2nd Night Viewing

[Aussie_Nick (Australia)]

We went to Lostock Dam.

We set up and had a spot of dinner then I set it the scope up. I had one leg pointing south and positioned the counterweight over that leg. Leveled it out and adjusted the declination to 32°.

I tried endlessly to 'zero' in the red dot finder scope, the best result I could get was to point the red dot to the left of what I'm trying to observe. Which was fine finding the moon and Jupiter. Other than that it was useless.

We observed the moon, in great detail. It was a jaw dropping experience for me, having never seen it so clear and close in person. We also observed Jupiter, couldn't make out any detail on Jupiter because it was so bright, we could make out some of the moons though. Next after alot of trial and error I managed to found orions belt through the scope.

The night was cut short just after 10 because of cloud cover.

So my overall thoughts are, I found the finderscope next to useless. And I have no idea how to use the coordinate system on the scope. The best I could manage was point and hope for the best.

But that hasn't deterred me from going out again and again.
http://imageshack.com/a/img827/7682/7952.jpg

[barx1963 (Malcolm)]

Nick
Well done on getting out and using the scope. Jupiter is quite low at the moment which means its light has to pass through more atmosphere than is normally the case, which can make seeing the bands a bit harder. In a small scope they can be a little subtle so keep trying.
With Orion you most likely saw Orions Sword. The Belt is the 3 bright stars in a row to the north (below in our orientation) of the Sword. As the Belt is quite large it would struggle to fit in the field of even a small scope. The Sword on the other hand consist of several nebulae and clusters the most obvious of which is M42.
With your red dot finder, I assume you have fiddled with the 2 adjusting knobs to move it. If it is still out, check it is sitting properly in its bracket and then see if the bracket itself can be tweaked. Be careful using tools (screwdrivers etc) on the scope, set the tube horizontal so you don't drop anything on the mirror!
An EQ style mount can be a little tricky for a beginner, which is why I and others (not everyone I may note) recommend a dob as a beginners scope. Unfortunately I am unable to offer any advice, not having used an EQ mount for many years, beyond saying that good polar aligning is essential.

Anyway, keep at it and hope to hear more reports soon!

Malcolm

[Camelopardalis (Dunk)]

I'm not familiar with your scope so this might be of limited help, but the first thing I do when setting up, and before it gets completely dark (i.e. during twilight) is to align the finder and main scope. Since the finder scopes usually have some kind of adjustment (usually 2 knobs or dials as Malcolm said), it's best get the main scope pointed at something terrestrial, something obvious and unique makes it easier. Then align the finder scope to that.

Once you've done that, objects centred in the finder should be more or less in the FOV of the main scope, at least using a low magnification eyepiece, as your scope has quite a short focal length and therefore potentially wide FOV.

Regarding Jupiter being too bright to see detail...use a shorter focal length eyepiece that will give you higher magnification. What happens as you increase magnification is that the image becomes dimmer and once you get past the brightness you should start seeing details. Aim for somewhere in the region of 120-150x. The darker north and south equatorial bands are the ones that I find become visible first, but it will largely depend on the conditions as to what else you can see.