Ok so I can't wait until next week. I'm going out tonight.. Need Help!

[Lewis90]

My new explorer 130 is sitting in my shed and I don't think I have the willpower to wait until next week for my 'actual' birthday.. so I'm thinking about going out tonight.

Any advice for my first go? I have all the basic lens, stand etc that come with it. After I've set it up I was thinking about starting on the moon. I have the star walk app on my iphone to find the general direction of other stars if I can even manage that.

Any advice/tips/guidance would be gratefully received

Lewis

[hoops86]

i was about to say get starwalk

I would advise getting stellarium on a laptop! it will show you what is visible from your location and time. its a very very useful tool in my opinion!

But lets face it... the fact you are planning on going out means that you are pretty much guaranteed to have full cloud cover!

Best of luck on your fist light!

[rowan46]

1st make sure it isn't raining or going to rain. (a cloudless night is often a good indicator)

2nd Line up your finder. focus on an object as far away as you can see and move the finder until it sees the same point as your eyepiece repeat until you have lined up the finder with your most powerful eyepiece (best done in the daytime)

3rd have fun

seriously first time out with a scope just enjoy it if you see something that takes your fancy roll your scope round and have a look.

remember low power eyepieces first once you have got used to how your scope focusses and functions thats the time to start playing with barlows

[ronl]

I'm afraid you won't see the Moon tonight, it's not visible

while it's dark, really you need to get acquainted with your

scope, set the finder scope in daylight, it makes it much

easier as this can take a while to get right, also you need to

practice putting up and especially taking down your kit as it

will be dark when you do this, also you will need a red torch

to see what you are doing when changing eyepieces, so think

before rushing out and not enjoying your first light, as they say

practice makes perfect.

[m37]

I would recommend (as a bit of a noob myself) setting one or maybe two goals per night. If you try to get everything perfect all at once you probably won't have much luck. Maybe first try just setting up the tripod, levelling it and getting one leg pointing North. That sounds rubbish but it is really good progress if you can do it consistently.

You could do stuff like balancing the scope in the daytime or even indoors. There are loads of videos on YouTube about it.

[1hotspur]

Line up your finder it fill make finding things a lot easier, go outside before it gets dark setup and familiarise yourself with the scope and give it time to cool down. It may seem a bit daunting at first don't worry too much about setting up correctly! Have a look at stellarium for some objects you can view from your area. Surf the sky and enjoy!

[beans4]

I know for me opportunities to catch Saturn are running thin for the season. You could try your hand at that if you get out early enough.

[Lewis90]

Wow.. So what can I say.

I went out last night, and it took me about over an hour to set up my scope to Polaris? I think it was called Polar aligning. Facing north anyway.

I've set up my latitude. Aligned my red-dot sight. Good and bad news! lol. I experimented with all 3 of my lenses that came with my explorer 130. 25mm to start, then the 10 and then the barlow lens with both the 10 and 25.

Was amazing seeing my first star, which turned out there were about half a dozen more that I couldn't see surrounding it. I couldn't actually notice too much difference in the lens switchup, I thought the barlow gave you x 2 view of that lens? Am I expecting too much out of it?

Anyway it was all very short lived as by the time I had a very awkward setup and found the star Achird (I believe as it was the brightest) clouds filled up the sky.

For future viewing how do most people set up their scopes to look? Do you decide beforehand and work out all of the bearings etc. If so how?

Oh and I did download Stellarium by the way! Any tips on using that?

Apologies if I'm rambling, just had a lot of questions!

Lewis

(PS. Ordered a cheap red torch for sessions longer than 30 mins