Warning. Beginner's over excitement within!

[ScouseSpaceCadet]

Near Midnight I looked out of the conservatory doors, the skies had cleared after a showery evening and Jupiter was staring at me again. So out comes the Startravel 120.

The usual view of late, the main two cloud belts plus four moons visible, but not much else. Still, I spend a good hour experimenting with eyepieces etc, trying to tease out detail.

Anyway, time to browse Sky Safari see what else is generally south as that's the direction I'm facing and I'm quite comfy in the cool breeze, with the last of my partner's proseco on  the table. (I'd run out of beers, honestly!)

Hmm, a couple of nebulas should be a few degrees to the left.

So I start hopping across and no, can't see anyt... Woah hang on, that star seems to have a fuzz around it. Nah, it hasn't, must be the old eyes. After several minutes in the X-Cel 25mm, oooh yea, definitely a fuzzy cloud. Getting excited I tightened the AZ5 clutches and swapped in the BST 15mm. Ooer, that's definitely a nebula. It's either the Eagle or Omega.

A quick check of Sky Safari confirms it. The Eagle Nebula in my eyepiece for the first time!

In goes the BST 8mm and now I have to slomo track a little. The fuzz is brighter and the "star" is a hazy core and some more pricks of light.

Hedging my bets and knowing the view will blacken, I team the 8mm with a Skywatcher x2 barlow... Here goes, a few turns of the focuser, nope lost it, back a bit. Keep that Mk1 eyeball on the eyepiece, have some patience.

Omg, it's full of stars. So much twinkling like hundreds of fireflies hovering around a lamp.

Amazing. I spent an hour on the Eagle before my back started to protest and every twinge was worth it! 😄

 

 

[Pete Presland]

Excellent report. The longer you look at an object the more chance you have of seeing more details as you eye adjusts to the view.