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Hi from Gloucestershire!

Planetesimal

By Planetesimal
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Planetesimal

Planetesimal

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Hello to all at SGL, I'm glad to join the forum and looking forward to learning and contributing. I've had a life long interest in astronomy / cosmology, fed by a combined diet of Carl Sagan and Star Wars in my younger days! :laugh:

I was always staying up to catch lunar eclipses and meteor showers, and learned the constellations early on. But I never got around to a telescope or even binoculars, until now. Having decided to bite the bullet I went straight to the internet and found SGL, which pointed me in the direction of FLO, and I'm now the proud owner of a Skywatcher Explorer 150PL EQ3-2. Incidentally Martin from FLO was a great help during the process of buying the scope and gave me plenty of advice, and the delivery took 2 days, so very pleased with FLO, and I've now got a cheshire collimator and Baader's Wonder Fluid on order from them. I'd never even heard of a collimator 3 weeks ago!

So, first light was last weekend, Friday and Saturday night were nice and clear but with a ridiculously bright full moon, so on Friday I saw nothing except a load of white dots, but got some practice with polar alignment and just getting a feel for the whole RA Dec thing. I'm lucky to live in a fairly rural, dark sky setting with no housing or street lights out back (north west facing) or any major built up areas for about 25/30 miles in that direction, so I'm looking forward to a combined new moon / cloudless night to really see what's up there (although I'm gutted I've missed the boat for Saturn for a while).

On the Saturday I figured out how to use the finder scope and got Jupiter and the Gallilean moons in view, complete with banding... The effect of seeing it took me by surprise and I nearly had a heart attack with the excitement of it! :grin:

I also managed to take a closer look at the Paiedes, but the moon had washed out almost everything. Last night I had another chance with some clear skies and found M31 with the wide field EP, woohoo (even if it is just a grey fuzzy blob)! It's all very exciting to be a beginner and seeing all these things for the first time with my own eyes... As I sit here typing while trying to keep my eyes open from staying up late taking advantage of the rare clear skies, I've got a bad feeling I might be hooked! :eek::grin:

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Planetesimal

Planetesimal

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Thanks for the kind welcome everyone! :smiley:

I'm definitely happy with the 150PL as a starting scope, having read about it on here... You can see enough to establish an interest; there's lots you can learn such as RA Dec to find your way around the sky; EPs don't have to be top dollar because of the longer focal ratio, and collimation shouldn't be as crucial for the same reason (fingers crossed). I'm under no illusions though, I'm already dreaming about bigger apertures, better EPs, dual axis motors and sturdier mounts... :grin:

Anyway, thanks again and see you on the boards!

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Planetesimal

Planetesimal

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Hello and welcome to SGL, sounds like you had a good time viewing Jupiter :smiley:

:laugh:

It's not like I don't know what Jupiter looks like - and this was a monochrome view, but yeah, it really got me seeing those photons with my own eyes. And it was just at a point when I was feeling a bit disheartened from looking at loads of white dots! Shame Saturn's gone on sabbatical to the antipodes, but the next target on my wish list is M42 - go fuzzy grey blobs! :p

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Planetesimal

Planetesimal

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Welcome to SGL. Always good to see another 'local' join the forum :)

Thanks Rik, Glos is definitely a good spot for stargazing. Maybe I'll see you out and about at one of the Cotswold AS events, if I can get a free pass from my better half!

BTW, love what you've achieved with the 150P on an EQ3 mount - I don't think the PL would manage it with its "slow" focal length!

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RikM

RikM

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Thanks Rik, Glos is definitely a good spot for stargazing. Maybe I'll see you out and about at one of the Cotswold AS events, if I can get a free pass from my better half!

I look forward to it :)

BTW, love what you've achieved with the 150P on an EQ3 mount - I don't think the PL would manage it with its "slow" focal length!

:D the PL is great for webcamming planets though.

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