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First light


Moon monkey

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Hi all,

I have already popped in and said hello :D But Hi again :o

I have posted this report els where but think it may be in the wrong place :o so im putting it here.

Well last night I had my first successful session with my new scope. I have the 8” imaging Newtonian from Altair Astro on an EQ5 pro goto mount. This is an F4 scope and I was using a 15mm EP with a 2X Barlow.

Ps. I am very new to all this, so please be patient ;)

I have had the scope out on several occasions and on each occasion I have had one problem or another..just some of the problems I’ve had include... entering the coordinates wrong, entering the date wrong, and not polar aligning correctly :o

However last night I got it right... I did a 2 star alignment, and then asked my mount to take me to the moon ;) and off to the moon I went ... yayyy. Totally blown away is all I can say... the detail really took my breath away. I then decided to take a tour using the hand control. First on the tour was the Bee Hive Cluster which the mount found without problem, I did have to centre it a bit. Next I skipped a few suggestions as I really wanted to see a galaxy... however I didn’t see any ;) I think with the bright moon and my neighbours bathroom light on it was just not dark enough.. What happened next I will never forget. The tour next went to the Ring Nebula so I pressed the button and off my scope went, when it stopped I looked through the EP..... and Nothing... however I then decided to have a little look around, first up then down then left then.... hang on what the.... OMG the Ring Nebula right there from my back garden... 2300 Light years away now I am hooked :hello2:I must have looked at it for 1/2 hour whilst my mount tracked without fault. To me at first it just looked a bit gray but the more I looked the more I could see, and I’m sure it was a faint greenish colour. After this I decided to tell my mount to point to Saturn, this it did but just missed by a fraction, guess I still have to tweak my setup.. I could see Saturn and 3 of its moons, I could just about make out the division in the rings but don’t think it was a great night to look in fine detail as Saturn seemed to keep going in and out of focus ? I put this down to turbulence up above ?

At the end of the night long after the mrs had gone to bed I packed up after what I consider a very successful night.

And I will always have a soft spot for the Ring Nebula now.... It was my first :o

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nothing excites more, than the first time. thank you for your report, now you have the bug (great isint it) the true test will be when its about -10c theres snow on the ground and its 0300am. astronomy is to me the best of the sciences, and i know you will love it.

keep posting and good seeing

peter.

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Great report, and that's a nice scope you have.

When you get a good night, it keeps you buzzing for day's, and I look forward to your further adventures.

Maybe consider posting it in Observing-reports next time, HTH.

Clear skies! ;)

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  • 3 months later...

Good report thanks, considering an Altair 8" myself! When you centered your object (ie: Ring Nab) did you press 'Esc' twice to reset the object on the Skyscan (PAE) well worth doing everytime!

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Brilliant report - smashing to hear you notched up few great objects in your first real session. Sounds like the PA could do with a tiny tweak, or a slightly lower mag for first look after slewing, to get it in the ep. Or maybe the finder and tube could do with better alignment with a higher mag. Just a couple of ideas to solve the "just off target" issue :)

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