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!

[knobby]

Well done, its pretty special the first time ..

wait til about 1 a.m. and you might catch Saturn, that'll blow your socks off

[Steve 1962]

Thanks for sharing your experience!

I really enjoyed reading about peoples' first lights and their "WOW!" moments - I still get that feeling whenever I look at Jupiter or Saturn

[paul schofield]

Congrats on a great first light. What did you think of Mars ? Thanks for the post.

[marcosscriven]

Congrats on a great first light. What did you think of Mars ? Thanks for the post.

My first sight of Mars I spent literally 5 minutes on inside, pointing out an open upstairs window. This was literally so I could make sure I could even point and focus, change EP to higher mag, and so forth. Moment I realised I could I went out the front to catch Jupiter.

Having said that I just spent about 15 minutes on Mars again, and after that a good 45 minutes on Saturn. I was in awe of the latter, but half-fortunately the cloud eventually saved me from frostbite and being tired at work tomorrow!

So, Mars seemed almost too bright. Also, there was a bluefish halo around it, not present on Jupiter or Saturn. I did manage to catch some glimpses of surface detail. No polar ice caps.

I think I may have seen Phobos? A point to the left that always stayed with the planet as I tracked. I could barely see it directly. Would that be right? When I say 'left', this is with a dielectric mirror, so top/bottom is corrected, but left/right isn't.

[marcosscriven]

Well done, its pretty special the first time ..

wait til about 1 a.m. and you might catch Saturn, that'll blow your socks off

Yep. Just spent the last 45 minutes watching. It started at about 22 degrees in the sky, a decent distance from rooftops.

That first moment was amazing. Same drill: Point telescope roughly at bright star you happen to know is Saturn. Look through 25mm, see very large disk, focus to almost a point, with a hint of budge.

Wack in the 4mm, again a large white disk, but this time as you focus - a revelation! Oh my those rings are stunning. I felt sure too I could see a point always to the top left that I figured must be a moon.

[John]

Congratulations on your 1st light !

The moon of Saturn will be Titan. The moons of Mars are tiny and need a really large scope to glimpse.

You should be able to see the northern pole cap and some darker markings on Mars though. A good challenge on Saturn will be to spot the Cassini Division in the rings.

Observing out of a window is not a great way to get the best views - get the scope away from the house if possible so that it can show what it can do unhampered by the heat from the house.

[marcosscriven]

Hi John

Thanks - and yes, I did have the scope outside for all but my initial test. Literally the first time I'd trained a telescope on anything, so thought I'd make sure I could do it before going outside.

Regarding the moon, I posted about this separately. However, having subsequently looked on Red Shift, Deimos is exactly where I thought I saw the really faint dot.

[rory]

good stuff,well done.

[stevetynant]

congratulations - sounds like a great first light - I must admit although I've seen Saturn only twice so far in my newbie career I've yet to see the casini divisions in the rings - on the positive side at least this time I didn't have to get up at 5am to see it at all - about 10pm on Saturday lovely view though I guess its not at its optimum seeing position until its a lot higher on the horizon.

Thanks anyway - always enjoy reading peoples first experience

Steve