Disheartened beginner...

[risteard86]

Hey there,

Just going to bed after attempting my first observing session with my new telescope and feel like I need to vent a little bit..

Just to give you some background about a year ago I bought a pair of 10x50 binoculars.   I use them at home in the west of Ireland where the skies are pretty good.  I've had many "Wow" moments using those binoculars: from to locating and seeing the blurry shape of andromeda; managing to see the orion nebula using averted vision; even seeing a cluster of stars in the constellation cancer and instantly realising that I was looking at the beehive cluster; or my personal favourite, the moment I first visualized the 4 galilean moons. 

For ages I have wanted to buy a telescope and after much deliberation I set my heart on a 130p skywatcher..  The thing is I in Dublin city now and only rarely get to go home to the west of Ireland. My apartment complex does have an accessible flat roof and I assumed I would be able to see something.  I have been up there a few times and despite the skyglow I have been able to make out magnitude 3 stars before. Well I bought the skywatcher and could see sweet [removed word] all!  I could barely make out mag 2 stars tonight so trying to align the thing was a pain!  My binoculars at home are a million times better than this thing!

It looks like im going to be restricted to the moon for any serious observing!  Anyone have a any tips for a new city centre astronomer?

[risteard86]

whoops, double post!

[cuivenion]

Atmospheric conditions differ from night to night and tonight you might have had poor visibility. I have the same scope as you and I've been able to make out banding on Jupiter and the 4 moons as well as Saturn's rings and various DSOs. Thats with the stock EPs as well. On some nights it's been more difficult.

I do live in a light polluted area although I doubt it's as bad as Dublin, maybe using an LP filter would help. Is it possible that your secondary mirror had fogged up? I found that could be a problem sometimes until I started using a homemade dew shield, which also helps to block out light from annoying sources.

I've not been doing it that long myself so I can sympathize with your frustration, I am glad I've kept at it though.

[Pete Presland]

give it another month and hopefully the sky will hopefully be more transparent. a lot of mist and high cloud around it should look better on a cold winters night.

[D4N]

Don't worry too much about aligning, work out roughly where North is and line the axis of the scope up with that. For visual work that is good enough.

While a flat roof seems great be aware that you can get a lot of thermals off of it which will greatly degrade your seeing. I don't have to contend with that but I guess moving the scope closer to the edge your observing over should help a little.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Unicronicus]

Atmospheric conditions differ from night to night and tonight you might have had poor visibility. I have the same scope as you and I've been able to make out banding on Jupiter and the 4 moons as well as Saturn's rings and various DSOs. Thats with the stock EPs as well. On some nights it's been more difficult.

I do live in a light polluted area although I doubt it's as bad as Dublin, maybe using an LP filter would help. Is it possible that your secondary mirror had fogged up? I found that could be a problem sometimes until I started using a homemade dew shield, which also helps to block out light from annoying sources.

I've not been doing it that long myself so I can sympathize with your frustration, I am glad I've kept at it though.

I will add that we have no problem locating and observing low mag DSO's with our 130p (down to 13mag on some in stellarium) but then we are in a very low light polluted area. One of the only problems we do have though from time to time is with dew formation on the secondary mirror so I am interested in how you made a homemade dew shield for it.

[red dwalf]

my first scope was a 130p, i found it very good, Orion neb is a nice view through it, Moon, Jupiter, Saturn, Pleades and M13 anything bright ish in a light polluted area, i found it very easy to align, if i remember correctly you point it at Polaris, level the scope then turn it off and back on again and it`s ready to go and will track for ages.

keep the dew and mist off the mirrors and make sure it is colimated well, doesn`t need to be 100% for visual use. 

[ronin]

Is it a 130P on an EQ mount, or one of the dobsonian base items?

What can you see bye eye and what can you see with the binoculars?

Bincoulars are easy to use as you look at object and bring them into the path and generally (80%) eyes, binoculars and object remain in line. With a refllector you are not going to have a simple line of sight. With a reflector you have anything but a simple line of sight so actually pointing the scope at the object is initially difficult.

Then with the LP situation it comes to picking objects that have a chance of standing out. Double stars and clusters seem the most appropriate. Galaxies and nebula are going to be difficult.

I half suspect the first, just getting the scope pointed at something, the field of view in a scope is generally small, if not very small. Then the scope is pointing left and up, while you are looking forward and down.

[Stargazer33]

We all have nights that it just isn't worth it. Either you spend 10s of minutes if not an hour or so setting up only for the clouds to roll in and you end up spending the next hour packing away. Or you try something new or a new piece of kit that you've rushed out to use rather than read the manual (please tell me that isn't only me!  ) only to be disappointed that it doesn't work as you had hoped. Or conditions just aren't as good as they look to the naked eye.

All I can say is you seem to have started off very well; don't get too despondent with your new location. As said earlier, a flat rooftop seems like a good idea but it brings with it all sorts of problems. Can you get a clear spot on the ground, maybe shaded from local street lights? If not can you get out of the city to a dark site nearby?

An LP filter should help together with narrow band filters such as UHC and OIII for looking at nebulae.

Good luck and I hope you have a better night soon.

Clear skies!

[Feral Rabbit]

Don't get too disheartened. I've had my scope for 3 months and in that time I have yet to have a decent nights use. The first 3 attempts I never got past the alignment phase and the last couple I've set up only to have the cloud roll in.

Last night was the best night for seeing for me since owning my scope. Unfortunately I didn't have the time to be able to set up my scope. I contented myself with going out with the binoculars and for the first time ever I saw the Andromeda galaxy. It was only a smudge but I was over the moon. I spent ages looking at it. This morning I have a crick in my neck which is truly painful but I still have a grin on my face that's wider than the Cheshire Cat's.

I am a rank novice at astronomy and I would just say that astronomy is all about patience. All these heavenly wonders have been around for millions of years. They will still be around when you next get your scope out and who knows, next time you may be blown away with what you get to see. Just as I was.

[RichM63]

Hopefully your building does not have HVAC units on the roof. They will act like giant convector fans and really muck up your seeing.

This humid Autumn weather dosn't help either.

[Charic]

 My binoculars at home are a million times better than this thing!

It looks like im going to be restricted to the moon for any serious observing!  Anyone have a any tips for a new city centre astronomer?

Try your Binoculars in  Dublin, just to compare what you already know about the West country, and to establish just how bad your light pollution is. If you  feel the binoculars are better at Dublin, then you need a bigger telescope possibly. Also Try the 130 at the West coast. You should find that the result is much better there, given the darker skies.  Can you view somewhere, just outside of Dublin, as long as your own eyes can't see the light pollution, things should be fine.

Your binoculars will seem better due to the darker conditions, but at only 10x power, they can't   match the telescopes magnification. Dont give up just yet!

[DaveS]

The atmosphere can make a huge difference in a light polluted envionment. Last night I had pretty good seeing (For London at any rate), yet only three nights earlier I couldn't see anything below bright 2nd mag even though the sky was "clear" because of all the light pollution reflecting off the clag in the air. The thunderstorms we had on Saturday morning cleared it all out.

[Macavity]

<see all above>

But indeed, what sort of mount does the scope have? (EQ? GoTo?) 

Have you also checked that the collimation is not WILDLY out?

Such things can be (are better!) checked in daylight.

Compared to Bins, you will be dealing with a narrower field of view.

Finding objects will be inherently harder - Objects *seem* fewer etc.

You may find that the supplied eyepieces are not the best? Better

to begin with LOW magnification. A 32mm "Super Plossl" at around

£27 is probably a useful a "step up" in this area...

Many factors conspire to make things hard. Once you BEGIN to find

objects, you can build on all this. The initial "step" is the hardest...

[cuivenion]

I will add that we have no problem locating and observing low mag DSO's with our 130p (down to 13mag on some in stellarium) but then we are in a very low light polluted area. One of the only problems we do have though from time to time is with dew formation on the secondary mirror so I am interested in how you made a homemade dew shield for it.

There you go. Measure the circumference and make sure it's a snug fit. As far as I am aware 2x the aperture is a good length for the dew shield. I made mine 300mm altogether as obviously part of that length will be used to fit over the telescope tube.

I used an old foam camping mat, sticky back velcro on each side, and a wide velcro strip to hold it together. I had the materials left over from another project but as long as you shopped carefully it should still be a lot cheaper than the pre made shields. The Mat is the more rigid type foam, I'm not sure what the material is. It just springs right back into a cylinder from being laid down flat when you let go of it.

[cuivenion]

Measured my circumference at 53.3cm (internal) and total length at 30.5cm. The cut outs for the spider vane screws are about 2cm length and 3cm width but just make them as snug a fit as possible and they'll secure the shield on the scope.

[LukeSkywatcher]

Hi risteard. Believe it or not, Dublin city is not too bad for observing from. I can think of many cities around the world which are worse. I lived in Dublin all my life until about 5 months ago. Granted i was 20Km south,along the coast but i have been in the city centre at night on many many occasions and have managed to spot several well known celestial objects with the naked eye while walking along the quays........under street lights. It all depends though on conditions. Some nights all you see is an orange skyglow.

Where in the city are you?. Do you have a car?. There's quite a few places in and around the city where you can go to escape the city lights (for the most part):

1/ Howth Summit. Some good looking dark spots up there facing out to sea.

2/ Phoenix Park (maybe not the safest place late at night), but Astronomy Ireland have regular observing sessions from there. You can join up here:

http://www.astronomy.ie

3/ Dollymount beach. Salt,sand,telescopes...............maybe not the best combination.

4/ Portmarnock. Some nice little dark spots there along the coast looking out to sea and a very nice part of Dublin. Not much riff-raff there to be worried about.

These are all just a few mins outside of the centre of town and far enough away that the light pollution is decreased by quite a bit. You would more then likely need your own transport to get to them. There are buses that go to them, but that stops at whatever time in the night. 

Hope this helps and gives you a few ideas. 

p.s.~~in saying all of this, it sounds like you have not got to grips with your scope yet. If you can see things with the naked eye and binoculars, you will see them with the scope.

[mickshere]

nil desperandum, persevere        things will get better 

[Charic]

nil desperandum, persevere        things will get better

........A link to Dr Brian Cox [ things can only get better ] .......Physicist, Astronomer?