SuburbanMak

Hi from Winchester in the U.K.  

I've been an on and off observer of the skies since I was a kid & owner of a couple of disappointing starter telescopes along the way (Tasco 4VTE anyone?).  I have recently passed an, ahem, significant birthday and the family wanted to club together and buy me something. I've plumped for the Skywatcher Skymax 127 Mak, AZ GTi mount, Baader Zoom & a Baader Hyperion 24mm fixed.   It arrived at Christmas and I've been able to use about 4 times so far with the weather we've been having - despite my light-polluted location (town centre + neighbouring property is like Blackpool illuminations!) I am completely re-hooked.   

I seem to have kind of missed the boat on Mars (tiny disc at 188x) but immediately had great views of M42 (first time I'd ever seen the trapezium), M36, M37 & M38,  the Perseus double cluster & a couple of double stars to test (Castor easy, Polaris, not so much).  The Moon is also stunning & has been a hit with the kids!    Posted a couple of shots here acquired by the not so technical iPhone-manually-hovered-over-the-eyepiece method. So far I've also failed to  locate  any globular clusters (M3) or galaxies (M33, M81) for which I'm blaming light pollution rather than the impact of my garden's proximity to the wine rack on late-night rising objects.  

The moon has also provided the ideal target for setting up finders etc (after a single evening of rolling around on the floor craning my neck to align the supplied RDF I quickly upgraded to a Telrad + SW 9x50 finder which both aligned in seconds & coupled with the very effective Point & Track feature on  the AZ GTi seems to be the way forward).    

Suffice it to say the ghost of the Tasco is laid to rest and I look forward to an end to lockdown not least so I can get out from under these lights & find some dark skies.