Oh my god (aka First Light)

[marcosscriven]

Just been out for an hour with my first scope:

WO 72 Megrez

2" WO Dielectic mirror

25mm Vixen NPL EP

2-4mm Televue Nagler

Manfrotto tripod with geared head

Realise it's early, but as my main purpose was to check out Jupiter I had to get out there.

With the 25mm it was surprisingly easy to get Jupiter in there, centre it, and pop in the TV EP at the 4mm setting, refocus, and recenter.

But wow! Although it was a little wobbly, I could see a main central band, two of the moons to the left spaced out, and two of the moons much closer to the right. I found even getting up to the 3mm setting made a useful difference, which surprised me, from what people have said.

Amazed at how frequently I had to twiddle the gears on the tripod head using with EP at 3 or 4mm. I also realisd the importance of setting the tripod at the right height; my back started to ache pretty quickly.

I managed to have a gander at Mars too, but I'm thrilled to say I found Orion's Nebula. In London though it was just a very faint background. I wasn't even 100% sure I'd found it, but I memorised the simple pattern of three stars in a row, then a group of three stars up and to the left. I checked when I got in, and found this result on Google:

The Lives of Stars

Orion's belt was easy to find, drawing the line from Betelgeuse to the leftmost star was ok, but I just wasn't sure how far down the 'sword' to follow. Through the 25mm I could just see one star that looked fuzzy, so I centred it, popped in the TV again, focused, and hey presto! Dead chuffed.

I would now dearly love to get this scope into good seeing conditions to see such a DSO properly.

Anyway, that's my little experience. Nothing for everyone else, but a lot to me!

[stevetynant]

Congratulations Marco - first sight of M42 is a big wow moment for most astronomers old and new I would guess - sounds like you've got pretty bad LP where you are though - when you get into this a little more a trip to a dark sky site will really open your eyes to whats possible.

This time of the year Saturn is viewable where I live at @ 10pm although its fairly low on the horizon - if you have the staying power to stay up a little later on the weekend perhaps and get it in your EP thats another landmark sight for most of us new to this hobby.

Well done - and welcome to SGL

Steve

[Doughzer]

stevetynant, your not wrong, I have to wait till about 12ish for Saturn to clear the house, but first time in the eyepiece last night, and I agree, it is a big wow, seeing the rings with their reflection on Saturn itself!