ThePotter

I tried to catch the ISS last friday morning but too cloudy. Have never seen it and am intrigued to know how much I can see. Did you have trouble tracking it? I haven't seen Saturn yet either - I'm not an early riser - and so I'm hoping for good things.

Very moving Jimmy. Hope I can raise the same passion in my own kids. Keep blogging and let us know how you get on. David.

Thanks Isabelle. Don't suppose I need to wish you clear skies where you are! It's -3 here in Chippenham UK and it feels damn cold to me. Look forward to seeing to your first aurora pics.

I've had a romantic interest in stargazing for as long as I can remember and have been familiar with the main constellations and naked eye objects for many years. As a teenager I was given a captain's telescope by my grandfather and had used it to view the moon to great effect but it had no mount (or mounting points) so viewing was limited. As a result it would only come out of the cupboard every now and then and generally only when I'd had a few too many and was feeling sentimental ;-) I've been using a cheap pair of 10x50 binos on occasions for a couple of years now and thought it was about time I satisfied my lifelong hankering for an astro-telescope. So I spent a few months trawling through the astro forums and googling for advice on a first scope. I originally gave myself four criteria for choosing one: 1. Inexpensive. Since I wasn't sure whether or not this interest was a flight of fancy I didn't want to spend too much in case the scope ended up just gathering dust. My budget could stretch to around £400 if necessary but I wanted to spend less than £200 if I could get something reasonable for that price. 2. Quick to set up. I wanted to make it as easy as possible to get the scope up and running each time so I would be likely to use it more often. 3. Useful. I don't want to quickly hit the limits of the scope and become frustrated with it. Ideally, I want enough of a scope to keep me interested for a year or so, after which I should know if I am an occasional stargazer or a budding astrogeek. 4. Transportable. A nice to have, I want to be able to take the scope whenever I take the family away camping for the weekend (and with 4 kids there isn't much room in the car!) I was aware of the main types of scope as being refractors, reflectors and catadioptrics but had no idea what could be had for a small budget. So I was pleasantly surprised to find that the mainstream branded manufacturers all produce small but 'proper' scopes that cost well under £200. I was amazed to find I could even get a computerised cassegrain type for less than £300 or even an 8" reflector - serious tools! If I'd realised this ten years ago when I had no kids and plenty of money I'd have had a field day (and presumably now have no money or kids)! One of the main problems I had as a newbie was what am I likely to see through these scopes? Will my eyepiece be filled with the rings of saturn or will I just see a fuzzy coloured star? Will I see the Andromeda galaxy as a blaze of swirling glory or a dim blob? The best advice of course is always to go along to a local society observation session and take a look for yourself but I've never been one for following good advice so I persisted on the internet. After looking at various youtube videos of views seen through different telescopes along with photos placed on forums I came to the conclusion that, ignoring cheap toy scopes, the view does not improve exponentially with the size or cost of a telescope and so I would not be missing any big tricks by choosing a small scope. So I stopped worrying about what I could potentially see and concentrated instead on the recommended starter scopes from people who knew. So after resisting the temptation of blowing my budget on the biggest light bucket I could find (an act of self discipline that I'm quite proud of, I have to say) I spent as many hours as my wife would let me reading reviews and pouring through forums. There were a number of common recommended scopes covering all types. I quickly dismissed a computerised mount as I wanted to learn the sky for myself, despite being very attracted to the auto-tracking abilities of these mounts. I also dismissed a small refractor since I didn't want to focus on just planetary or DSO viewing and the recommendations seemed to lean towards reflectors as good all-rounders. Instead I narrowed it down to a dobsonian mounted reflector since I loved the simplicity and honesty of both the mount and the scope design and the idea that as much of the cost as possible was going into the optics. Skywatcher dobsonians appeared to be the best value for money and had good reviews and recommendations. The skyliner 200p was very tempting but ultimately too big for storing and transporting easily and almost certainly an unnecessary size for a beginner like me. I was very tempted by the skyliner 150p as it has a small storage footprint and many recommendations as a starter scope provided its within budget. I finally settled on the skywatcher heritage 130p as it appeared to meet my original criteria and at £130 (from FLO) was a bargain for a 5" scope. It regularly got good reviews and thumbs up on forums, but what really swung it for me were reports of seasoned astronomers keeping one as part of their extensive collections for use as a grab 'n' go scope. With my sensible hat on it seemed the ideal first scope for me. So I ordered one for Christmas along with a Tal 2x barlow to extend the range of the two eyepieces that come with the scope. That was a month ago, and I'll write about the scope and my first months viewing later. For now I'll just say that so far I am very happy with my first scope and sense that I'm beginning to glimpse a whole new world filled with eyepieces, webcams and astro-society meets that a few weeks ago I didn't even know existed.

Thought I'd start using my blog as an online log book. Have found the posts on this site very useful over the past 6 months while researching what to buy as my first scope so thought it an appropriate place for my log. Hopefully this blog might be useful reading for other newbies or pre-newbies and perhaps others may lend me the extent of their experience while I stumble through the night sky. So, let there be light...