11th Feb 2014; a good start :-)

[davedownsouth]

So, the NexStar 8SE arrived safe & sound this afternoon, big thanks to Flo for getting this sent out so quickly after the start of the Celestron promotion. Managed to skip off from work on time so was driving home with one eye on the clearing sky's . By the time I had got the tripod set-up and levelled and the scope attached it was starting to get reasonably dark and low & behold, the clouds had pretty much gone . As it was dark, I chose Jupiter as the target for aligning the red dot finder, and expecting the worst (from what I have read in most reviews), I was really please when it just worked. The next two hours were spent staring at Jupiter & the moon, incredibly impressed by both, particularly the moon . By this time I realised I was blumming freezing and pretty hungry (9pm by now), so I stopped for a coffee and toast break. After adding several layers of cloths (managed to dig out my old skiing thermals which have not seen the light of day for 15 years), I was back out into the perfectly clear sky's again. Thought I would give the star alignment thing a go this time. I had read that the three star alinement thing was hard to get right, and after trying and failing two times I went to the two star auto one (chose Betelgeuse & Polaris) and this worked well. With the supplied 25mm EP I then chose The Orion Nebular and ping, it swung round with the Trapezium just visible in the bottom field of view. Got it into the center of the EP and spent a good ten minutes just staring at it. Swapped to the 15mm Luminos EP and the Nebula looked really impressive. Time was flying by now and I tried goto'ing a couple of other things in the 'tour' menu, but did not have a great deal of luck (think the alignment was out a bit). Spent the last hour jumping between Jupiter & the Moon, trying out the moon filter I had bought. The craters were absolutely stunning, with craters within craters easily visible through the 7mm Luminos EP. If anything, the moon was still way too bright, even with the filter in place. Time had just gone midnight by now and I was starting to lose feeling in my toes, so decided to quit while the going was good & not ruin the night by over doing it on my first time. All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed the first night with the scope and looking forward to many more.

I have lots of addition comments out my first nights experiences / what I did wrong (), but it is getting late and I think I have thawed out enought to go to bed now.

Happy nights :)

[Tiny Small]

That's a great first light report. It's a great feeling having new kit and an even better feeling seeing the night sky with said kit.

[Robbo AR]

Sounds like you had a brilliant first light. Thanks for sharing it with us

[TractionMan]

What a great first light report! Enjoyed reading it very much. I think you're hooked already. Welcome to a sweet addiction!

[Langy]

Just what anyone needs on their first night, the medicine to really get hooked.

[cotterless45]

Great report, hoping we get some

Clear skies,

Nick.

[davedownsouth]

Thanks for the comments .

Well, since my first nights' viewing I have managed to get out on three further nights (not bad really considering the weather .)

My second viewing on the 13th was a frustrating night. The weather was very good and I decided to set-up on a bit on common ground straight in front of my house. I was expecting this to be a better location than my back garden as although it is surrounded by street light, they are a good 30 metres away and it looks nice & dark; from a distance. The problems is, which I foolishly did not think of, is that cars driving past dazzled me as they turned in off a side road. This was a bit annoying, but I could live with it and as I was set up, I was not going to move. A much bigger problem was I just could not align the scope . I think that my problem was not getting the scope level. This time I used the crappy circular spirit level supplied with the scope, rather than the decent spirit level I have in the back garden shed. Will not make this mistake again, and the proper spirit level is now in my lens case side pocket. Spent this night just finding things with the rdf, but without the tracking, it was difficult changing EPs and not losing the target. Frustrating as it was, it was still a useful practice night.

Last night & an hour tonight were much better. Aligned the scope no problem, and tonight the goto worked really well, hitting the centre of the EP most times. Spent most of my time around Orion, and a couple of the cluster galaxies pretty much directly over head (love M35 ). A really good couple of nights and getting much better at setting the scope up.

So, things I have learnt in my first week:-

1. Set the scope to the right height . On my first night it was far too low and I nearly broke my back trying to use the rdf on Jupiter.

2. As already mentioned, use a decent spirit level to set up the tripod.

3. Get two smallish door mats, one for putting the lens case / caps / Turn Left at Orion on and one to kneel on when viewing things directly above you.

4. Wear more cloths than you think you would possibly need.

5. Reposition your sons toy basketball ring so it blocks next doors security light.

6. Have a chat with your other neighbour telling him not to be alarmed if he sees me pointing my scope in the direction of his daughter's bedroom window as I am just trying to align on Rigel. Surprising how quickly her curtains were shut blocking out her incredibly bright light .

Couple of quick comments about the NexStar 8SE. With nothing else to compare this to, I have to say that it is very good. It is pretty easy to set-up, with tonight just taking 15 minutes from being in the shed to set-up, aligned and working well. The only real complaint I have about it (so far) is it is annoying that it can't remember the time and when you turn it on you have to re-enter it, along with the date. Also, could not get the position set right as could not work out how to enter the Long / Lat coordinates. This is my fault as I just do not know how to do this, but setting my location as London (~40 miles away) seems to work okay. I am going to get one of the gps things thought, as the time setting thing was just too annoying.

Quick question; does anyone know how important it is to set-up the controller on a computer? I guess this is just for updates, but for some bizarre reason Celestron have only supplied a Serial port adaptor cable with the scope (how many years is it that computers stopped having these types of adaptors built in?). I have got an IMac, so if I need to connect the controller to the computer, can someone give me a link to an appropriate USB cable which will work?

Cheers,

Dave

[rwilkey]

Dave, some great reports, and funny too, enjoyed them very much.  Clear skies!

[davedownsouth]

Pretty poor weeks' viewing, only managed an hour of cloud dodging tonight, which was useful for picking out named stars in constellations as they appeared thought the clouds, but not much chance of anything else (Jupiter was pretty hazy even when it was visible).  According to the Scope Nights App, the forecast between 3-6am is very good, so I am going to get off to bed early and try to get up at 5am and see if I can catch my first viewing of Saturn and Venus through the scope .  Long time since I have seen the moon, so looking forward to trying to catch a view of that as well.  

Almost forgot, my AstroZap Baader Solar Filter arrived in the post yesterday, and I did manage to catch sight of the sun for 20 minutes this afternoon.  Excellent to see Sun spots for my first time live, but even though the filter was firmly screwed on, I was too nervous of it blowing off in the wind during my viewing, so I kept it short & sweet.  Can't wait until I get a proper clear sunny day; with no wind .

[davedownsouth]

Actually managed to get myself out of bed at 5am this morning      .

Stunning views of both Saturn and Mars, even with Saturn being partly covered by whatever tall bush / tree thing next door have got in their garden .  I could not quite make out the Cassini Division on the rings, but still had a beautiful 30 minutes viewing .  Was surprised at how bright & red Mars was, wish I had tried a couple of filters on it (and Saturn), to see if I could pick out any more details (have got one filter which is meant to show up the polar cap better).  Other than the bush / tree, the only annoying thing about this morning was I could not see the moon or venus at all.  This was because the house was in the way  .  Went to the front garden was was amazed at how close and bright they both were, opportunity missed, but sure I will get anther one  .