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Your Biggest WOW! Moment?


Zaine UK

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Hello all,

Saturday was my first night with my CPC 800 and i'm hooked. Can't wait for the next night of clear skies. I was really just learning how everything worked, but the first thing i saw was when i was out of focus on Jupiter. I focused in and suddenly Jupiter and it's 4 moons were in front of my eyes. I could see the cloud bands.

It was a wow moment for me as it was the first thing i saw clearly and i realized what i had been doing wrong for the last half an hour and why i hadn't seen anything since i'd setup my new scope.

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I've had a few wow moments. Jupiter was a big wow on my first scope (Celestron TravelScope). Then seeing M42 through someone elses scope of Saturday night was fantastic.

But I think the biggest wow I had was seeing M81 & M82 on Saturday night through my little 130p. Wasn't much detail but I could clearly see a spiral and a cigar galaxy, and that so far has been my best sight :p

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Mine was seeing the double cluster (NGC 869 and NGC 884) from Ennerdale in the lake district with Bortle 1 (as dark as it gets) skies last weekend through my 4" vixen refractor and a 35mm Panoptic eyepiece.

Truly stunning!

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Jupiter and the Orion nebula for me.

My goals are colour images of the Horse Head Nebula and the Pillars of Creation (Edit obviously not with my 130 or anytime soon).

Thanks by the way Hightower, I think I'll have a go at M81 & M82 with my 130 too.

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Mine was seeing the double cluster (NGC 869 and NGC 884) from Ennerdale in the lake district with Bortle 1 (as dark as it gets) skies last weekend through my 4" vixen refractor and a 35mm Panoptic eyepiece.

Truly stunning!

you lucky boy! I saw similar skies recently (naked eye only) at Whittington near Kirkby Lonsdale - amazing.

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Jupiter through a cheap pairs of binoculars, I saw very faint dots that turned out to be moons. I was blown away, quickly got an 8" reflector. Since then M13, ring neb, m42 we're all wow moments..... I think the next wow was m81 & m82..... Then the beehive cluster...... But a few nights ago I saw Saturn for the first time, it blew everything else away! Best wow I've had so far.

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Jupiter and Saturn are always going to be wow objects, but I got my first really close up view of the moon on Saturday night, and that was quite a wow moment. Until I got the scope, the best I'd seen it with was through my DSLR camera with a 70-300mm zoom and a x2 converter, but even that only really showed different shades of grey and white.

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Seeing my next door neighbour skinny dipping in her pool... no no no I would never do that.. He's a bloke and he doesn't have a pool.

Saturn Definitely, as well as popping my eye to my 38mm Panaview eyepiece for the first time, and actually seeing how many stars are up there you can't see with the naked eye. Awe inspiring really!!

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my biggest wow moment was the Orion Nebula through my 16" dob with UHC filter and 13mm Ethos (140x) at a dark site. amazing.

M42 was amazing through my 10" from a dark site with a filter (using 11mm nagler). Bet you could have spent all night looking at the details visible in the 16". Looks 3D to my eyes when conditions are good.

The first time I saw Saturn through my old 6" scope was one of the biggest wow moments. The veil under a very dark sky (10" scope and filter) another real wow.

Yet to see M51 through a really big scope under a dark sky - that would be a wow.

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I've had quite a few since I started, all of eight weeks ago :p:)...

First one was when I first looked through my binoc's, I was amazed at just how much more I could see though them vs the naked eye.

Next one was the moons of Jupiter, closely followed by M45, Hydra and M44 (which was tricky to find from my light polluted back garden, Cancer is not a naked eye object from home!).

But the biggest wow for me was when I drove out to Albury last weekend. I know it's not the darkest of dark sites, but the difference from my view at home was staggering. Everything looked better, more contrast, even more stars visible and picking off M35, 34, 41, 103.... items that I really struggle to see from home, just seemed so easy. I have often looked up at the night sky from dark sites while on holiday in years gone by and thought wow, but now, armed with just a little bit more knowledge than I've previously been equipped with, made me appreciate it and marvel at it more than ever before.

I can't wait to experience a proper dark, dark site.....

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Only a newbie, so up until recently, like most others, it had been Jupiter and the 4 Galiaen moons, the moon itself and the Orion Nebula (M42). Not really got much of a look at Mars (hard to make anything out), not seen Saturn at all yet but did make out a really faint Uranus

However, last week I went to a dark(er) site and got to see the Andromeda galaxy as well as M81 and M82. Only smudges of light on my 6SE but still wow considering what I was looking at. Amazing and great to have a nice clear northern aspect, as I have a south facing garden and can't really look at anything back over my head due to houses and street lights.

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It was the trapezium in the Orion Nebula with my then new Skywatcher 130P with a EQ2 mount, it was this time last year. It made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. when I got to bed that night it was allI could think about. Defiantly a WOW moment

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