Finally

[hobbit]

Well I finally got my telescope working.
aligned to sirius
aligned (with great difficulty) to canopus
calibrated to achenar.

Saw jupiter
saw pleiades (well part of it. too much magnification)
saw orion
saw a couple of clusters and nebulas as little smudges.

couldn't see any galaxies though. (pinweel, sculptor were both invisible.)

[Misplaced (Craig)]

That's great news Hobbit!

If I remember you are using a similar setup to me..................or have I confused you with someone else?

Anyway, you'll be an old hand at it in no time

[hobbit]

nope. ED120 and AVX mount

[Slawomir (Suavi)]

Awesome. Orion remains one of my favourite targets for visual astronomy.

Unfortunately, most galaxies are relatively faint and difficult to locate without a GoTo (not sure if you have GoTo) and thus to observe from light polluted locations.

Don't give up though, perhaps look up the brightest galaxies (and also clusters and nebulae) that are also high above the horizon and have fun searching

[hobbit]

Yeah I realise most are faint though was under the impression that sculptor and m81 should've been easy to see.

by the way. should i be able to see any of jupiters moons through a 5"? I saw 3 bright dots next to the planet but they seemed too perfectly lined up.

[raymo]

You saw three of it's moons. If you have a look at Jupiter as soon as it
rises, and then again before it sets you will see that the moons have moved a bit. The number of moons visible on any given night varies; some may be behind Jupiter, and one might be passing between us and Jupiter, and will show as a black dot seemingly on Jupiter.
Sculptor is readily visible in a 120mm scope, but not bright, more like an elongated grey smudge.
raymo

[ralph1]

M81 crosses the meridian at an altitude of -13 degrees from where you are. You'll need a very flat horizon

[barx1963 (Malcolm)]

The best galaxy at the moment is NGC1365 in Eridanus. Under dark skies a 5" should pick it up, the bar and arms may be hard to see unless you persist.

Malcolm