1st glimpses through my Skywatcher 250PX Dob

[John]

The term 1st light report would be far too grand for this quick note of my snatched glimpses of the moon and polaris this evening through a break in the cloud cover but they were enough to wet my appetite for this scope.

On the moon the twin craters Messier A and B were close to terminator and filled with shadows - they made a nice pair and for fun I used my newly aquired Nagler 3-6mm zoom eyepiece to, well, zoom from 200x to 400x ! - this is going to be a fun toy . With virtually no cool down time and the moon relatively low in the sky the images at 400x were pretty wobbly as you would expect but the lunar landscape was very sharp at 200x.

Polaris and it's 9th mag companion were a piece of cake in the 7mm Nagler (171x) and the defocussed images showed that the scope is in good collimation .

I also know that I can lift and carry the whole scope (bending my knees when lifting of course !) so moving it about is not going to be as difficult as I feared. It seems easier than the Revelation 8 inch that I used to own in this respect - I think it's those tension handles that make life easier with the Skywatcher.

That's it for now - I'm REALLY looking forward to a proper, clear, moonless night - M13 through my 13mm Nagler is going to be worth waiting for !.

John

[SteelRat]

Sounds good John 8) Hopefully 2nd light will be a nice clear night. Keep using those knees though eh?

[lunator]

Hi John

Good first impression.

Sounds like a scope that is going to get alot of use

[BWBlackett]

It's a great scope - I was out with mine for a few hours last night. As you said the moon was a bit wobbly at high magnification. I also managed my first ever view of Mars at about 11.40pm It too was very wobbly.

Get a Red Dot Finder and a 2" 30mm Revelation eyepiece and DSO hunting will become easy.

Brian.