Unpacking/First Light 250px

[EntropyStar]

I'm week behind but thought I'd share my experience of getting the 250px...

So after months (well...years) agonizing over which first 'proper' scope to buy I finally settled on the 250px, I wanted optical performance over tracking for my budget (approx £400). I think the months dithering around really helped me as it made me get even more acquainted with the night sky with a naked eye and consequently picking out the major constellations, and asterisms etc. Also raiding my local library and reading TLAO really helped set the right expectations. I'd previously been using a terrible £40 scope I picked up second hand, the really cheap and nasty entry level stuff Celestron offer...you could see Jupiter and that's about it through it! The finderscope was a nightmare to align/the mount was awful and more often or not I would take it up my local dark spot, get it aligned with a distant TV mast and then be utterly disappointed when looking through it. I had big concerns about going for a manually tracked scope but figured I’m not going to astro-Image for years so I’d better man up and get on with it.

So the gf and I ordered the 250px from FLO on a Sunday night, due to our work location we arranged for it to be delivered to my Nana's house in an elderly residential home. They must've thought my Nana had ordered in her coffin and tombstone the size of thing when it come through reception! It took slightly longer to be delivered then I anticipated, everybody in the FLO thread seem to get theirs the next day so maybe I was a tad unrealistic in expecting it on Tuesday. I did mail FLO to get an ETA when it'd be delivered and was told expect it Wednesday or Thursday. Not a problem but I did feel slightly frustrated it was delayed in comparison to everyone else's purchases, no reason given for it not being dispatched on the Monday.

Setting it up was a doodle with the instructions and took roughly 25 min as I wasn't really rushing through it. The only constructive criticism I'd give towards building it is that you probably need to recruit another body to help hold the mount together, so you don't end up threading screws in diagonally and piercing the outer finish. The tools provided are adequate and do the job fine. Collimation looked reasonable (I'd ordered a Cheshire).

EP's supplied were the standard 25mm and 10mm, I know they're low quality so will upgrade at Xmas (could upgrade now but would rather get to know my scope first) to the Revelation Photo-Visual eyepiece set (as recommended by Steve @ FLO in subsequent emails and also splash out on a 9mm Celestron X-Cel LX EP).

Luckily for me it was clear skies....except one thing...it was a full moon. In all my years stargazing etc I’ve never seen the moon so bright, I could read the scope instructions outside without any external light source. I played around with moving the scope through all axis of direction whilst it cooled down. I must confess I haven't quite worked out the tension handle yet and it's not properly explained in the instructions. I was using both handles to swivel the scope left and right and pushing/pulling on the tube to move it up or down, slightly apprehensive I'm doing it wrong but all that aside it was so easy to point directly to what you want.

First task was to align the finderscope, TLAO prepared me for the differences I'd see through it compared to the main focuser etc. It was a little strange getting used to the different orientation but I knew that was normal. I must've looked odd practically hugging the tube body to any of the neighbours peering outside. I used Jupiter to align the finderscope, took about 60 sec to get that sorted and then I was set to go.

Peering through the main eyepiece with the 25mm at Jupiter I could clearly see the NEB & SEB, the four moons were in a lovely arrangement straddling the planet. Upping the mag with the 10mm I could see all the above but with the addition of the GRS, and Northern & Southern polar regions. I could see tiny atmospheric differences in the NEB and SEB and the planet had a slightly pinkish hue. Next stop was the moon and a long sought target of mine 'Alpine Valley'. In a word....painful. The moon was so bright it was not really enjoyable to look at. I have quite sensitive eyes to bright light/reflections (I'm a nightmare on snow holidays) and the moon was too much for me to look at for more than 3 seconds at a time. I spotted Alpine no problem but I didn't really enjoy my lunar viewing experience. I'll return back to the moon when I have moon filter and it isn't so luminous. I do wonder if you can damage your eyes looking at when it's at full brightness; a quick scout around on the web puts it at approx mag -12!!!

With the moon as it was; Jupiter was my only realistic target so I concentrated on that before packing up for the night. Then the clouds rolled in for the better part of the week after! Nothing at all to see.

I got out early on Sunday evening for a brief window in the weather and this time the moon was below the horizon and it gave me a little time before it rose, the seeing conditions were relatively poor with a thin layer of cloud cover at altitude with a few stars getting through and more between the clouds. First up the...Albeiro, very easy to find, lovely shot of the primary and companion and split very well by the 25mm let alone the 10mm. The double double was easy enough to find after working out which of the dots above Vega it was, once I mastered using the finderscope it was a doodle to find. I could split it into 4 although one pair of the stars looked more like an elliptical blob than the other two which were more clearly split; when the 2x Barlow comes I know that'll really bring the split out better between them both binaries.

A quick break in the cloud revealed Enif to me and I knew M15 wasn't far away, yup that took 1 min to find once on Enif (which itself is a lovely red hued star) and looked great with averted vision. At that point the clouds started rolling in again and I managed a brief look at M31, I won't lie...I wasn't impressed. I know to expect hardly anything but it was nothing more than a seemingly out of focus smudge, the core was slightly brighter then the surrounding dust lanes. I couldn't see any discernible features, even boundaries to where it began and ended were hard to pick out. I'm a little baffled reading some of the astronomy mags saying aim for this or that galaxy, I figured with 10" I’d at least be able to resolve more than just a brightened smudge...maybe I'm looking at the wrong galaxy and something like the Whirlpool with more defined spiral arms will be a more attractive target. Time will tell with galaxies.

All in all I'm very pleased with it, I'm not blown away by it (I’m just hard to impress) but I’m certainly enjoying using it, I'm holding back slightly with being thrilled or merely pleased by it until I've upgrade the lenses and got a Barlow. I know I’m not getting the most out of it at present (bad weather, polluted skies) and thus know I've got a lot more to look forward to.

[John]

Congratulations on the new scope.

M31 rarely seems to impress - often the view is more engrossing with a small, wide field scope or even large binoculars.

M51 will (just about) show spiral structure with a 10" scope under really dark skies but mostly it resembles 2 misty patches, even with a 10".

Try some globular clusters as the brighter ones do look good with 10" of aperture.

The galaxies M81 and M82 in Ursa Major are a nice pair of objects with a low power eyepiece - more interesting than M31 in my opinion.

[RikM]

Galaxies really need a dark sky to get the best results.

As for other objects, if you have a reasonably dark sky, try taking a peek at M27. Another thing to try in the 25mm is NGC457, the Owl cluster in Cassiopeia.

[EntropyStar]

Thanks guys....esp for the recommendations. I'm kinda overwhelmed by what to see really, I've done the 'big hitters' and now time to go after more differing things.

If anything i've really enjoyed just slewing the scope left and right and watching the night sky race through the eyepeice...the stars seem to go on forever.

Could possible advise me about the use of the tension handle? I think i'm missing something fundemental here....the scope's heavy enough that once you point it where you want it sits still.

[xyz]

next time you look at the moon, try just removing the small OTA cap and leave the main large cap in place. The reduction in aperture should cut down the brightness enough to make it more comfortable.

[rory]

nice first light report, enjoy that scope

[damnut]

Great scope, now you just need time at the eyepiece. The more time you spend there the better it becomes :-).

[John]

... I've done the 'big hitters' and now time to go after more differing things.....

By all means go after different targets but do make time to keep re-examining the more familiar objects. It's only by spending time studying an object, under different conditions, using different magnifications, that the subtle details emerge. Eventually your eye gets "trained" and you will see more than you did on your initial viewing of an object, sometimes much more

[RikM]

For the tension handles, there's nothing special about them. You probably could just keep them both a bit loose with the kit EP's.

When you stick a Telrad, RACI finder and big 2" EP's on it you may need to leave the plain handle a bit loose but tighten the one with all the gubbins on down hard, then back it off just enough that you can move the scope but it doesn't nose dive when you let go.

[swamp thing]

Nice first light report.

Congratulations on the new scope. 10" is the goldilocks size IMO.

Regards Steve

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