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When was the last time you had the 'WOW' Factor?


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Being newbie to Atronomy my WOW factor was simply looking at the moon the other night with my Bresser Venus telescope and my recently purchased Plossl lens and 1.5x Barlow and seeing all the craters and mountains etc. in detail for the 1st time.

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Last Saturday the seeing was great and after a while viewing Jupiter at 250x and seeing the GRS and plenty of detail I thought I'd pump up the magnification for a laugh. I tried a 2.5x powermate I had bought and never used. With 625x I couldn't locate Jupiter so I thought I'd focus on the moon. It was razor sharp and the moon at 625x was a massive "WOW" - like the first time I'd seen the moon through a telescope. Really fantastic. (Jupiter was mushy, better at 250x)

Adrian

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Probably at the last closest approach of Mars and my Carton 60/1000. I think the phrase I blurted out was something like.....'you've got to be poo-ing me'.

Twas a fine and surprising sight, all things considered.

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Would be interesting to know when this was. And more importantly what were you looking at?

The WOW factor happens in different circumstances...

Seeing Orion for the first time an hour before dawn...

Seeing the Milky Way emerge within a minute of stepping outside...

Finding a faint object I've been wanting to discover for years: this year, it was Stephan's Quintet.

The transit of a moon's shadow across the surface of Jupiter.

The Lunar occultation of Merope last year.

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Being newbie to Atronomy my WOW factor was simply looking at the moon the other night with my Bresser Venus telescope and my recently purchased Plossl lens and 1.5x Barlow and seeing all the craters and mountains etc. in detail for the 1st time.

Then you'll be pleased to know that the WOW factor keeps refreshing itself with the moon - since it is so radically different on the different nights that you observe it.

It's still as amazing to me as the first night I saw it! :)

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Seeing the entirety of the inner sanctum of the lanes of The Milky Way spanning the entire Northern Hemisphere and Horizon from East to West, on top of a cottage hilly garden at a cottage we rented, with the Naked Eye on a Mid Summers Night near Galloway Forest Dark Sky Park in Scotland Last Year.

Added bonus was multitude of satellites roaming through the orbital plane interspersed with tracks from the Perseid Meteor Showers.

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Mine would have been the first time I took my new 11" EdgeHD out.

The same night I was "wow'd" as well as everyone else that was with me that night when I first viewed the full moon and Jupiter.

Seeing everything for yourself in your own telescope is an awesome feeling especially when you've only seen pictures of everything.

I'm sure it'll not be the last time, as there is so many more planets and DSOs I'd like to see.

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propping my 200pds against a garden chair to counter for the current absence of an neq6.. and looking at orion as a grey fuzzy spot jiggling about in the 28mm EP.. looking at pleiades and finding.. like.. a lot more than 7 sisters.. =).. looking at jupiter and actually seeing its moons.. and making out faint belts across the disc.. nervously fitting a solar filter across the aperture of the scope and cautiously looking at the sun and seeing the spots up close for the first time..

like WOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!

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A couple of weeks ago I had my first look at M31, I was absolutely gob-smacked, I didn't expect to see so much. The centre was much brighter than I expected and the outer regions stretched across my 32mm EP once I had become properly dark adapted. A truly WOW moment.

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I've actually been lucky enough to have had a few this week!

Firstly, when I got my new 80ED DS pro out for the 1st time & looked at M42 & Jupiter. Then the following evening I had a look at the Moon & then took some pics of M27, M31, M33, M42 & M57 which once stacked & processed gave me a chill down my spine as they were so amazing!

So all in all I've had a good week astronomy wise!:)

Jeff

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Looking at the moon a couple of days ago with a pair of 7-24x50 bins and realising that the brightest star I could see was Jupiter. Didn't know what I was looking at until I found Stellarium. Certainly gave me WOW! Now I have the urge to learn more.

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M42 the Orion Nebula a few nights back. No matter how much I look at it, it is always stunning and takes my breath away. I also love seeing Orion appear in Winter, it is so striking and for me is the prettiest constellation, though it does have some rivals!

That said I love galaxies and cannot wait for the Virgo cluster of galaxies to come around, which is my biggest single wow of all time!

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