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wow……WOW!!!……WOOOOOOOOOOOWWWW!!!!

mashedpotatomountain

By mashedpotatomountain
in Observing - Reports

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mashedpotatomountain

mashedpotatomountain

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hey guys here's my FIRST first light report :)
it's my very first light with a telescope of any kind, so this is going to be a long one i'm afraid - i'll try to make it interesting but there's a lot to tell!
 

SO...

 
for some reason, after moving to an old house out in the sticks surrounded by not much else but fields & sky (see pics, the little white dot on the left is my house),
it took me a good couple of years to realise it was high time i had a better look at all the amazing stuff i'd previously only ever seen through binoculars…
so, after some great advice from a lot of good folk here - and Martin at FLO - this week i bought myself amongst other things, a SW Skyliner 250PX, SW RACI finderscope, and a Telrad.
 
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PURCHASE
 
here i'll just add myself to the ranks of happy FLO customers by saying the whole process was a pleasure - after hearing nothing but good things about FLO they were my first port of call,
and Martin was very helpful, even advising against a couple of things i didn't really need but had been about to get because they looked cool, shiny and expensive - and time from order to
delivery was only 2 days, faster than i expected in the first busy days after new year…in the name of comedy if nothing else, i'll knock a point off just for the fact that at one point in the email
conversation, Martin decided to refer to me as Phil. this of course i put down to him probably trying to answer 99 other questions at the same time, so no offence caused ;)
i'll certainly be going back there again when it comes to EP upgrade time.
 
DELIVERY/SETUP
 
Fedex man arrived at lunchtime, at the same time as my brother and his three dogs who did their best to see him off...but after a bit of barking and complaining, one big box, then one very big box,
and then one almighty box were offloaded in good order...so the afternoon was spent doing various things - firstly trying to explain to someone with no interest whatsoever why i would spend money
on such a thing, followed by a lot of unpacking, a bit of pacing around, head scratching, knocking over a drink which i knew i'd knock over but for some reason put it on the floor next to me anyway,
reading instructions, more pacing, and eventually building the damn thing. and i'm not exactly an IKEA kind of a guy, but this was very easy to put together, and an hour later the thing was done and
standing in front of me looking totally oversized and out of place for a little backroom office.
 
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back when i first bought a vintage guitar (a cherry red 1968 Gibson ES345 and love of my life), i remember staring at the thing for hours on end before i even plugged it in - and don't laugh but this
almost reminded me of that feeling…ok to my eyes a guitar is still more an object of beauty than a telescope, but you understand what i mean…suffice to say there followed another hour or so of
swinging the thing around, getting used to the feel of the base rotation, checking every corner to make sure i hadn't bought a dud, peering at myself in the huge primary mirror, and generally just looking at it.
 
fitting the RACI finder and Telrad were also a breeze, and so having done all my homework, i set about making a dew shield for both the scope and Telrad (keen as i was, i'd already been to Hobbycraft before
the thing arrived and spent so much on foam rubber, velcro and bits & bobs that i may as well have just bought an Astrozap). anyway at last, there it was, finished :)
 
PANIC
 
it was at this point i first noticed the sun was setting fast, and due to way too much standing around admiring the new toy, i'd not got as far as aligning the finders or even checking collimation (which i hope to tackle today.)
so in a mad dash test of portability, i manhandled the thing through the house, out of the door and into the garden overlooking the fields i'm lucky enough to be surrounded by. even luckier, aligning the finderscope and
Telrad proved to be as quick & easy as fitting them was. (another moment of satisfaction, as finding it so easy to locate things after a quick slew across the sky meant i'd made the right choices)…and i have to say that
carrying the thing was not a problem at all, easier than i'd anticipated. hooray! ok i'm in my 30s and reasonably fit, but i was expecting a bit more of a hassle really - if anything it's more about being careful not to knock it
against anything than it is a pain to carry. admittedly it's 2 trips really, base first then OTA, but i'm pretty sure it would be quite manageable for most fit-ish people.
 
FIRST FIRST LIGHT!
 
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so...with everything set up, the sun pretty much below the horizon and clear, darkening skies above, i was like a kid on christmas eve…no way on earth was i going to be able to hold myself back for proper darkness!
so to be honest very first light for me was about 5pm. and my very first look at the sky through anything other than binoculars was Jupiter and it's moons - easy as pie through Telrad, then RACI finder, to the stock 10mm ep…
 
WOW!! sorry did i say WOW? i meant WOOOOOWWWWWW!! 
i'm not going to get all poetic…but what's the best way to describe how incredible it was seeing Jupiter, bold and bright with clear banding, and 4 shiny moons all in a line for the very first time? i'll have to tell you another short story…
 
a long time ago on a flight to the Greek island Kos i think it was, as we were coming into land and your ears start popping, well mine popped very badly and stayed popped. i couldn't hear much out of one ear and was virtually
deaf in the other for the entire holiday - and for a few weeks afterwards i stayed like this, getting slowly used to not hearing much until eventually i had to go to the doctor. well you know what's coming next, the doctor did what
doctors do with their big syringe, and after an uncomfortable few seconds of having warm water pumped into my ears, there came a loud rushing sound and my hearing came back with a vengeance. and that day i walked home
from the doctors office feeling like a superhero! i really felt like i could hear a mouse fart at 100 yards, amazing!!
 
looking at jupiter now gave me that same feeling all over again, i suddenly had super vision…
 
anyway it wasn't even 6pm and here i was with the whole night ahead of me, this was only the beginning!! the moon came next. i refused to look at the moon first because it seemed like the obvious thing to do, and i wanted
Jupiter to be first. but there it was and it was beautiful, just like all the images i'd seen taken by people with the right kit - not a full moon but extremely bright all the same, so much so that after all my careful painting of my little
headtorch earlier with stolen red nail varnish (girlfriend never noticed) in order to preserve night vision, the moon ruined it all in a flash! i knew i'd really need a filter for best results, but in my excitement i never thought about
it being so bright that i'd have it floating about in front of my eyes whenever i looked away…well i've got a lot to learn haven't i.
 
ok this is far too long a report already. if you've made it this far i'll be brief now…basically, wearing 3 pairs of everything except shoes, and with a couple of glasses of wine and far too much coffee, (Dob bases make quite handy,
if totally unadvisable drinks shelves too) i managed to stay out last night until about 2.30am…i'm lucky to have dark skies where i live, and am still trying to work out where i might be on the Bortle scale but i think it may be somewhere
around a 3? i'm 10km from the nearest town, have no neighbours at all and can usually see the Milky Way easily anyway...but with the moon so bright overhead there wasn't much chance of seeing that tonight. even when the moon
had disappeared for me, the sky was still very bright. so, wishing i'd done this months earlier, i spent some very happy hours swinging around the sky looking at stuff i can locate easily, such as M45 and M42 - both looked stunning to
these new eyes, even in stock eyepieces! but eventually cloud started to drift over, the cold started to get through the layers, and so i called it a night. good times.
 
NEXT DAY…
 
i'm still buzzing from last night, it was like peeling a layer off the old eyes and seeing everything for the first time! i know i got the right scope for me and sure it'll do me proud for a long time to come. no doubt EP fever will be the next
bug to hit, but i'll happily make do with what i've got until i can get some more good advice from you guys. happy days!!
 
the only thing that could possibly make this whole thing better for me now, would be if someone could invent the smellascope.
 
cheers everyone.
rich
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crimpshrine

crimpshrine

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Awesome! This is the scope I hope to upgrade too in a few months time, or a 12" Rev. Seeing it in your office though makes me think this one may be big enough! Do you happen to know the measurements of the tube at all?

Look forward to reading more on how you get on with this one!

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mashedpotatomountain

mashedpotatomountain

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Awesome! This is the scope I hope to upgrade too in a few months time, or a 12" Rev. Seeing it in your office though makes me think this one may be big enough! Do you happen to know the measurements of the tube at all?

Look forward to reading more on how you get on with this one!

hey there, yep i just measured it at 28cm diameter x 112cm length. when upright on the base i think it's about 135cm, and the base itself is about 50cm diameter. hope that helps...

it's plenty big enough for me anyway - i don't have far to take it and it's easy to carry in 2 trips, or one if you don't mind banging your legs against the base a bit. it's just more awkward that way.

cheers

rich

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mashedpotatomountain

mashedpotatomountain

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first of all..1.great write up...2.with skies like that wait till you start hunting DSO and working through the Messier's and...C.can we come to yours for a starparty!!

hey thanks estwing! anyone who writes a list as 1, 2 and C is ok by me :)

a star party at my place haha that would be amazing!

actually i only just discovered the SGL star party is at Lucksall Caravan Park which is literally a 5 minute drive from me! 

shame i only just found out about it. knowing my luck, next year it'll probably be a 5 hour drive...

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AlexB67

AlexB67

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Rich, a very enjoyable read and thread, good music in there too. It is often said the 10 inch is the goldilocks zone for size weight, portability, what you can see etc, ( unless you are wealthy enough an OO optics 12 inch being lighter for the elitist :D)  

Best of luck with it :smiley:

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Mark at Beaufort

Mark at Beaufort

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Rich welcome to SGL and you have purchased a great scope.

I also live in Herefordshire about 10 minutes from the Lucksall site which we have used since 2009 and hope to continue in the future. You may wish to know that there is a Herefordshire Astro Society and there is a link in my signature if you are interested.

I notice that you live 5 minutes from Lucksall and the location from your photos looks rural so which Parish do you live in?

Send me a message if you want.

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mashedpotatomountain

mashedpotatomountain

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Sounds like you've passed the telescope driving test already, and with your dark skies all you need now is a seat belt for a wild ride around the universe! 

Don`t forget to take a look at Saturn when it gets better placed in the sky!!

thanks phil, not sure i'm quite ready to take the L plates off yet but i've had a quick drive round the back roads and am feeling confident i can venture a bit further now!

cheers

rich

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