Although it's probably a bit late in the year to invest in the 2005 edition (altough you might be able to pick it up pretty cheap somewhere). But can I suggest you get a copy of Astronomy Australia 2006 when it comes out. It'll give you a montly run down of celestrial events, it has stars charts, planetary info including Jov luna events...ect...etc... and a bunch of other stuff.
also check out www.skymaps.com you can download a southern hemisphere star chart every month free, which will give naked eye, bino and telescope objects to hunt down.
You can download a pretty good planetarium prog' for free here and print up your own charts. It's called Cartes De Ciel. Dont worry about the title it comes in english. And very handy
Hi Eardrum
I'm also very new at this hobby. The best thing I ever did was attend a star party.The IIS guys helped me no end and they even collimated my scope for me, talking me through the process as they went. 2 thumbs up to john and louie. You will learn more in one night with these guys than you will in 6 months hunting things on your own.
Some times I have the same blurry views on my 8" Dob so I pull the eye piece out of the focuser a little and that really helps me a lot.
On the topic of free maps and observing aids, I cant recommend RTGUI highly enough !
Its a fantastic free tool for seeing whats up and creating a list of objects to observe. It also plugs into Cartes DuCiel and selecting any object will take you straight to it in CDC.
Eardrum, bookmark this. It will help with collimation, when you get a bit more experience.
You'll need a 'Cheshire' sight tube to do this tho! http://skyandtelescope.com/printable...rticle_790.asp
Have you been able to get a crisp/clear image yet? Sounded to me as though you were being a little too savage with the focus movement...... softly, softly, slowly, slowly. Stars should be pinpoints. Use the 25 mm E/Pc first & look at the 2 stars that are called the 'Pointers', near the Southern Cross, then try with the 9 mm. Start with the 'brighter' one..... Tell us what you see! ????????
HTH. L.
Damn... my neighbour had their backyard light on as well. My have contributed to my inagural downfall in celestial viewing.
The fullmoon wont help to much chasing faint fuzzies either, better off around the new moon.
Most planetary nebula you will require to up the power some, Eight Burst, Ghost of Jupiter...etc...etc.... even the bigger old Ring Nebula (M57) will take at least medium powers. But general the larger nebula's M42, Eta Carina...etc...etc... are better to use low power wide field of view... later on down the track you might like to look into UHC or OIII filters which can help tease out detail. But get yourself going first
It's all a lerning experience, I would also like to re-iterate "Get yourself off to a star party", either with members here or find and astro club near you. They are a wealth of info in getting you on the right track.
Or you could simply make up a collimating cap for free, does the same thing as a Cheshire sight tube and just as accurate. I used an old end cap but you can do the same with an old film canister or anything else that can fit snuggly into the focuser.
Rajah, there is something in what you say, I was probably too eager with my scope the first time. I think I will try to be real slow and soft with the focuser this time.
Thanks for the collimation link too.
RockerX.... do i have to punch a small hole at the end of the film canister/dust cap as well?
oh yeah, and I was given the Australian Astronomy 2005 for free by Andrews... and they said that it can be used for 2006 as well as the stars will change very little? is this true?
I am hoping for clear skies tonight and and early bird neighbours!
RockerX.... do i have to punch a small hole at the end of the film canister/dust cap as well?
Oooop's yup! that helps, sorry fogot to mention that I used a 2mm drill bit.
[QUOTE=Eardrum73]oh yeah, and I was given the Australian Astronomy 2005 for free by Andrews... and they said that it can be used for 2006 as well as the stars will change very little? is this true? QUOTE]
Cool!, yup! the star chartsat least will be good for another 45yr until they do Epoch 2050.0 the stars move very little and it basically takes 50 years before they update the charts. But dont quote me on that it's just something I've come to believe. Not sure about most of the events though ie: comets, times of meteor shows, Jov luna events...etc...etc... Plus the outer planets move through the constellations. So it would be better to get 2006 when it comes out. However I dont use it as much as I did. It was great for getting you on track and learning the constellations and where most common/popular/bright objects are. In a couple of years if your still riding the wave of interests you'll find you'll be burried deep in print outs from cdc looking for the more exotic variety of objects. Still it's never usually to far away from the scope.
I tried for Mars around 3:00am this morning but, dang! just a tad too cold and bed looked more appealing. I get in these phases at the moment where I rather not observe in the moon light, Especially trying to trace down Cadwell objects. But I did nab comet 9/P Tempe last night about 7:30pm sitting just south of M62 in scorpius. It look more like what it looked like pre impact but with very very faint if at all coma and the nucleus was fading in and out.
Moon won't rise until 8:47, so say from 8pm or earlier. face west ie where venus is. focus on venus, so you get diffraction spikes nice and clean. then move your scope higher and higher to get to antares, up and right is where the good stuff is.
start with your biggest eyepiece, i would suggest your 2" 26mm and then when you have found M7 or M6 the butterfly, go down thru your eyepieces 25mm to 15 to 9mm to see closer and closer. Some objects do not need close ups, there are better observed with your biggest and widest field of view!
Finally a night of "clearer" skies and early to bed neighbours.....
I managed to get some good viewing time this time round....
THE YAYS!!!
There was a really bright star in the sky last night, being a noob, I had absolutely no idea what it was.... I think it was roughly westish (Sirius?)
But I had a look at it anyway and I could just make out the circular shape of the star. The brightness was piercing, I had to use a moon filter.
Looking throught th 2' 25mm eyepeice I could see alot more stars than I could with my naked eye..... wow. 25 mm certainly offers a wider field of view than the 1.25 ones.... I think I will get 2' eyepeices from now on. Will Barlows work with 2'? (somehow I doubt it...)
THE NAYS !!!
I found that while I have pinpointed the star in my finderscope, I still couldn't see it with my dob, I had to still nudge the thing around to being it in to view. Sometimes this took a long time.
I found that moving the dob around to search for stuff isn't easy, especially when the object is low in the horizon.
The eyepeices with the wider views 25mm was easier to use... but when I wanted higher magnification I used the 6.9... sometimes I couldn't pinpoint the star in the scope as the view is so small.
I tried a green colour filter and everything went dim.... are colour filters overated?
All in all it was a better experience than my first night of viewing, even though I pretty much had only one object to look at. I can't wait to see the moon when it comes back.
You saw Venus. Stars are all so far away that they are effectively point sources.
The finder scope needs to be aligned using the adjustment screws in its holder. Best done during the day, aimed at something far away (200+m). You can do the final tweak at night.
Things low in the horizon suffer from lot of atmospheric distortion. Things higher in the sky will take a lot more magnification.
The finder scope will not by default always be lined up with main scope. so..... get your biggest eyepiece 30mm??? or 40mm???, line up the cross hairs on the finder scope on say that bright star (west would have been venus early in the night, sirius is early hours of the morning east), then look through the scope, move the scope so that the bright star is right in the centre. without bumping the scope, look in the finder again. the chances are that the star has moved. there are two screws that you can turn with your fingers to adjust your finder. Move the screws until the star is right in the middle of you finder scope. have a look again thru your main scope and see if the image has moved, realign again in the big one and then check the finder scope. This way you can align the finder! repeat and work your way down thru the eyepieces, 40mm, 25mm, 15mm, 9mm. that way you know that if you see something thru the finder, you can catch it thru your 9mm.
movement does take a bit of getting used to.
2" eyepiece are very good, but more expensive. also if you are moving to imaging down the track, i think finding attachments for you camera would be very hard and expensive. The 1.25" eyepieces are more common, less expensive.
I would suggest keeping both. The 2" will be great for locating stuff ie galaxies. if you have checked you star map and found that a nebula or galaxy is in the area, use your 2" to find it as it has lovely wide views and then zoom in, with your 1.25" eyepieces for detail. Thats the way i do it.
Yes you can get barlows for 2", but of course more expensive.
the filters are ok i spose, maybe the red one on mars, but i reckon you will not use them much as you go all.
L.
I used a 2mm drill bit. 
