I was watching the lunchtime news when it came - Jupiter, complete with accessory moons had arrived - although I didn't quite appreciate it at the time...

I finally did it on Tuesday night - clicked on that little winking button labelled "Checkout Now"; The confirmation flew into my Inbox with a satifying 'plink' and it was now too late to recall the cash so I slowly succumbed to guilty post-purchase pleasure.

Wednesday was rather uneventful as it happens; That was until the other 'plink' in my Inbox - "... your order has shipped... next day delivery..." - did I detect a light thrill at that news?

So there I was, Thursday lunchtime, sitting watching the news only to be roused by the raucus ringing of the doorbell. Springing to action I flung the door open and there it was: a rather non-descript brown box - a bit unimpressive for a gas giant if you ask me.

Excitedly I scrawled my moniker on the Postie's docket and whisked the carton upstairs, where it sat - unopened - well I still had some coffee to finish and "Murder She Wrote" was on!

Finally I could stand it no longer;

It was still sitting there, squat and unimpressive on the floor, the writing on the outside of the carton the only hint of the world to be found within - "Meade Instruments Corporation, Oak Canyon....."

Without further ado the tape was carefully sliced open and the box up-ended to disgorge its contents. No time was wasted on the naming of parts in the headlong rush to "have a go" despite it being 3pm and still light out. Dispensing with the tripod the mounting was hastily placed upon the window ledge and the scope pointed outwards.

Gingerly, at first, the objective cover was removed and placed respectfully on the side and then an eyepiece was affixed - 26mm to begin with - I placed my eye to the cup and... fuzz, greyish fuzz and such a number of turns of the focusser to sharpen the image!

But there it was - the telephone pole at the bottom of the garden in all its autumn glory! But it wasn't enough - more - I wanted more; So the barlow was flipped into action - eek where did the image go it's all fuzz again! After a few minutes of turning, some trial and error and the image swam into focus once more - I could get used to this I thought, but the telephone pole is so near - I need something farther away, much farther.

So I hoisted the tube up to the horizon to a pale smudge on the hills; When is a smudge not a smudge? - When it resolves to a house in the 9.7mm eyepiece - more fumbling with the focus knob then to the MAX . Once more the grey fug descended and the marathon twisting began - flipping barlow! But I had learned some more about those mysterious people on the distant hill - their curtains were a colour of gold and they drove a red Audi! At least that was what I thought I saw when the vibration in the tube died away! Then bump - the image almost vanished out the the view - just a little further left to get them back in view - no not that left the other one (I wonder if I will ever get used to that left to right thing!).

That would do it for the afternoon - the eypieces were carefully returned to their containers and the scope respectfully re-capped and parked on the side for some coming darkness.

I learned that the tube doesn't half shake! and how many turns does it take to focus? - Plenty! But I thought that I could get the hang of this astronomy lark and settled down to the naming of parts.

So a few hours sped by and I thought to myself that I really ought to get the tripod out and practice mounting the scope on it etc and just get a feel for it all to avoid fumbling around in the dark - the AutoStar and fancy computermebob could wait for another time..

Anyway as I was rooting around the in the spare room for something unrelated I happened to glance out of the window and thought to myself eye eye - it looks quite dark out there - and what is that sparkly shiny thing above the rooftops? Oooh something to look at through the telescope!

Quickly before the shiny thing vanished the mounting was plonked on the tripod and knurls turned tight, the 26mm inserted and the barlow flipped out of the way - all present and correct and ready to aim.

What a guddle! I had no idea that something seemingly so simple as pointing a tube at a star could be such a pain :rolleyes: but not to be disheartened I tried and tried again and eventualy the dark circle gave way to a large sparkly thing - the object of my attention - if a little blurred! Steadily, holding my breath so as not to scare it off, I turned the knurl and slowly at first the obect resolved from a blob to a surprisingly small disk like shape - and there straddling it were 4 bright and sharp points of light, three to one side and one to the other.

I had never seen Jupiter before, with my own eyes that is, other than as a bright 'star' in the sky - not that I am going to admit anything girly like having a tear in my eye or anything like that, but nevertheless it was a little wow moment - and rather a nice first light too I think.

For a little while I mucked around with the various eypieces and the barlow and twisted the focus knurl for all I was worth - though the seeing wasnt great for the highest power so no smudges of cloud bands for me! Maybe next time.

Later, much later...

Feeling a little flushed from my dalliance with Jupiter I waited for the sky to darken and to see if the night would remain clear to get a 'proper' look around. Lo and behold the sky did remain clear so around 11:30 I donned my coat and careful not to drop or bash anything plonked the tripod down on the front step for a butchers at Orion. Not a small amount of the following hour or so was spend flailing around the sky trying to home in on something aimed at!

But with a little determination I was rewarded with some nice views of the very faint glow of the Orion Nebula, the Pleiades and a few other bits and bobs. And to finish off the evening a view of Mars climbing the heavens - though much smaller than expected, but then I discovered reading the forum that it is quite far away at the moment :) - In fairness the atmospheric quality restricted my views of Mars to fairly low magnification and there was a bit of chromatic aberration there too but nevertheless for a first look in small scope I think it was plenty nice.

So rather satisfied after maybe 90 minutes of pointing, and slewing and yes turning that pesky focussing knurl I called it a night and headed indoors - but reflcted that I had held Jupier and its moons in the palm of my hand, swept from one side of the galaxy to the other and looked far back in time - and all of this from that little brown box!

The funny thing about it though was that it didn't seem to be larger on the inside than the outside... but who says Dr Who has a monopoly on Tardises eh? ;)