BamBam

Thanks for all your responses, we will be back in the garden practising again tomorrow! Can feel a small shopping trip coming on for new eyepieces plus some warm winter jackets (my husband has just rolled his eyes!) but now I have found SGL I will be asking for advice.

Yes I think we were far too close (nowhere near half a mile away!) but at the moment we are trying to get use to scope in daylight so only operating out of our garden at the moment. The scope is a Sebens 700 x76. This is the first scope for our nine year old daughter and I have no idea whether it is good or not, we are total newbies to Astronomy. At first I was going to buy her a National Geographic one but that seemed too much like a toy so I went for the Sebens as it had reasonable reviews and the price was good for a 'training scope'.

Thank you DoctorD that makes sense about the erecting eyepiece was beginnining think we needed to get use to viewing the world upside down!

We did use the Barlow with the 20mm lens but we couldn't see anything and yes we did take the lens cap off (after the first try!!), do you thinkthe object was too close?

Hello everyone again, we have followed your advice and taken the telescope out in the day to get use to start getting use to the finderscope and the telescope in general. We used the 20mm lens and had some success but when we tried the 2x Barlow Lens we couldn't see anything, what are we doing wrong?

Also there is a 1.5 x Erecting Eyepiece - what is it for? The instructions that came with the telescope could be written in chinese for all the help it has given!!!

Please note I say 'we' as the telescope belongs to my young daughter but I think my husband and I are catching the stargazer bug as well so we are all in this together!

I have suggested to my daughter that she makes a log of everything she sees when we finally get to stargazing proper - we are so praying for a clear night - what do you think?

Again many thanks for your warm welcome and advice given so far.