New Scope and Looking Forward to Some Darker Skies

[Lurcher]

Hi all,

Sorry, I haven't posted anything for ages. But earlier in the year I bought a SkyWatcher Stargate 500p. Due to the summer nights I haven't really been able to use it to any advantage as yet, although it's been nice to have the warm summer nights and available light to learn how to set it up each time.

I was a little worried about it at first, having read nothing but fairly bad reports on them, but aperture fever got the better of me, and "Stars and Ships" always seemed to be getting on well with his Stargate on here so I went for it. The base motor always seemed to play up on my old scope too, so it's nice to have a scope which moves when you want it too as well.

My sketches so far aren't that great, but I've been lucky enough to see The Cat's Eye Nebula better than I ever have before, NGC 404 (The Ghost of Mirach) seemed to stand out nicely, and I've been pleased to see small NGC objects like NGC 604 near M33, and NGC 6207 near M13. - (People will probably tell me you can see all of those through a 4" scope!), but I was happy.

So far I'm pretty happy with the scope, and looking forward to the darker skies now, and the Orion Nebula!

Clear skies all.

[JeremyS]

Crikey that’s a big scope!
I enjoyed those sketches 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

[globular]

Congratulations on the scope.
Nice sketches.   (Especially like the snowball nebula θ)

[Lurcher]

On 05/10/2021 at 14:41, JeremyS said:

I enjoyed those sketches

Thank you!

On 05/10/2021 at 14:46, globular said:

Nice sketches.   (Especially like the snowball nebula θ)

Thanks. Yes I've enjoyed viewing that this year. Thanks for your comments.