Dark Vader

Thanks Steve, all understood. I was out at around 7.20 trying to show my son how to work his small table scope, he got bored and went off playing. I picked up the bins again and just saw the rim appear as the light hit. Spent the next 20 mins trying to find out what I'd just seen.

I caught my 1st view of that last night through 10x50s, just as the light hit the top of it. An amazing sight to a newcomer like me, a small handle was exactly what it looked like. Am I right in thinking that's no.14 on the lunar 100?

Hello, After reading a lot of reviews on here, I got some DPS1 10x50s. They do feel lighter than the old 7x50s I've got. I'm still waiting for a properly clear night to have a decent look around but so far I can recommend them. Saw some nice detail on the moon last night. I've read some good advice on hand holding from the binocular sky website. If only I could find a 6ft monopod...

Hi all A quick hello and an introduction. I've always had what I'd call a vague interest in the night sky, looking up on clear nights and wondering what I was actually looking at. At the beginning of this year, I saw the 2 bright lights in the sky at sunrise, downloaded the mobile app Skyview and found out it was the conjunction of Venus and Jupiter. I found that I could point my phone at the sky and it would tell me what I was looking at. I looked around a fair bit after that, identified a few constellations. I've moved on to Stellarium now, after reading through these forums. An old friend of the family no longer with us gave us a box of "junk", as she called it. In this box kept in a garage was a very dusty pair of Mirador Japanese 7x50 binoculars with no lens caps. Not knowing anything, I cleaned them off under hot running water with a couple of drops of dishwashing detergent (what could possibly go wrong?) with cotton wool and Q tips, buffed the lenses with a microfibre and on what I thought was a dark night, pointed them skywards. Occasionally the moon stayed still long enough to make out the odd bit of detail, then I researched a bit of binocular astronomy and found out not to hold them like a submarine captain in an old war film! Then, after spending hours lurking on here reading all your very informative posts and, it has to be said, not understanding much of it, I bought some Olympus DPS1 10x50s and had a similar "Wow" moment to when I first pointed the 7x50s upwards. The neighbours think there's something wrong with me as I can now be found lying on a sunbed in the garden in the dead of night looking at the sky through binoculars! I now want a decent scope..... I think I'm at the top of that very slippery financial slope. Looking at the Skywatcher 200P, from what I've read here that's a pretty good place to start? Thank you all for all the informative posts, even though I don't yet understand most of them. I've found out I live under a class 6 sky so I'm not too hopeful of seeing that much from the back garden. Andy