1145P on AZ4 first light

[Alastair Rae]

The 1145P sounds like it should be huge but it's a mere 114mm Newt, the littlest of the SkyWatchers. I've had it over a month but last night was its first proper outing.

I live in inner London so have horrible light pollution and little shelter from glare. This makes star-hopping difficult but I didn't fancy a GOTO. Instead I went for an aluminium AZ4 mount which is both light and has very accurate dials. I quickly got Vega centred in the EP and used the SkEye app on a tablet to get its current bearing and set the mount's horizontal dial.

First target was M57, the Ring. I pointed the scope at its the coords and did my best to shield my eyes, relax etc but it didn't appear. Not discouraged, I did an entirely unsystematic waving of the tablet around to find something to look at. M27, the Dumbbell? Where it should have been there was a little bunch of stars but no nebulosity. Curse this LP. M29 was a dainty open cluster, just where it should have been. Next was M39. Now, I believe this is supposed to be quite hard against the background of the Milky Way but LP has to have some advantages – once again a little cluster of stars just where SkEye said it would be.

Conclusions? I'm happy to start finding some Messiers on my own doorstep. Maybe 114mm is not going to show me much detail under LP skies. And the pseudo-GOTO technique is perhaps as unsatisfactory as real GOTO in that you find stuff without really learning to navigate the skies.

[andrew s]

As long as you enjoy it, it does not matter how you conduct our hobby ( as long as it's legal) - Andrew

[Marki]

The 1145Psounds like it should be huge but it's a mere 114mm Newt, the littlest of the SkyWatchers. I've had it over a month but last night was its first proper outing.

I live in inner London so have horrible light pollution and little shelter from glare. This makes star-hopping difficult but I didn't fancy a GOTO. Instead I went for an aluminium AZ4 mount which is both light and has very accurate dials. I quickly got Vega centred in the EP and used the SkEyeapp on a tablet to get its current bearing and set the mount's horizontal dial.

First target was M57, the Ring. I pointed the scope at its the coords and did my best to shield my eyes, relax etc but it didn't appear. Not discouraged, I did an entirely unsystematic waving of the tablet around to find something to look at. M27, the Dumbbell? Where it should have been there was a little bunch of stars but no nebulosity. Curse this LP. M29 was a dainty open cluster, just where it should have been. Next was M39. Now, I believe this is supposed to be quite hard against the background of the Milky Way but LP has to have some advantages – once again a little cluster of stars just where SkEye said it would be.

Conclusions? I'm happy to start finding some Messiers on my own doorstep. Maybe 114mm is not going to show me much detail under LP skies. And the pseudo-GOTO technique is perhaps as unsatisfactory as real GOTO in that you find stuff without really learning to navigate the skies.

Good work on getitng those first clusters!

I dunno about the goto being unsatisfactory. My first scope was the 8SE - I had problems with the alignments but when it worked it showed me lovely things that I might not have found on my own first off. It helped me to keep my interest until I was more confident to start looking on my own. I still struggle navigating my way around, but every day I learn a little more, and occaisional use of goto actually helps to fix things for me.

[onesmallstep]

Hi

Great first light (pollution) report. Have you joined / can you join one of the London astro groups and see how other members deal with the blight of LP? Other than that just limit your observing to object within the capabilities of your scope.

[Zul]

I had this 114/500. You should see m57 I tried to find it few times and nothing but one time i capturated it and it was kind a bright you can easely see the ring shape . Use more than 50x magnification at lower mag it will apear as a star.