first light with my sw 200mm dob

[steviegall]

well here goes, its a little all over the place since i couldnt stay one one target for too long wanting to see everything that i could think of

just me, a dob and a telrad

night started about 22:20 after set up i just calibrated the telrad on a tv mast about 15 miles away(nice red lights to contrast the darkening skies) and with how well the telrad was then aligned it wasnt even necessary to use the finder(for a while at least)

so i sat there just watching the sky darken waiting for that first pinhole to open up in the sea of navy blue. i didnt have to wait long as by 22:30 the first one appeared, just inside civil dark and a full hour away from nautical dark so i was surprised to say the least, scope didnt have enough time to cool yet (drove there without the heating on so hopefully it could cool at least a little quicker)

so i slew the scope around to the ssw about 20o-30o from the horizon(guessing atm as im not entirely sure how to measure it accurately) in hopes of getting a semi clear view, set the telrad to the first blip of light and looked through the 25mm and saw quite a big custard coloured star? so i slid in the 10mm and focused but because of my noviceness(thats a word right?) it was already outside the fov of the 10mm so back to the 25mm, center it this time and slip the 10mm back in and saw a blur moving quickly to the edge of my fov, furiously focussing trying to get a clear glimpse of this speedy blob . i just got it focussed as it went out of the fov and i swore i saw rings..... goddam it was saturn

so got it into view again this time trying to move along with it as it raced across my tiny fov , ofc moving the scope the wrong way(at first at least) trying to follow it to get the focus just right, omg it was beautiful, i mean it was tiny and i could just make out the space between the planet and the rings but for the next 5-10 mins all i did was follow it across the sky

by the time that was over the sky was darkening nicely and another pinhole appeared, still reeling (and with no constellations to yet identify what i was looking at) watched it for a while and since it was my first proper star i got a chance to test my collimation in the field, it was damn near perfect, beautiful circle around the unfocussed star, later the star turned otu to be arcturus

opposite end of the sky not(north) and another star appeared (capella i believe) which confused me a little, when looking at it in the 10mm it seemed to be red on top , yellow in the middle and blue at the borrom, maybe not the star itself but more like an aure around it maybe? anoyne able to help me out here, it was low in the sky so idk if its our atmosphere playing tricks on me or is it supposed to look like that, scope problems/limitations?

after that the stars are coming too quick to look at individually so i stand back and watch them and their parent constellations to come to aid identification

standing there im reminded of reading turn left at orion and after reading it a few times and looking through it countless times im reminded of the stroy at the start of it about albireo and him seeing the double star for the first time, too hard to resist

so the hunt begins, with more and more of the constellations coming with each passing minute i was able to make out 4 of the brightest stars in cygnus the t at the top and ofc albireo, easy enough to find, telrad/25 and 10mm later there it was, the lovely yellow and blue of the double, by now im on old hand at tracking the star in the 10mm with the occasional turn the wrong way thrown in to humble me

at this stage the ever creeping moon was still 15-20o from reaching tree tops so it would still be a while before i could get a good look at that

it was about 23:30 (nautical twilight)at this point so i stood back again to see what had changed and the first thing i noticed was "where the heck is my milkyway?" i didnt realise that the moon would have such a profound effect on the amount of stars i would be able to see, i was at this spot a week ago(exactly a week ago now i think about it) and the sky was alight with the amount of stars i could see with no moon in the sky, lesson learned

just as i realised this a treat appeared in the south blazing across the sky, it looked like it could be a plane or something but with no flashing lights i checked the clear outside app and figured out what it was, it was the iss, scrambled to line up the telrad in front of it and get the stars focussed in the 25mm, missed it, tried to get in front of it with the telrad again, saw it streak through the 25mm fov, again i tried to get ahead of it but this time i tried to match its speed, i adjusted the wrong way(damn you noviceness ), adjusted to the telrad again in front of it, matching the speed the right way this time, too fast, darnit, this time too slow, then it happened, 3 seconds of continuous view of the iss, all i could make out was a squareish star in the 25mm and no way could i track it in the 10mm but by that time i was heading for the horizon anyway so i stood back and smiled

by this time nautical twilight had truly set in and whatever it became clear that whatever stars were coming out to play had done so

so i turn to my turn left at orion again and flip to the july-september section for inspiration and see m57 after a few pages about star clusters, lack of seeing stars its gonna be hard to see star clusters i figure, so m57 close to vega gonna be easy enough to see, or at least i gotta try even with the moon out to see what i am able to see.cant see with this infernal circle of light hanging over my back

so to vega the two stars between it and albireo just visible to the eye, with turn left at orion guiding you with the finderscope i figure ill need to align it and do so, line up the two stars sulafat and sheliak, then very carefully line up m57 and there it was, in the 10mm, a small round colourless smudge with an apparent hole in the middle, my first dso and even with the moon i could make out its shape

by this time i could see the moon above the tree tops so i decided to check it out, not looking for anything specific just admiring the detail , sometimes blinding detail you can see of the craters and hilly regions

coming up on midnight now and i said i would be back by 1am so allowing for driving itll be soon time to start packing up so my mind wanders to my eyeball sesion of a week ago and how much more i could see then, even though i coudlnt see something i wanted too, m31 the andomeda galaxy so i made several attempts to line it up, always being able to find mirach but i found it hard to match what i was seeing with what was in turn left at orion

i found mirach, tried to move in the same way it seemed to show in the pictures on the finderscope with mirach out of view at the top right of the finderscope , couldnt find it

then i tried to move towards the north from mirach , couldnt find it

the only smudge i found was when i went to mirach and moved the scope toward the zenith(what the book meant by moving north maybe?) but again it was only a smudge even in the 10mm , could this only be the moon(now high in the sky well above the trees) taking its toll on viewing because once again according to the book what i saw in the 10mm was what i should have seen in the finderscope

i even tried just searching the sky back and forth a little distance from mirach in hopes of stumbling across it

according to the book it says its "something to see in any scope on any night" , did they take into account a full moon? idk

anyway thats where i ended my night , i saw quite a bit more than expected(iss and saturn) but like the night last week i was a little let down i didnt see andromeda(or did and it was ruined by the moon)

the biggest thing i learned was that i need to make a bit of a table to bring the eyepiece up to my head height so i dont spend the night bent over and on my knees

anyway, clear skies

[xtreemchaos]

great firstlight report mate, sounds like your getting to grips with your dob. thanks for posting. charl.

[swamp thing]

Nice report. Your excitement of your new scope came across very obviously

Enjoy

[cotterless45]

Great report. Wait until the moon's out of the way for some darker

Clear skies !

Nick.

[belfieldi]

Hi Stevie,

Well that write-up just about sums up the excitement I felt on1st light with my 200mm Dob as well. The good news is that after a year, I still go WOW every time I get the scope out, maybe not just as much excitement, but that's only because you're expecting the WOWs.

Happy gazing.

Ian

[scarp15]

Good first light, darker skies on the way, consider an adjustable chair or stool sometime to save your knees. 

[Astro Imp]

That was a great report, well written and brings out the excitement we all feel when viewing through our own scope.

Well done finding M57 first time out, many of us struggle with this, just search the threads on here to see all the frustration this object causes.

It sounds as though you did see M31 but you really need a moonless night for best viewing of DSOs.

Good luck and clear skies.

[Tzitzis]

Nice report and a good first light.

Wish I had seen the ring

[steviegall]

thanks all for the kind words

it really shows how much the moon can make the difference when viewing objects, earlier in the night i saw 57 when the moon was behind trees and later when it was high i could barely see m31

must be more direct light ruined it i guess

idk about the well written thing tbh, punctuation and me have never been good friends

 have to invest in a barlow and maybe a 12mm to replace the 10

cant wait to get out again though

[John]

Nice report stevie

The Moon really washes out even the brightest galaxies and emission nebulae. Planetary nebulae and clusters are still worth a shot though. A UHC or O-III filter helps them stand out a little better under challenging conditions and enhances them further still under dark skies.