Stephen_M

Here's a pic of some cloud iridescence on a random Saturday when I happened to look up. Amazing to think before I got into astronomy last year I probably wouldn't have even noticed this. 17th September, 11:53am, no editing, iPhone 2020 SE

Good luck with the new scope! I think a good thing with this hobby is that if you get equipment with a good reputation, then they seem to hold their resale value quite well which can help with upgrading later down the line. Please let us know how you get on over the the observation - reports section. I'll do a shameless plug for my beginners journal that I did, might be something useful there. Particularly, it can be very frustrating when you start so you'll need some patience if you are self-teaching like I did!

If I was starting out again, these Bresser scopes look very nice - https://www.firstlightoptics.com/bresser-telescopes/bresser-messier-5-dobsonian-telescope.html . I have a truss tube dob and tbh, it's a right faff getting it out and packed away. I haven't used a 150p, but the fixed tube dobs (not sure on the terminology), you won't have to worry too much about collimation and it should be easy to set up.

I had my first attempt at viewing planets from my back garden last night. I have a tall thin garden with high fences, but placing the dob next to the back door just about gave me enough space to observe Jupiter to the South East at about 9pm. I had a bit of a anxious wait to see if Jupiter would get high enough before the Moon also rose over the rooftops too. To pass the time, I looked a Alberio quickly, and tried to find Saturn but it was too low over the fence to be anything other than a small blurry dot. Alberio looked great using my William 32mm SWA. I must say I am super impressed with this EP with my dob, I also browsed around Aquila of a bit and just marvelled at the amount of stars in this area of the sky. My main purchase over the summer was a Morpheus 4.5mm, which gives magnification of x270, and in combination with my 10" dob gave a great view of Jupiter and the moons. I was wondering if the dark spot was a trick of the light, or a shadow of one of the moons, so thank you for sharing that photo. I could just about make out the main equatorial zone, but it was difficult to make out any other details. Presumably this is due to the 10" capturing too much light, would I benefit from some sort of filter for this? Here's a blurry smartphone pic.

Thank you for this. Definitely highlights how difficult it is to understand the orientation of everything! So with an EP, 180 degrees for the EP, and 45 degrees where the focusser is?

Couple of West Yorkshire options near me, both very popular I hear. https://www.catgillfarm.co.uk/ https://masonscampsite.co.uk/ Harrogate might be a good shout as a bit closer to the A1 for connections. Not sure of sites around there.

Thanks for the comment. I'm excited that from my perspective my astronomy journey appears to be in front of me in the form of a spiral or spring, and that each year you move up a level and build on the knowledge from last year. Hopefully at some point I will start traveling to darker sites for more 'impressive' views, but for now it seems to make sense to maximise everything I can see from the back garden.

Thanks everyone. Those descriptions are really helpful, the other thing that springs to mind is to look at a few object in the garden before it gets dark. I guess I'm hoping this skill will be useful for multiple things such as sketching, and also interpreting star maps to star hop. Thanks again.

Thanks for that. Living within 5 miles of Leeds Bradford I'll give this a try. Weather here seems very dependant on local conditions which I'm presuming is due to topography of the local hills and valleys. I've noticed that still clear nights are bad for observing due to mist forming in the valley, it seems here you need a gentle breeze for best conditions. I get the cloud thing is frustrating, but presumably we're talking very fine margins of error within their models. So if they're tracking a cloud mass/weather front that's hundreds of km in length, even an error of a few percent will mean the predicted edge of it varies considerably compared to the eventual position in reality.

Thanks for the reply, perhaps I have not phrased my question correctly. I get that it's inverted, but for sketching I am hoping to learn how the layout of the field of view is affect by where the telescope is pointed and at what body/head/eye position I am looking through the eyepiece at. With the dob, I can obviously either look through with my eyes perpendicular to the telescope, or parallel, or potentially any other angle between 9 o'clock, 12noon and 3 o'clock. I'm not particularly flexible, so the angle will depend on what's comfortable for me! Using my clock reference, is there an easy way to orient yourself? Thanks.

Still very much what feels like the beginner side of things, these past two nights have been good back yard observing and I've enjoyed discovering M81 and M82. It's almost been a year now of telescope ownership, and so soon it'll be back to the start for me. This is something that is quite an exciting proposition, and I'm looking forward to going through everything again but in slightly more depth than before. Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself. Seeing Ursa Major overhead is new for me, and so TLaO was back out and I was looking for inspiration. I admit I have been spoilt looking at Gemini, Perseus, Orion and Auriga, in so far as the multitude of navigation points to use to find your way. I was intrigued as the description was "hard to find, but easy to see"! The first night, I was back to using blind luck to find them. There certainly is far fewer stars in this part of the sky. However, I was able to find M81 with a bit of aimless searching in the eyepiece, and once found was very impressed with the view. It's hard to say just how faint a smudge of light it is, but it's still awe inspiring that all these DSOs are up there and 'visible' to us all. On the second night, once I'd figured out the magnification of the TLaO picture, which must have been around x50, I was able to hop across to M82 once I'd found M81 again. It's certainly a great view to see the two different shaped galaxies so close to each other. Sketches are below. The only downside to the conditions was the mist forming in the valley, the temp was about freezing and so as the planes were flying into land at Leeds Bradford airport, I could see the mist illuminated overhead. I did look at a few other things, M36/37/38, M44, double cluster in Persues, and just a bit of time observing by naked eye. I think my sketch of M82 has the wrong orientation, so I've posted in the beginners section about that. Thanks for reading!

Hi, I'm sure this is an easy question for someone, so I'm going to post it rather than research myself! It's something that sketching has made me think more about. I'm wondering, is there an easy way to discern what the orientation of your field of view is on a dobsonian? I get that it's reversed, and if I wait a minute, I can tell the direction of travel around polaris. Is it the case that 12 o'clock on the eyepiece if your eyes are parallel to the telescope body will be 6 o'clock if you were looking up from the primary mirror to the sky? Or is it something else? I would consider myself to have good spacial awareness, but just can't figure this out! Thanks, Stephen

Great report, thank you. Some targets there that I can aspire to!

"Walk through the heavens" is my pick of beginner books. I think you have to remember that as a beginner you really need something that covers the basics well and build up the knowledge in a steady and stepwise fashion. TLaO is too advanced by itself for a beginner IMO.

Great report, thank you.

Exciting times! Welcome. Please post your observation reports, would love to hear how you get on with all that equipment.

Disappointing here compared to last night. Thermometer is showing -4 and there's no wind. There must be a bit of mist forming and sitting in the valley as the light pollution around is much more noticeable and going further toward zenith than last night. Also, another kick in the nuts is the streetlamp has not gone off tonight, forcing me to place the dob in the back corner of the garden. That means Orion is out of sight as well as anything south. On the to do list was to try and find the triangulum galaxy, never seen before. Had a good couple of cracks at it but couldn't find it. Went over to see Andromeda and actually looked a bit better than last night. The centre looking a bit brighter in comparison to the outer smudge of light I could see. Went to try and find some open clusters. Wandered around Cassiopeia for a bit, found NGC 225 which looked nice. Lots of other stars around, the contrast much better towards zenith. Everything else washed out. Tried to find M52 with no luck, couldn't quite see 4 Cassiopeia. That's pretty much a wrap. Hope to read about other people having a bit more success!

Sounds good, I have pondered getting a small dob that I can stick on a table to see over my fence. Happy observing for later! Stephen

Hi. I looked forward to reading your reports. I also have a 10" dob and have found it a steep, but rewarding, learning curve. Stephen

First report in a little while. Nice conditions in West Yorkshire. Cold but dry, a touch windy too. Streetlamp went off about 8pm, primary was out cooling for about an hour before assembling the rest. I did a little preparation with TLaO and decided to start with the first few pages of things in Orion and Auriga. I first had a bit of a play with those doubles in Orion; Mintaka, Meissa and Eta. I'm still just using my Morpheus 14mm eyepiece, so they're either split or not. I have the funds now to get the 9mm, but just waiting for it to come into stock! From there I had a look at the Orion nebula which looked fabulous. Orion is starting to move a little higher in the sky at 8pm, now just above the light pollution from Leeds Bradford airport. The view through my 14mm (x90 mag) looks pretty much exactly as the picture in TLaO. I'm looking forward to being about to see it a bit closer sometime soon, or maybe next year. The arm of the nebula going to the south east was particularly stunning and I hadn't seen that before. The trapezium remains as I have seen before, will split in my dob, although I can't see two eleventh mag E and F at this magnification. I then moved onto looking at Sigma Orionis and Struve 761. Sigma was only E split from the rest, but I could just about make out Struve 761 split to C/B and A. Very faint and probably not visible without 'knowing' it was two different stars. I can't really view lower than Orion in my garden, so I moved up a bit to look at M36, M37 and M38. Finding them involved my not very precise method of scanning about in the eyepiece until I found them. M37 was the best IMO. All very faint, but loads and loads of individual stars visible across the view of my eyepiece for M1. For a bit of a break, I then went for the 'easy' stuff. Over to The Pleiades. Looking very nice and bright, I do have a 25mm eyepiece on the way which I think will be perfect for this, to be continued. I then went over to the Double Cluster in Perseus. One of my favourites for sure during my first year of observing. I shuffled the dob to the other end of the garden for a look at the Andromeda galaxy. This was no different to my previous observations. Not really much to look at. Big, but the light is pretty diffuse with no discernible features. To finish, I had quite a bit of fun finding M1 - Crab Nebula. This was certainly an occasion where TLaO was invaluable. I do feel lucky that in my garden I can see Zeta Tauri. Goodness knows how you could find M1 without using it. I still have found it quite difficult to use a straight-through finderscope. But on this occasion the view was just as it is in TLaO. I did a bit of scanning and could just make out M1. You definitely wouldn't see it without looking in the right place and knowing it was there. It was only really observable by nudging the telescope and then you could see it move across the field. I then 'worked backward' and noted the views in the finderscope and the rigel. See below! I think I will try and complete one of these per session. After then, it was about 10:30pm so decided to call it a night. Bonus photo from this morning. I'm off all week after working over Xmas, so decided to head up onto the moor early to see the sunrise. It was beautiful. Should be out with the telescope again tonight.

FWIW, I have the 14mm and 17.5mm. I got the 14mm as it was the only one in stock at the time earlier this year. I then added the 17.5mm as I thought the reduced magnification might help me spot DSOs in my suburbian skies. However, I really can't see much difference between them unfortunately. My plan is to skip the 12mm and go to the 9mm next. I can see myself selling one of these two eventually as I'm not sure their is much benefit to having both.

Another little update with some notes from my Friday night session. I won't bore you with all the details. Main updates since last session: - Quikfinder fitted - Purchased 17.5m Morpheus (gives x71 mag) - Collimated scope Due to above, I was pretty keen to get outside again, but had to wait a few weeks. Last night wasn't ideal, orange/red rating on clearoutside. There was quite a bit of cloud around, but in between the clouds the visibility wasn't too bad. Plus, the astronomy gods must have been looking down on me (literally!), as for some reason the streetlamp at the end of my garden was switched off for some reason. Re: collimation. Whilst waiting for the weather to behave itself over the past few weeks, I finally got around to checking the collimation of my scope. I am sure seasoned experts will not be surprised to hear that both of the mirrors were out by quite a bit. David had told me I should rarely need to do it, but I think the car journey back from Nottingham must have had its effect. And also, I have to completely collapse the scope each time I put it away, so I must have knocked the secondary mirror at some point. So, the combination of lower power eyepiece, and newly collimated scope, I was very excited to see M13 again. However, I would have to wait as I walked straight into pitiful 101 with astronomy by not having my finderscope and Quikfinder properly aligned. I must have wasted about 45 minutes completely lost out there (I was thinking it was a positive though as there was so many stars in the eyepiece! I did spend a while just observing the Millky Way, its so beautiful up there!). It was one of those times that I can imagine if this was your first time out with your scope, you would be on here selling it the next day. After quite a while, it was Mizar that came to the rescue. I finally found it through the eyepiece, and then I could quickly re-align the finderscope/quikfinder and we were away. My go to star Arcturus is now below the rooftops in the evening. How I miss its distinctive orange glow and brightness in the dusk sky. I have to say, using the Quikfinder is a revelation. M13 was found easily, as was M57 and even M93. The latter found by me for the first time by simply looking at the star map, and literally pointing it at the sky using the Quikfinder, and thinking "it's around here I recon". Then, when looking through the eyepiece it was right there! M13 looked quite impressive but pretty similar to last time I saw it, so I am hoping with more favourable conditions it will look a bit better. Finally, I had a stab at finding Brocchi's cluster which was a very nice view in the 17mm eyepiece. In between the clouds, I did quite a bit of visual observing. To the east I need to learn this part of the sky as this will soon be overhead. Aquila and Sagitta were easily visible. I started to try and hop to Pegasus but not quite able to at the moment. I tried from Cassiopeia and Cygnus but need to work out the relative positions of everything. I am still fascinated by the concept that once your mind knows something is there, it is a lot easier to 'see' it! Things for next time: - can anyone recommend a better eyepiece holder? My 'stock' one just has one screw and seems to have quite a bit of play in it when using the collimator. Presumably this can be upgraded easily/cheaply? - need to learn Pegasus - need to get the camera out to snap a photo for setup

Welcome. The forum is such a great resource, I look forward to hearing about your observations with the new scope. Make sure you get over to the Observation->Reports section and get posting!

Thanks @Swithin StCleeve, it's a slow process, but ultimately feels like the right thing to do. Certainly getting a lot of enjoyment and satisfaction out of the new hobby so far! My recommended beginners reading list consists of: Walk through the heavens (essential reading for the novice, can be bought well before telescope) Cambridge Star Atlas (more details that TLaO, on the maps and the supplementary notes, found it very useful for planning) Turn Left at Orion (speaks for itself, however, IMHO is useless for a complete novice without at least Walk Through the Heavens). That seems to cover every possible thing that I might need to know for the time being. I did observe Thursday and Saturday, but neither were 'outstanding enough' to warrant their own entries. I will summarise my musings and what I got out of both sessions: Learning about my garden So now I have figured out the best spot for observing. Unfortunately it is about 4 square metres of our patio, but I can get a decent view of 30 degrees and above the horizon to the east and west, a soft 20 degrees and above to the south (more like 30 if including LP), and 20 degrees and above to the north. This does limit what I can see using this part of the patio, but now I can plan a bit better what I want to try and find. I also find lugging the 10" dob around really hard work. I have that nagging thought about perhaps I should have gone for 12", but actually the 10" is about 25kg, and whilst I can separate it, to me it's flippin heavy for something that needs to be moved carefully. Learning how to interpret magnitudes I have been getting a lot of pleasure out of expanding my knowledge of the apparent magnitude of the stars. And in particular, observing them one by one as they appear in the late evening around dusk. Overhead during the summer night sky, Thuban seems to be about the limit of my eyesight with the local LP, which I believe to be apparent magnitude 3.5. In the scope I need to continue to work out what is what, but in the finderscope I have been enjoying trying to find M101, without success so far. In the finderscope I can follow the trail of mag 5 stars easily to Ursa 86. From the telescope itself I can presumably see a bit fainter, but need to learn more about what the limit is. M13 I have spent a good bit of time trying to locate this. I am still relying on a lot of luck it feels like. I appreciate that trying to find things manually will involve a degree of luck, and it feels like there is certain things you can do to increase your chances of success. One thing I did the other night, was to actually lay down on the ground and look up. I was surprised at how much the perspective changes, compared to standing at 6ft and tilting your head up. The other point to note was that I think my next EP purchase will be for a slightly lower magnification, to help spot these fainter objects and make them a bit more visible for me to look at. Alberio Split nicely with my x80 magnification. I may even say, a little too far apart! Certainly looks very nice, and I can do this fairly early on whilst the sky is still getting dark. M57 Funnily enough, I found this almost straight away when I tried. I guess having 2 bright stars nearby helps a lot. The view was really good at x80, pretty much exactly as shown in TLaO. Amazing to think you can view this sort of thing from the back garden. Will need to look at filters, but probably not for a while yet, maybe next year. Epsilon Lyra (double double) Found easily but unable to split either at x80. Polaris Another early favourite double for me. Very much enjoy the disparity between size and brightness of the two. Future thoughts and plans: next eyepiece addition to come in the next few months. Think I will go up a bit to the 17.5mm morpheus and also invest in a barlow, that will give me x70, x80 and x140 x160 options. (I ended up with the 14mm as it was the only one in stock a few months ago!) decent binoculars. On the birthday list (in November), hopefully can stretch the budget a bit. My folks live in Cornwall under Bortle 1 to 2 skies, so excited to take them down on the train at some point too. I could also drive maybe 15-20 minutes from here for much darker skies. Taking some binos seems a much more attractive option than lugging a telescope about. taking it easy for a bit. I think I have noticed similar comments in other threads, but observing between 10pm and 1am is really hard work. Certainly feel 'hung over' the next day. I am going to try and keep going with the naked eye/binos stuff, but maybe back off getting the telescope out every time there is a chance of clear skies. Hopefully by end of August I will start to get astronomical darkness here, which is a very exciting prospect!

Phew (!). Well, I'm thinking it might be time to wrap up this thread soon (and just post individual reports)....but another post from Saturday. Mainly just in case another beginner finds it useful to read about how I managed to solve my aligning problem. I am please to report that after the problems I had mentioned above, I didn't have long to wait to have a go at solving them. Saturday night turned out to be a good session. There was about 50% blue skies as dusk fell, and what looked like a little bit of high cloud. 10pm came around, the telescope was setup in the garden and Arcturus was visible. I spent a while trying to get the finderscope as aligned as a could. But I did find that I kept nudging the telescope as I was twiddling the finderscope adjustment screws. Another skill that needs perfecting! However, I realised in my pre-planning that the main problem was not really the finderscope as such, but my technique about pointing the telescope in the place in the first place. So, once I was happy with the finderscope, with Arcturus centred as best I could, I then looked to find some reference point on the telescope body/frame/cage to help with getting it pointed in the right direction. My initial method, is to place my ear onto the primary mirror box (so both eyes are perpendicular to the surface), and then look up towards the finderscope. Thankfully, there are two notches, one of the finderscope, and one where the truss attaches to the cage. These references points were aligned with Arcturus in such a way that made a straight line to predict roughly where the telescope is pointing. Specifically, in my head "image a straight line between notch on cage and finderscope, and then an equal distance further is where the telescope is pointed". With my new method, I quickly test it going over to Mizar, and a eureka moment as I align the telescope almost immediately. As mentioned before, certainly one of my favourite views at the moment as there is so much to look at in just the one view. Next, it's still not quite dark yet, so I spin over to Vega. Again, it took just a moment to align properly. As the sky gets darker, I go over to try and split Polaris. I can't really remember if I'm honest, but I think I was only able to split briefly. I drew a picture so I must be right! The tiny secondary star briefly showing itself for a fraction of a second. Finally with my confidence up, I go back to try and find M13. It was pretty tricky, and certainly involved a bit of trial and error, scanning around for it if you will, but finally it came into view within a minute or two. The view very much fitted the description of 'smudge of light', but it was quite a significant size, and very occasionally, several individual stars could be made out. I wonder if this is a combination of some cloud cover, summer skies and other atmospheric conditions. Anyway, suffice to say I was/am very pleased about this, and looking forward to going back again to see if it is any better, especially as the forecast is looking good for this weekend. I hope the feeling of amazement doesn't diminish with time, I have a feeling it won't! By 1am, cloud was rolling in from the East and it was time to pack everything away.