Four hours later...

[Blackant (Ant)]

I can't believe I waited this long to finally get my first real telescope.

I've just got back from outside, my neck feels like it's fused, my back seems to have a bend in the wrong direction but my head is full of stars

I'd been using binoculars for years before getting an 8" Bintel Dob a week and a half ago, and tonight was the first clear night with no moon I've had.

I visited a lot of my old favourites but it's like seeing them for the first time. M7, 47 Tuc, the lagoon Nebula, omega centauri, SMC, LMC, tarantula nebula, eta carina, the jewel box, Jupiter and I think I even saw my first distant galaxy, Centaurus A

The sky was still clear but I had to come inside as my eyes were starting to glaze over and it was all getting a bit too much to take in

I'm a reborn astronomer

Regards

Ant

[hulloleeds]

You've done well.

I just got back from my first expedition and the list goes like this:

47 Tuc.

Still, I've no binocular (or monocular) experience to speak of. Just getting around is difficult.

Not that it wasn't a hoot, of course.

[wavelandscott (Scott)]

Originally Posted by Blackant

I can't believe I waited this long to finally get my first real telescope.

I've just got back from outside, my neck feels like it's fused, my back seems to have a bend in the wrong direction but my head is full of stars

I'd been using binoculars for years before getting an 8" Bintel Dob a week and a half ago, and tonight was the first clear night with no moon I've had.

I visited a lot of my old favourites but it's like seeing them for the first time. M7, 47 Tuc, the lagoon Nebula, omega centauri, SMC, LMC, tarantula nebula, eta carina, the jewel box, Jupiter and I think I even saw my first distant galaxy, Centaurus A

The sky was still clear but I had to come inside as my eyes were starting to glaze over and it was all getting a bit too much to take in

I'm a reborn astronomer

Regards

Ant

Sounds like you are off to a great start in enjoying this hobby!

While I am always loath to recommend a new telescope owner run out and buy more gear but I will nearly always make one exception...get a good adjustable height chair (eaither buying commercially or building one yourself).

To me an adjustable height chair dramatically improved my comfort while viewing. Being more comfortable lets me view longer and more deeply.

My personal preference are the adjustable height chairs that BINTEL sells (and for full disclosure I was the original importer of the chairs but am no longer associated with them commercially).

While that is my preference, there are other chairs that will also work well.

Good Luck!

[Rod66 (Rod)]

Hi Ant,

welcome to the club of first time telscope buyers for this year. I'm one. My first time sessions was exactly like yours, after having been a bino observer for years. My neck and back were really struggling. I bought 2 things to fix the problem. First I dragged an old plastic outdoor setting chair to the backyard where I have my telescope and bought a nice soft cushion to put on it. It seems to be the right height and if I need to adjust my position I just move my bum forward or backward to suit. SAved $200 buying an adjustable chair.
The other problem you most likely have is twisting around to look through your finder scope, since its parellel to the tube and to locate objects stright up you will have to become a contortionist. I bought a laser pointer. Since I know the heavens reasonably well from all those years of bino viewing, I place the laser pointer on the surface of the tube and against the eyepiece mount and it points pretty well in the same spot as I'm viewing. It cost me $95 from an online store and its the best purchase I've made. Makes the telescope almost point and shoot. Others will tell you a telrad is just as good, but I have no experience with those.

Anyway, good luck with yor purcahse and may you have many nights of clear skies.

cheers

Rod

[Blackant (Ant)]

Thanks for the encouragement and advice everyone

Regarding chairs, I actually spent this week when it was raining building myself a denver observing chair
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/s...ad.php?t=48534

It was really comfy actually observing through the telescope, and even the finder scope is really good because it's a right angle one.

Where the pain came from was clutching my star charts in one hand, and bending over almost backwards and twisting side to side to try and find new targets to look at. When I was observing a lot of scorpio and sagitarius was almost directly overhead, and I was finding a lot of my targets by eye before trying to line up the scope.

It could be a bit of technique too then maybe? When people use non guided telescopes do they almost exclusively starhop using there finder scopes; or by looking at the sky with the naked eye a lot, or a combination of both?

I found that even with the finderscope or the low power eyepiece there were so many stars I was easily getting a bit disorientated if I didn't keep checking the lay of the land by looking up

I probably just need more practice, something I'm looking forward too

Kind regards

Ant

[Blackant (Ant)]

Just realized too by looking through images on the internet, it wasn't Centaurus A I was looking at, it was NGC 4945, my first non milky way spiral galaxy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NGC_4945.jpg

I couldn't figure out why what I was looking at was a long cigar shaped kind of thing, and all the images that I'd seen of Centaurus A showed an eliptical with a dust lane across it.

It further demonstrates how much more practice I need navigating too

Hmm...I'm sure some high quality televue eyepieces would help me with this, I'll have to ask my better half

regards

Ant

[barx1963 (Malcolm)]

Hi Ant
I still qualify as a newbie myself but my technique for finding target is roughly as follows.
I have charts set up on a little collapsible table near my scope. I first try and idenfy the nearest naked eye star to my target and use laser pointer and finder scope to get it in view, Then i orient chart to match what I am seeing in a low power (usually 32mm which gives about 45x and a fairly widefield). Then I study the chart and try to work out a "path" via bright stars to my object. Then just start starhopping. I try to use the finderscope as my main hopping tool as it has a right angle and so matches the chart. I use the scope to confirm patterns of fainter stars so I can confirm that I am looking at what I thinks I am looking at.
Probably my favourite accessory is the table, enables me to keep charts at a comfortable reading height.

[hulloleeds]

My technique of stellarium in night mode worked perfectly until my laptop battery went away Shame.

I found that my finder confused things with basically the same technique you mention, in that, the finder would introduce new stars into the mix that I wasn't really seeing naked eye, and thus, it become difficult to track. I think I need a laser pointer and possibly a red dot zero mag finder, too.

[Blackant (Ant)]

Thanks for that guys, a good idea with the collapsible table there Malcolm, I just have my charts attached to a clipboard and I tend to fumble around a lot in the dark

I was thinking about a laserdot finder or a telrad too hulloleeds, I reckon they'd be a good investment eventually.

Searching through another part of this forum I also found a link to some free comprehensive star charts:

http://www.uv.es/jrtorres/

The links to downloading them are on the top right of the page under the heading TriAtlas Project. They are much more detailed than the binocular based one's I've been using (Touring the Universe Through Binoculars Atlas) so I might give them a go on another night as well.

Kind regards

Ant

[wavelandscott (Scott)]

Originally Posted by hulloleeds

I found that my finder confused things with basically the same technique you mention, in that, the finder would introduce new stars into the mix that I wasn't really seeing naked eye, and thus, it become difficult to track. I think I need a laser pointer and possibly a red dot zero mag finder, too.

This is the reason that I really enjoy my Telrad...

Also, you can get "the bullseye" rings on a clear piece of plastic and then use that over your chart to get a feel for where to look for faint fuzzies...it works a treat.

[hulloleeds]

Originally Posted by wavelandscott

This is the reason that I really enjoy my Telrad...

Also, you can get "the bullseye" rings on a clear piece of plastic and then use that over your chart to get a feel for where to look for faint fuzzies...it works a treat.

Yep, I think I'm sold.

It was especially difficult for me on saturday night, with my brother having a scope with a cheap (but obviously unmagnified) red dot finder and me, with this telescope in itself finder. We were making headway on naked eye observation of constellations but as soon as we started looking in our scopes, I couldn't figure anything out and we certainly couldn't really compare.

Luckily, I happened upon 47 tuc, which I'm quite impressed with myself in that I sort of guessed / could see it naked eye with reference to the closest bright star, which allowed me to give him a base with which to find it, which he did.

Little bummed out I found the best cluster first, though.