First Scope has arrived

[AustenPhil]

Hi all my first scope has finally arrived after years of viewing through small bins! Thanks to FLO for great service can’t wait for some clear skies later this week but first of all a couple of mods to the scope 

[W0nderste]

Welcome to SGL 👋

[AustenPhil]

Thanks, looking forward to many conversations, advice and being apart of the sgl community all seem a very knowledgeable and friendly bunch so far 

[Victor Boesen]

Great first scope choice, and welcome to SGL It's a great place and I've never met someone rude/harassing, only people willing to help:)

[Knighty2112]

Enjoy! 😀

[Ally8446]

Great first scope. Welcome 👍

[laudropb]

Hello and welcome. It’s a very good scope to start out with. Have fun. That’s the main thing.

[Kyle Allen]

Enjoy your new scope! 😀

[Zermelo]

Welcome.
Looks like you should get some viewing in the coming week.

[Floater]

Welcome. Hope you have lots of fun with your new scope. 🙂

[Dexterous]

My first post on this forum . Coincidentally my first scope arrived yesterday and it is the same as yours . I am completely new to stargazing though, have never looked at sky with anything I own except my eyes . Still going through the basics of it now . Hoping I can find sequence of baby steps I need to take to be able to see intersting things in this ever expanding universe . 

Any ideas where to start ...

 

[HollyHound]

Nice scope. Welcome to the forum and happy viewing 😃

[banjaxed]

Hi Phil, welcome to SGL, great first scope choice, enjoy 😊 

[sloz1664]

Hi Phil, a very warm welcome to the Lounge and enjoy your scope

Steve

[AustenPhil]

3 hours ago, Dexterous said:

My first post on this forum . Coincidentally my first scope arrived yesterday and it is the same as yours . I am completely new to stargazing though, have never looked at sky with anything I own except my eyes . Still going through the basics of it now . Hoping I can find sequence of baby steps I need to take to be able to see intersting things in this ever expanding universe . 

Any ideas where to start ...

 

Hi, good choice 😆 I’m starting off with the easier to view objects such as moon (terminator line) crater detail and planets Saturn Jupiter Mars and Neptune are fairly easy to see and view at moment then start to look at some of the Messier objects that I’ve elsewhere through 7x50 bins so will see quite a bit more through this scope  there’s some good posts on here regarding these objects and should keep you very busy for a while but anything like me just enjoy looking up! Download a good star app I use starwalk 2 but these plenty of good ones or if a books more your thing buy “turn left at Orion” 

Observing conditions looking good for me later in week down in Kent so looking forward to then 

[laudropb]

3 hours ago, Dexterous said:

My first post on this forum . Coincidentally my first scope arrived yesterday and it is the same as yours . I am completely new to stargazing though, have never looked at sky with anything I own except my eyes . Still going through the basics of it now . Hoping I can find sequence of baby steps I need to take to be able to see intersting things in this ever expanding universe . 

Any ideas where to start ...

 

Hello and a warm welcome to the SGL.

[Dave Lloyd]

Hi there and welcome. 

[Tiny Clanger]

3 hours ago, Dexterous said:

My first post on this forum . Coincidentally my first scope arrived yesterday and it is the same as yours . I am completely new to stargazing though, have never looked at sky with anything I own except my eyes . Still going through the basics of it now . Hoping I can find sequence of baby steps I need to take to be able to see intersting things in this ever expanding universe . 

Any ideas where to start ...

 

Welcome, it's a fun 'scope, I bought mine a few months ago and have seen plenty from a suburban back garden.

First thing to do if you haven't already , with the 'scope extended and an eyepiece in it, balance the tube so when the screw on the side is loose the tube stays level.

Second thing to do, in the daylight line the 'scope up with a distant , non moving object (TV aerial , top of street lamp, whatever)  the further away the better. Using the 25mm eyepiece, centre the object in your view. Then swap to the 10mm eyepiece , which increases the magnification and decreases the field of view. Shift the 'scope again until the object you picked is bang in the centre of view once more. Now tighten the knob on the side of the mount to lock the tube in that position ( look through it again to ensure you didn't accidentally shift it while tightening . If you did, sort it out )

Then, being very careful not to knock the tube, turn on the red dot finder (RDF) do whatever acrobatic contortions you need to get behind and in line to sight through it and spot the dot. Now fiddle with the two adjusting screws until the dot lies on the distant object you selected. Go back to the 10mm eyepiece, ensure the scope is still pointing accurately at the distant thing, double check the RDF. Once you've finished, don't forget to turn the RDF off (although the cell lasts for ages )

It sounds like a long process, and the first time it may well be a faff, but once done I've found mine stays pretty much accurately aligned unless it gets knocked. It's much easier to do the process in the daylight, and means you won't waste time when the clouds roll away one night soon and there's things up there to see .

Stellarium is a good open source free windows program to show you what you may be able to see from a particular place and time, it has an online version too https://stellarium-web.org/

This thread on here is one of a vast number of freely available resources  : https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/196278-what-can-i-expect-to-see/

Heather

[Starwatcher2001]

Welcome aboard SGL, Phil. Good to have you with us.

That's a nice scope and capable of giving you some cracking views. I think you'll enjoy getting a lot more up close and personal with your favourites than you can with bins, and discover a lot more treasures. Enjoy your new scope.

[Starwatcher2001]

Welcome Dexterous.  Good to have you with us, too.

Definitely have a play with your scope during daylight - avoiding the sun, obviously. Get used to assembling it, how it moves and the orientation of things through the eyepiece. Don't be too surprised if you can't focus on things that are close, that's often the case with a telescope. It'll be fine for distant objects.

The moon is a great object to start with. It's fairly full right now which doesn't provide much contrast, but as the days go by you'll see different craters and features in the shadows, which gives a different view every night. It's also visible during the day of course, but there's not as much contrast. With a good moon map, or app, you could spend a lifetime observing all the features of our closest neighbour. (I like LunarMap HD for Android ~ £1.40, but there's stacks of others). You'll probably need to rotate the map around 180 degrees to get the same orientation as you'll see through the eyepiece, but you'll soon get used to that.

If you're not familiar with the constellations yet, it's worth getting a decent sky atlas or app (I use SkySafari on Android, and Stellarium on the PC) and familiarising yourself with the constellations and main stars. That will form the backdrop of where all the good stuff lives. Of course as the weeks roll by, the constellations change too, until a year later you're back with your old friends again. Taurus, Orion, Gemini, Leo and other winter constellations will soon be visible, which is always special for me as that's when I first took a keen interest in the heavens over 20 years ago. I still get a buzz seeing them for the first time each season.

The open cluster known as "The Pleiades or The Seven Sisters" can easily be seen with the naked eye, but through a telescope looks truly beautiful, with a lot more than seven stars. It's about 8 degrees away from the moon tonight and tomorrow - around a fist's width at arms length. (This is a handy page on gauging the distance between objects up there:  https://lovethenightsky.com/how-to-measure-angles-in-the-sky/ )

As you get used to looking up, you'll start to understand how dynamic it all is, including atmosphere. Some nights it can look clear but the atmosphere can be very unsteady and give poor views, and other nights it can be gloriously still and the views amazing. Often it will change whilst you're looking at an object and it will "pop" into great focus and can be observed at higher power. As you spend more time observing a single object you'll start to see more and more detail and learn how to get better at it. Observing is much more than looking, but is a skill that can be readily learned at the eyepiece.

Enjoy this fantastic hobby.

 

 

Edited November 1, 2020 by Starwatcher2001

[Pete Presland]

Hi welcome to SGL from Pete in Bedfordshire 🙂

[Dexterous]

On 01/11/2020 at 13:43, Tiny Clanger said:

Welcome, it's a fun 'scope, I bought mine a few months ago and have seen plenty from a suburban back garden.

First thing to do if you haven't already , with the 'scope extended and an eyepiece in it, balance the tube so when the screw on the side is loose the tube stays level.

Second thing to do, in the daylight line the 'scope up with a distant , non moving object (TV aerial , top of street lamp, whatever)  the further away the better. Using the 25mm eyepiece, centre the object in your view. Then swap to the 10mm eyepiece , which increases the magnification and decreases the field of view. Shift the 'scope again until the object you picked is bang in the centre of view once more. Now tighten the knob on the side of the mount to lock the tube in that position ( look through it again to ensure you didn't accidentally shift it while tightening . If you did, sort it out )

Then, being very careful not to knock the tube, turn on the red dot finder (RDF) do whatever acrobatic contortions you need to get behind and in line to sight through it and spot the dot. Now fiddle with the two adjusting screws until the dot lies on the distant object you selected. Go back to the 10mm eyepiece, ensure the scope is still pointing accurately at the distant thing, double check the RDF. Once you've finished, don't forget to turn the RDF off (although the cell lasts for ages )

It sounds like a long process, and the first time it may well be a faff, but once done I've found mine stays pretty much accurately aligned unless it gets knocked. It's much easier to do the process in the daylight, and means you won't waste time when the clouds roll away one night soon and there's things up there to see .

Stellarium is a good open source free windows program to show you what you may be able to see from a particular place and time, it has an online version too https://stellarium-web.org/

This thread on here is one of a vast number of freely available resources  : https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/196278-what-can-i-expect-to-see/

Heather

Thanks for the great advice Heather . I followed this exactly and I am able to see the moon well  now.  Its quite exciting to  realize that we are seeing something so far off. current weather is  a bit hard and i have been in garden with all my warm clothes on.  Many thanks.  

[Dexterous]

On 01/11/2020 at 14:33, Starwatcher2001 said:

Welcome Dexterous.  Good to have you with us, too.

Definitely have a play with your scope during daylight - avoiding the sun, obviously. Get used to assembling it, how it moves and the orientation of things through the eyepiece. Don't be too surprised if you can't focus on things that are close, that's often the case with a telescope. It'll be fine for distant objects.

The moon is a great object to start with. It's fairly full right now which doesn't provide much contrast, but as the days go by you'll see different craters and features in the shadows, which gives a different view every night. It's also visible during the day of course, but there's not as much contrast. With a good moon map, or app, you could spend a lifetime observing all the features of our closest neighbour. (I like LunarMap HD for Android ~ £1.40, but there's stacks of others). You'll probably need to rotate the map around 180 degrees to get the same orientation as you'll see through the eyepiece, but you'll soon get used to that.

If you're not familiar with the constellations yet, it's worth getting a decent sky atlas or app (I use SkySafari on Android, and Stellarium on the PC) and familiarising yourself with the constellations and main stars. That will form the backdrop of where all the good stuff lives. Of course as the weeks roll by, the constellations change too, until a year later you're back with your old friends again. Taurus, Orion, Gemini, Leo and other winter constellations will soon be visible, which is always special for me as that's when I first took a keen interest in the heavens over 20 years ago. I still get a buzz seeing them for the first time each season.

The open cluster known as "The Pleiades or The Seven Sisters" can easily be seen with the naked eye, but through a telescope looks truly beautiful, with a lot more than seven stars. It's about 8 degrees away from the moon tonight and tomorrow - around a fist's width at arms length. (This is a handy page on gauging the distance between objects up there:  https://lovethenightsky.com/how-to-measure-angles-in-the-sky/ )

As you get used to looking up, you'll start to understand how dynamic it all is, including atmosphere. Some nights it can look clear but the atmosphere can be very unsteady and give poor views, and other nights it can be gloriously still and the views amazing. Often it will change whilst you're looking at an object and it will "pop" into great focus and can be observed at higher power. As you spend more time observing a single object you'll start to see more and more detail and learn how to get better at it. Observing is much more than looking, but is a skill that can be readily learned at the eyepiece.

Enjoy this fantastic hobby.

 

 

Thanks Starwatcher .. i have been enjoying the moon watching. I am slightly not happy with eyepiece though .. It seems little difficult to use.  Any ideas on the eyepiece for this scope..  

[Dexterous]

On 01/11/2020 at 12:51, AustenPhil said:

Hi, good choice 😆 I’m starting off with the easier to view objects such as moon (terminator line) crater detail and planets Saturn Jupiter Mars and Neptune are fairly easy to see and view at moment then start to look at some of the Messier objects that I’ve elsewhere through 7x50 bins so will see quite a bit more through this scope  there’s some good posts on here regarding these objects and should keep you very busy for a while but anything like me just enjoy looking up! Download a good star app I use starwalk 2 but these plenty of good ones or if a books more your thing buy “turn left at Orion” 

Observing conditions looking good for me later in week down in Kent so looking forward to then 

 yup.. its a really good scope. are you using the eye piece which came with box .. or are you using any other. ..?

[Tiny Clanger]

21 minutes ago, Dexterous said:

Thanks for the great advice Heather . I followed this exactly and I am able to see the moon well  now.  Its quite exciting to  realize that we are seeing something so far off. current weather is  a bit hard and i have been in garden with all my warm clothes on.  Many thanks.  

Glad it helped ! If you have a clear view to the south west, look there a little after the Sun has set , you will see two bright 'stars' , the lower, brighter one is Jupiter - you will be able to see its 4 moons strung out by it ( altho' check with stellarium, one or more might be hiding behind the planet at the time when you look) and you will also get a tiny but clear view of the rings of Saturn, the less bright of the two. Magic !

Just wait until you get the 'scope lined up with the Pleiades, or the nebula in Orion ...

Heather