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First light!
The clouds parted unexpectedly tonight so I took the new Dob out onto the balcony and pointed it roughly towards the Southern Cross. Had no idea what I was looking for but found a really nice open cluster and then lost myself for an hour as I scanned around the sky, stopping to admire many beautiful groups of stars. It's been too long since I had a decent scope.
At the moment, my 'good' eyepieces are with my in-laws up at Lake Macquarie, so I had to make do with the 32mm, 15mm and 9mm eps that came with the scope. I was pleasantly surprised at the image quality. The only breakdown came with the 9mm loking at Jupiter, when there was a little colour evident. However, Jupiter was still pretty low at the time, and the Dob mount being so low meant I was looking through the balcony glass!
The wind was quite strong, and the scope suffered a bit of vibration at medium high power, but the Dob mount is very smooth (thanks to its previous owner) and making regular 'nudges' wasn't as difficulot as I had thought it might be.
Overall, I'm extremely pleased with my purchase. Can't wait to get out to dark skies and start learning the sky properly. Everything I found tonight was a fluke!
If anyone reading this is thinking about buying their first scope, buy a Dob. They're ridiculously cheap and give great views.
Morton
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