Hi Dave - glad you enjoyed the night at Rons so much! I know it was great to have you there with us the next morning chasing Saturn between those cloud patches. Trust me, as great as it looked, when seen with a proper BLACK sky behind it (not a blue sky as we were seeing it) and with a bit more magnification / less atmospheric disturbance it looks simply AWESOME!
You have already seen, sat on, and observed using one of WavelandScott's chairs as mentioned above. That's what the black chair is that I had at Ron's, and trust me for using a dob height having adjustable comfortable seating IS an essential. They aren't cheap at close to $200 but before that chair I used to carry a foldable timber chair AND a bar stool (which did NOT fold away) to try and cover all necessary viewing heights. The Stellar chair is SO much better!
There are a couple of different sets of free star charts (
here and
here) you can find on the "Beginners" thread page, try them first. There'a a couple of different sets, both good - download the files, put them on a cd, flash drive, etc, and take to a local print shop to have them laser printed on A3 paper. Inkjet ink will run when wet, and A4 size is too small to read the detail. I paid 50c a page to get mine printed, then I had them laminated to keep them dew proof (back to back to save on costs). One of my local video stores has a print shop that does all this kind of stuff in house, you don't need a professional printer. Office works does similar stuff.
You WILL need to collimate a reflector as you saw Randall and I doing at Rons. Get the Combination Cheshire & sighting tube (Orion brand at Bintel iks good) again you've seen one of these, thats what we were using. We also used a laser collimator (return beam type, never get the simple "non return" type) to "check / fine tune" it, but the Cheshire is the more important tool I reckon.
Any eyepiece under 8 to 10 mm will get used much less than anything "higher" due to the fact that lower focal length ep's need better and better seeing (ie atmospheric conditions, etc) to give you a clean image. Especially in f5 10" dobs like ours forget the 6mm, when you are ready for one of those you'll be ready for a better quality brand anyway. My 9mm GSO plossl never got much use originally, but I do manage to use my 8mm Orion Stratus a fair portion of the time, and that is still my shortest ep.
Do try and get one fairly wide angle low mag eyepiece - it wil help you to find objects SO much easier while you are learning your way around the sky (as I still am), plus some objects simply NEED a bigger field of view to really appreciate them, ie Orion Nebula, Eta Carina nebula, the Pleiades and numerous other open clusters, etc. I use a 30mm 80 degree Ultra Wide Angle ep (2 inch barrel) from Andrew's Comms (regular price $149, occasionally on special). It
does show some visual aberation in the outer field of view in an f5 scope like ours but despite that I love it for the wide views and it is still one of only 3 mains ep's I use all the time, along with my 17mm Hyperion and 8mm Stratus.
Other things you will pick up along the way as you need them - I'm sure you already have a small torch somewhere, $2 worth of red cellophane (make sure it's dark red, not the pinkish red one someone bought by accident
) to make an effective low light torch.
I know what it's like when you start out, budget is everything but you still want to buy as big a scope as you can and making allowances for other add-ons is difficult. You can use my collimating tools, screwdrivers, etc (lessons inc free) at Rons anytime I'm there, ditto star charts.
A small folding table IS very very handy, I use a cheapo "plastic" table cloth to cover mine and kep the dew off everything.
With summer slowly coming along very soon we will all be getting out our Aeroguard, Rid , etc to kep the mozzies away - get a can, essential in warmer months! (I think Rid still has the highest percentage of the chemical DEET - the active "chase them away" ingredient - of any brand of repellant.)
Finally as Jeanette said get a copy of Astronomy 2007 as soon as it somes out. There is a thread
here where Iceman Mike is sounding out how many people would buy it through this forum. Register your interest, grab one whenthey become available, it is the best possibly book you can get at 20-something bucks and it is very good value.
Hope to see you again soon!
Steve
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