Long time waiting - finally taken the plunge!

[jlowdo]

Hi All,

I think it's been about 15 years since i started to have an interest in astronomy, and i have been on the edge of buying a scope for a long long time, and have finally jumped in and bought one... granted, the weather isn't particularly helpful at the moment, so i am using the time to build up my knowledge base, waiting for clear skies....

So, i have purchased the following, and think i am pretty much sorted for getting up to speed, the only thing i think i need is a power unit, probably going to get a sky watcher 17ah unit off ebay over the next few days... gear is as follows

Celestron CPC 800, carbon fibre 50th anniversary edition.

Vixen LVW 8mm eyepiece

Vixen LVW 22mm eyepiece

Celestron 40mm eyepiece

couple of crappy freebie eyepieces

Kendrick dew heater, dew band and celestron dew shield

moon filter

Feathertouch micro-focuser

I 'think' this should be ok to get me going.

Thinking about starting out with lunar viewing, and going from there.... Bearing in mind i have no experience whatsoever, any pointers would be hugely appreciated.

Cheers

James

[TractionMan]

That is a serious plunge!  If you havn't done it already, download a free program called Stellarium (http://www.stellarium.org), add your home location and scope/EP data, then you can see what observable objects there are for you to find. Great tool to learn what's up there during those cloudy, rainy nights.

[John]

Welcome to the forum James 

Thats a nice setup. You seem to have covered all the bases to get yourself up and running really well. 

I don't find a moon filter useful myself but all the other stuff will do you well. I assume the 40mm Celestron is their 1.25" fitting one or did you go for a 2" along with a suitable diagonal upgrade ?

If the scope is to be kept in the house remember to allow a good 40 minutes or more for it to cool down before using high magnifications - they views can be quite unsteady until the scope has cooled.

Otherwise enjoy it   

[jlowdo]

thanks guys. I have a few apps on the iPad to give me an idea of what is in 'the sky' at the moment, albeit obfuscated by complete cloud cover at the moment.

yes, the diagonal is of the smaller diameter, and the 40mm is, what i believe, the standard one supplied with the scope. next to the vixens it looks pretty poor, not expecting a great deal from it.

the moon filter came bundled, so will have a play with it, but not sure if i will need it. 

I am thinking ( and i live somewhere very rural, in fact there is next to no light pollution around me, i am probably 5 miles from the nearest street light ) that i will try to set the tripod in a permanent base in the back garden.. i understand that the tube will need 40+ minutes to acclimatise to the outdoors temperature, but with the current weather conditions i'm not hopeful of having any practical usage in the short term.

I guess my main concern, is, when the skies are clear, what i can expect to see, and what i should concentrate on for the best results to start with. pretty excited to get going!!

and, i used to live in Sweden ( my wife is swedish ) and the night views from her parent's summer house were fantastic, and i am lucky to have similarly clear skies here, but not at the moment....obviously.

hoping the 8" will be enough to give me a lot of options..

cheers again

James

Looking forward to being an active member on the forum!

[AstroJon]

If you live in a very rural area, with an 8" scope the better question is what can't you see

If you want a good place to get started the book "turn left at orion" comes highly recommended (I have a copy myself).

[Stu]

Hi James,

Welcome to the forum. You have a very nice setup there.

Couple of things which may be of use. Under your dark skies and with the kit you have got, you will see a fantastic range of objects. The 8mm will give x169 and should be very useable on planets and the moon. The 22mm will give x61 and just over 1 degree field of view with a 2.4mm exit pupil which will be great on a wide range of deep sky objects.

It is well worth getting familiar with the different sizes of objects as this can really help you understand what to look for, and whether it will fit into the field of view.

Your scope has a long focal length, so one limitation will be getting very wide fields. This is only important for a very few objects, so not too much of an issue. If you did upgrade to a 2" back then with a Vixen LVW 42mm you should get 2.24 degrees which would be very nice on the larger objects.

Andromeda for instance is roughly 3 degrees x 1 degree so you will see only the central core with your 22mm.

I would get started with the moon and Jupiter, both easy to find! Make sure your finder is aligned properly. Then maybe try some of the easier deep sky objects at the moment such as M42 the Orion Nebula which is well placed, and amazing to see. Also the double cluster is overhead and will be very nice in the 22mm. You could also look for M81 and M82 (both are galaxies), and see if you can spot the supernova in M82.

Stellarium has been mentioned I think, a very good free download which will help you see where all these objects are.

Have fun!

Cheers,

Stu

[jlowdo]

Thanks for the tip. Just downloaded an .epub for the book ( if it is the Consolmagno and Davis one )... will have a browse today. 

One quick question, as i am sure there are a wealth of people able and willing to give advice on the forum boards. should i keep this thread running and ask here, or open a new one in any particular area of the board when the inevitable noob questions come up?

Thanks again, got a ing journey ahead of me

Rgds

James

[astrorabbit]

Nice setup! Welcome to the forum.

One thing I'm still umming and erring about for my sct is a focal reducer to get a wider field out of it, I took the plunge and bought a diffrent scope and mount however I'm more interested in the photographic side rather than visual.

Maybe someone of more experience could advise you better.

Cheers!

[Stu]

Hi James,

Best to start a new thread with each question and put it in the relevant forum. If you keep going with this one the questions just get buried and you won't get as many answers.

Stu

[jlowdo]

a lot to take in, i don't even know what a focal reducer is at the moment 

Stu, thanks for the advice, although being a gadget junkie i do start to think 'ooo i must need one of those' whenever something is suggested to me. The Vixens were used, and i got them at what i think is a good price. new, the £ is a little eye-watering for those.... however, i've noticed the baader hyperions seem a lot cheaper and also appear to be very well considered. so, as opposed to waiting for a 42mm Vixen to pop up second-hand, would the baader be a good alternative?? as to increasing the diagonal, bearing in mind i haven't even used the scope yet, i will undoubtedly have it nagging at me to increase the size on that too.. still, at least these things are easier to get under the 'wife radar' than one of my bikes suddenly having a new set of blinged wheels appear overnight.

And, Andromeda is a 'must' for me, so would have to seriously consider the best options for observing that. assume the stock celestron 40mm is going to be a bit underwhelming it that department?

At present i am thinking i won't even go photographic for a long time yet.. i have a couple of DSLR's which i guess i could use at some point in the future, although i don't have the equatorial mount at present, and understand that is really a requirement for decent photography. 

at the moment, i am still fiddling the feather touch whenever i walk past the device, from an engineering perspective i am most impressed, even though i haven't had the opportunity to use it yet.

Cheers

James

[jlowdo]

yep, what i thought re questions and new threads. still, until i actually have any questions, it is very pleasant to have such a warm welcome!

[Blazar]

James,

Congrats on your new scope setup. Might be good to set some expectations, so not sure if you have read Quali's excellent post entitled "what can I expect to see" here. A+1 on the Turn left suggestion...though I would not have got the epub version, the best one is the physical book..its huge, and is ring bound so you can take it outside and not worry about it...the brightness of your electronic device might ruin your night sight every time you look at it, so you will need to turn that down. 

Another good handy app if you have an iPod or iPhone is the Scope tools app...it has a level and other uses (iPhone has a compass etc)...worthwhile little tool.

Good luck though, its a great hobby...when there are no clouds...;-)

[jlowdo]

good point re the epub. still, gives me something to read until i can actually use the thing.. and thanks for the re-direct to the 'beginners' post.

my expectations are pretty much realistic i think. it'll be a little bit more difficult to explain to the better half how much money i have spent to sit out in the cold to look at a 'blob'..

[John]

You will certainly be able to see the misty core of the Andromeda galaxy (Messier 31) and it's fainter close companions M32 and M110 but not it's full extent because of the long focal length of your scope. You can see M31 with binoculars or even the naked eye on a dark night, when you know where to look.

If you get hooked on low power, wide field views it's actually often less expensive to get a second scope that is better designed for such viewing than it is to invest in a 2" diagonal and one of the better 2" low power wide field eyepieces. Thats also a difficult one to explain to ones other half !

[jlowdo]

ok, so until the weather sorts itself out, i need to ( need is maybe not the right word )get a 40/42mm decent eyepiece, as mentioned above, not going to spend the money on a new vixen, and assuming i can't find one used, i will go with  the baader hyperion ( unless anyone tells me otherwise ), and the 17ah tank.. then, maybe a big hip flask, and a good malt, and i am ready to go..

and yes, John, i think trying to swing 'another scope' past the wife, before i have even used the one i have just bought is probably a tall order.... she is generally quite reasonable, but not that reasonable.

Cheers again

James

PS - using 'boots, the optician', glasses cleaning fluid on the eyepieces, assume that is good for the job?

[jlowdo]

oops, just seen that baader don't do a 40/42mm.. and also, seems like that would require a 2inch anyway... am i right with this?

ta

James

[Stu]

oops, just seen that baader don't do a 40/42mm.. and also, seems like that would require a 2inch anyway... am i right with this?

ta

James

Hi James,

That's right, above a certain point you need to go to 2" to get a wider field of view. In the 1.25", a 32mm Plossl with 50 degree apparent field of view (afov), or say, a Televue 25mm Panoptic with 68 degree afov give just about the maximum in this format. You would get around 0.8 degrees with the Panoptic.

Going to a 2" back and diagonal will get you more as mentioned, but I would certainly have a good go with what you have got to start off with before spending more cash.

Stu

[Stu]

By the way, the best thing for cleaning eyepieces is Baader wonder fluid, get it from FLO, plus some of the cleaning cloths too.

http://www.firstlightoptics.com/misc/baader-optical-wonder-fluid.html

Stu

[John]

The Baader Wonder Fluid and their micro fibre cloth are well worth the investment 

If you are going to stay with the 1.25" eyepiece size at the moment you might as well get a 32mm plossl as it will show as much sky as a 40mm in that fitting but with a more pleasing apparent field of view of 50/52 degrees v's the 40mm's 43 degrees, as Stu says.

[Stu]

That should of course have been 24mm Panoptic...

[jlowdo]

ordered the cleaning fluid..many thanks for the tip. can't seem to find a 32mm eyepiece as mentioned above, any particularly noteworthy ones? having said that, i also like the idea of not spending any more money and playing with what i already have.

incidentally, very clear tonight when i got home, if i didn't have a 6am start tomorrow i think i would have popped my cherry tonight

[Stridor]

at the moment, i am still fiddling the feather touch whenever i walk past the device, from an engineering perspective i am most impressed, even though i haven't had the opportunity to use it yet.

Hi, I agree with you there; I have recently bought one and seem to have the desire to `twiddle with it` whenever I can...........it`s that sort of thing isn`t it?

Btw; interested also in your `signature/picture`.......do you own a `Cervelo` frame?   (as a bit of a cyclist myself)

[Stu]

ordered the cleaning fluid..many thanks for the tip. can't seem to find a 32mm eyepiece as mentioned above, any particularly noteworthy ones? having said that, i also like the idea of not spending any more money and playing with what i already have.

incidentally, very clear tonight when i got home, if i didn't have a 6am start tomorrow i think i would have popped my cherry tonight

Best 32mm Plossl would be a Televue.

http://www.telescopehouse.com/acatalog/TeleVue_32mm_Plossl_Eyepiece_1_25__.html

Keep an eye out on here or ASTROBUYSELL and you may pick one up secondhand.

Stu

[jlowdo]

i will keep an eye out for a good price on a used one of those, how many posts are required before one can see the classifieds on the forum?

and without wanting to go off-topic.... re Cervelo, am working on an S2 project at the moment, which has taken a back seat for a while so that i can pay for all this stuff . one must have multiple hobbies!

Cheers

James

[Stu]

i will keep an eye out for a good price on a used one of those, how many posts are required before one can see the classifieds on the forum?

and without wanting to go off-topic.... re Cervelo, am working on an S2 project at the moment, which has taken a back seat for a while so that i can pay for all this stuff . one must have multiple hobbies!

Cheers

James

I believe it is one month and 50 posts to see the classifieds, 250 to post ads

Stu