First proper night under decent skies

[Prador]

Well, last night was my first proper night of observing. I was all tooled up with telescope, camera, tripod and all the other paraphanalia required for a few hours viewing the skies.

As I drove to a nice dark site on the outskirts of Dartmoor (Burrator reservoir) I was full of anticipation about the night ahaead as it was lovely and clear with Jupiter and Venus highlighting the night sky.

As it turns out all I did was sit there and tour the night sky with a set of cheapo fleabay bins (15x70 Celestrons) hunting down elusive open clusters and faint galaxies. I was in awe at seeing a faint smudge that is M33 an realising it looks like it covers a patch of sky that beats the mighty Andromeda!

The Orion nebula was a beautiful light blue and I can only imagine how it would look through a large aperture scope. I had a huge amount of fun hopping stars and moving the bins in the required direction until I fell upon various fuzzy patches representing celestial structures of unimaginable size and many millions of years old.

What I am trying to say is (as a beginner) you dont need a massive telescope or ED refractors with CCD's plugged into them to enjoy the night sky. A cheap pair of binoculars and a map of the night sky is all you need.

Must remember to get the scope out of the car before the wife kicks off

Note to other starters thinking of going out in the evenings. Do not underestimate how cold you will get! wrap up and take layers off if you get too hot. A flask containing a hot drink is a must too

Dave

Clear skies

[mdstuart]

Excellent review. I can sense the excitement. I love looking at the sky with my two pairs of bins. Amazing what you can see with them. Next time you are out try NGC 1023 in Perseus. Its small but I can see it in my 80mm bins..

Mark

[estwing]

nice one dave, my first trip out last night too,great isn't it