Hooked

[JamesF]

Well after several nights in my back garden i have finally managed to find something that was not jupiter or the moon and set my eyes on M42 for the first time. I appreciate this is small chips for a lot of users of this site but i was so excited about.

In fact i got so excited that i went indoors and dragged my Mrs out into the cold night to have a look. Needless to say i wont be doing that again..."what that smudge?" !!! 

Quick question, i am just using a standard 20mm eyepiece, how much difference would a barlow lens make to what i am seeing?

You're not the only one who has that problem

A 2x barlow would double the apparent size of the object at the price of making it four times dimmer.

James

[Apollo459]

Hi there, Welcome to SGL.

[Mowbs]

Hi Geuse ,

I'm pretty new to all this too and I've had a fairly similar experience to yourself so far. Jupiter, Orion Nebula and Andromeda. I was back out there again tonight looking at the same 3 objects for most of the night (did I seriously just spend 9 hours outside?)

I was waiting for Mars and Saturn to come up but I called it a day once I saw Mars, the seeing deteriorated a bit by the end of the night and Jupiter or my telescope started looking like it had water pouring over it.

I'll see Saturn soon enough I'm sure but I'm really looking forward to that.

I have a goto on my scope and I tried to find other things tonight without any success, I'm not sure if it was me or the conditions (most likely me!)but I don't know if anything else is as obvious as the targets I've been looking at. I'm in Aberdeenshire too, nice dark skies here.

[swag72]

Hi and welcome to SGL - All good advise so far to get you on your way, so nothing to add from me, except a warm welcome

Look forward to seeing you around

[rob0971]

Welcome to sgl.

[hippie]

Welcome to SGL,