephen)]

Thanks for the replies

I'm not too hung up on this tradition thing, it was just something I saw somewhere and made me wonder how seriously people took this sort of thing.....for me, the best way has always been jump in and see what you find, and learn along the way. More fun too....