First night out observing

[Charlie_starz]

Okay this is going to seem pretty light compared to some of the other awesome posts I have read in this part of the forum but it's me and my son's first experience with a proper telescope observing anything. I bought his a Celestron Firstscope for christmas which was fun but hard to use.

We have suffered through 5 days of cloudy skies since we purchased a Skywatcher 120 Evo on an EQ3-2 mount via eBay. Thankfully the previous owner upgraded a the scope a lot so we have been itching to get it out. Hw put in a two-speed focuser, a 99% dialetic star diagonal and an upgraded finder scope. Lots of eyepieces thrown in as well as a motorised RA drive (didn't use this as we didn't polar align tonight, to eager to get going).

This evening the weather cleared and a crescent moon was out while the skies were still blue. I decided to take out the scope and check the alignment of the finderscope on the moon. It looked good so I left the scope out waiting for dark. Roll on some black clouds..... quick bring in the scope ahead of a torrent of rain. Ah well, nothing tonight I thought. However the skies cleared again and we went out for a second try. Also, being a school night my wife wanted our 10 year old in bed but he was excited to use the scope as he had saved for it himself - can't argue with enthusiasm. 

By now it was getting dark (well as dark as it gets in Wimbledon). We have a pretty secluded back garden which no streetlights can effect so we are lucky.

First up the moon, as it is the easiest to see. We started with a 25mm super wide eyepiece and it looked great but very bright. I screwed on a moon filter to the base of the eyepiece and it was much better. It was a fantastically clear sight. After a while we used 2x Barlow and were again blown away by the beauty.

I know you may all be used to it by now but for us it was astonishing seeing the craters up close, especially around the terminator. The mare were all clear and we spent a lot of time looking at a pair of beautiful craters - I think they were Aristotle and Eudoxus (after digging out a copy of Turn Left at Orion we bought a few weeks ago). I could have spent all night just captivated with the moon. There was some atmospheric distortion so we decided that we wouldn't try to get any closer a look tonight but stay with the present setup. Sadly the moon disappeared behind our chimney so it was time to move on, not before I tried snapping a few shots of the moon with an iPhone held up to the eyepiece - the quality of the photo is nothing compared to what we had seen though the eyepiece though.

Time to move on. I can recognize most of the planets in the sky as it has always interested me. Given our tree line and the time of year unfortunately Jupiter is out of reach for us for now but one for later in the year definitely. So next on our target list tonight was Mars. Easy to see in the night sky because of its distinctive colour. I centered it in the finderscope and moved to the 25mm eyepiece. Thanks to the previous owner the finderscope is spot on (one less hassle for a newbie  ). Mars looked like a small red dot, bigger than a star would and we were sure we could make out at least one moon. We tried using the barlow again but found it difficult to find in the eyepiece again so we went back to just the 25mm and sat and looked at it for a bit.

By now my son was pointing to more stars and asking to look at various targets. We looked at Arcturus and Spica while we waited for Saturn to clear the treeline. I hadn't mentioned this to him because firstly I wanted it to be a surprise, and secondly I wasn't quite sure what we would be able to see. When it was time to look at Saturn I again started with the finderscope knowing that once centered it would be centered in the eyepiece. I looked through the 25mm and brought it to focus. It was very bright and I thought I could make out the rings around the planet and definitely at least 2 moons. I tried my luck with the 2x barlow and was not ready for the sight I saw when I brought it to focus.

I was absolutely gobsmacked with the sight, I know what Saturn looks like but to actually see it is a true privilege. The rings were almost vertical around the planet for us. After a minute my son was wondering what was going on as I had gone quiet, awestruck by the sight. I asked him to have a look and tell me what he saw. The gasp and smile was all I needed to know. A few minutes later and the call came from indoors to get him into bed. He bounded off with a big smile on his face and probably far to excited to sleep with a promise to see more tomorrow.

So a few things we still need to work out. As I was unsure about how much time we would have I didn't polar align the scope, just kind of moved it around the garden and tried to point at the targets myself. I think for home use this will be the norm as to make most use of the sky I have we will need to do this. I have tall trees either side of the garden and large houses to the front. Thankfully I live on a pretty dark road so no lights spill into my garden and none tend to be on in the backs of the houses. Hopefully this won't be a problem but at some point when we want to hunt down some harder to find targets we may need to review. I still have high hopes for learning to star hop using Turn Left at Orion. The copy we have is about 15 years old as it was another ebay purchase, I should probably get a newer edition I guess, but I think it will be okay for now.

So it was all over by 11 tonight for us but a fantastic first night out for both me and my son. We have seen one of the great wonders of our solar system and spent a lot of time on the moon. When our technique gets better we can try Mars again for a better view. We just need a bit more time on the targeting but tonight we were just excited and wanted to see lots. I could have spent all night on the moon. Can't wait for tomorrow evening now as the skies are forecast to be clear here.

Below is my photo of the moon (I wanted to show my wife what all the fuss was about). It came out terrible but I wasn't bothered trying to get a better one as I was too busy just looking through the eyepiece.

[Charlie_starz]

Forgot to say one other thing..... who knew the moon moved so fast? 

[Fish]

Brilliant enjoyed reading that , like you say he probably didn't sleep much . Just a rough polar align will be better than nothing, if its been set up before it will probably be good enough to just point north .

Hope you manage another tonight, clear skies to you bothe .

[kerrylewis]

Great report Charlie. There is nothing to compete with your first view of Saturn.

Mars needs a bit more patience and unfortunately it's past opposition now so getting smaller all the time. With good seeing you will be able to see some light and dark areas though.

You shouldn't need to update 'Turn Left....' - the heavens don't change much! I have an edition of about that age too. There are spiral bound versions available now which would be a bit more convenient but I used to photocopy the pages for targets I was after and throw them away when they got damp and scrunched up.

Next you should try a few DSO targets - M13 (the great cluster in Hercules) will be a big Wow moment too. I showed it to my son a few weeks ago and although he is much older than 10 I'm afraid, he was gobsmacked.

Looks like you may get another clear night tonight

Good luck and happy hunting - you have some real treats in store

Kerry

[dick_dangerous]

Staying up until 11pm? On a school night?! How irresponsible!

Sorry, must clarify, I'm not a member of the Fun Police . Speaking as an educationalamist, your son probably learned more staying up a bit late than he would do in a whole term at school. It's this sort of thing that actually engages children and motivates them to want to learn, so I have to salute you for that!

And it's always nice to read about people's first look at some of these objects through a 'scope - Saturn really is a corking sight isn't it?!

DD

[Astro Imp]

Well done Charlie that was an exceptional first light report, I thoroughly enjoyed the read and look forward to hearing more of you and your son's adventures.

For a quick polar align, set your altitude to match your latitude and point the north leg of the tripod to the north using a compass, this will put you in the right area and should be near enough to keep your target in the FOV with just slight adjustments to the declination.

Good luck and enjoy.

[cotterless45]

Neat, it really is worthwhile getting polar aligned and using the RA motor. Even getting Polaris in the middle will be great for visual. This is my travel 'n go . Also great for travelling around the garden.

They'll be more excitement when winter comes for a 4.30 kickoff ! Hurrah !

Nick.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Great first light report

[Pondus]

Great report. Highly enjoyable read.

Rune

[FenlandPaul]

Great write up of what sounds like a special evening. Here's to your son getting to stay up late every clear night there is!!

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Charlie_starz]

Thank you all. I am learning a lot about both how the telescope works and how astronomy as well. I looked in the Observing-Planets forum and read the post all about Mars. It was absolutely amazing and so informative. I spent this morning before school going through it with my son and showing him the photographs. Great information and makes me wish I had a better view of Mars to reconcile it with. I read that 2018 will be the best for that as it will be nearest earth in its orbit then - hopefully it will be worth the wait.