A few questions

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

Damn....So that's where all this cloud had come from


Congratulations BobsYU. You sound very excited. Its always a great feeling when a budding nightowl gets their first "big" one If you need some company and live advice don't forget there will be a get together at the end of the month up the coast here. Keep an eye out in the Star Parties and Observing Sessions forum

[Starkler (Geoff)]

Originally Posted by rmcpb

Great starter setup there.

Bite your tongue !
The 10" gso is a serious scope

[BobsYourUncle]

Well, I was out for a bit over 2 hours... wow... I had to align the finder scope first, i should've done that in the daylight, but i got it done. Looked at M42 first, definately got some green colouring. Turned to saturn next... The rings and a moon - Titan i think? Breathtaking. The best view was through the barlowed 15mm ep. Just, wow.

Next I thought I'd try something a bit different again, and had a go at Alpha Centauri, split it up into A and B. That was very nice. By then jupiter was high enough in the sky to get a good look at... and I thought saturn was impressive - it doesn't have the 'wow' of the rings, but seeing the 3 moons and the cloudbands with a bit of colour (again barlowed 15mm was the best) was really great - it was probably the highlight of the night, so far anyway. I'm planning on going back out, armed with some more locations to check out. Any recommendations? I want to see if I can spot M4 near antares when it gets higher.

It's probably pretty obvious, but I'm loving this so far!

[astro_south (Andrew)]

BYU

Some fun while the pesky moon is full:

- goto Beta Crux (left hand star of the crossbar of the Southern Cross). Put this bright star in the centre of the field of view and with the 15mm eyepiece look around this star. You should be able to notice a 'red' coloured star close to this star. This is a carbon star - it may not be obvious straight away, but keep looking and you will find it...then it will be very obvious.
- while on Beta Crux, look through the finder and you will notice a clump of stars nearby to Beta Crux. Guide the scope over there and peer through the eyepiece. This is the 'Jewel Box' - a lovely open cluster with a prominent orange coloured star. The moon will wash out the faint background speckles of light but the brighter members are still obvious. Remember what the view looks like and revisit this at new moon, where you should see some more stars.

[janoskiss (Steve H)]

Great stuff. Glad you like your new scope BYU. I was playing with my brand new scope tonight too.

[vespine]

I only started observing a month or two ago too and the most awesome thing I have seen so far (after getting over the fact that you can actually SEE nebula!) is Omega Centauri.

I used this to find it: http://skymaps.com/downloads.html
I have gone through and tried to find all the objects in the above map. The lovely people here pointed me to it and I have found it the best resource for me trying to find stuff to look at


Slight spoiler: When you find Omega Centauri, try to even comprahend that you are looking at a MILLION stars!!

[janoskiss (Steve H)]

If you like om-cent, also check out NGC104 (47Tuc).

[ving (David)]

thats a different kettle of fish alltogether steve... oc vs 47tuc is like coke vs ford