Jupiter this morning - first time

[SzabiB]

After assembling my new SkyWatcher 200 yesterday the sky was littered with thick cloud cover last night (of course....).

I was hoping a bit for some clear sky early morning. I set the alarm for 4 o'clock.

After I woke up and dragged myself out to the garden, sadly noted, we had only one clear patch top of our house. I penguin walked out the Dob and played with it 10-15 minutes before more cloud shifted in. I gave up a bit, so started to cook lunch (4;30 in the morning...oh well), done the washing up and prepared fresh coffee for the other half (taking on a new hobby which involves buying new stuff again and finding space for it next to our 6 tents, 30 camping stoves, 100 pairs of trail running shoes and big boxes of drone parts, I really need to be a good boy). 

A little bit after 5, I peaked out to the sky and oh Lord. Jupiter is in clear view (not in the best position as was low and neighbour's garden looks like Heathrow Airport's landing strip in night time), but he was there. 

I am going to be honest, I haven't been that excited in years. Butterflies in the stomach, sweaty arm pits and shaking hands. And I got it, first time in my life ( I seen it before on pictures only) I saw Jupiter with four moons around it. I used the 25mm eyepiece to center it, than 2X barlow and 8mm eyepiece. 

I quickly screamed wife out from the bed (I am pretty sure the3 neighbours were well impressed  )and we had a good 15 minutes observing before started to be to bright. She was well impressed and now she talks about to get a smaller, more transportable scope as well (I hope she is ok?!). 

It was a bit all over the place session, too much flapping around and rushing with the eyepiece changes, but hey ho, I will get there. Would love to capture some videos with my phone next time. 

Now, going to have a busy morning to calculate and try to figure out what kind of other eyepieces we need. 

[Marvin Jenkins]

Oh dear, sounds like you have fallen head first down the rabbit hole. 
Well done! Best rabbit hole you will ever find. Now time to start selling everything you own to buy masses of scope stuff.

Marv

[DrMike]

This is just the beginning. Soon you will be buying more eyepieces, barlows, cameras, and.......bigger telescopes!

Enjoy the sky, it is beautiful and wondrous.

[RobertI]

Fantastic! Sounds like you are on the start of a love affair with this wonderful hobby. You've got a great scope there - plenty of fun to be had and it doesn't have to be expensive - although it probably will be.  

Keep at it with Jupiter - it's just the start. If you can observe when the seeing is good (little atmospheric turbulence) and it is high in the sky, you can crank the magnification up to 150x - 200x and start to see amazing detail, fleetingly at first, takes practice, but it will come - great red spot, festoons, shadow transits - you've got a lot to look forward to.  

Edit: I should just should add that on nights of bad seeing, high magnifications won't help and you just won't see much detail, so also be prepared for some disappointments!  

Edited September 21, 2022 by RobertI

[SzabiB]

2 hours ago, Marvin Jenkins said:

Oh dear, sounds like you have fallen head first down the rabbit hole. 
Well done! Best rabbit hole you will ever find. Now time to start selling everything you own to buy masses of scope stuff.

Marv

Haha, looks like it is a bottomless hole... Yes, I am warming up Marketplace and eBay to do an online garage sale

 

[SzabiB]

2 hours ago, DrMike said:

This is just the beginning. Soon you will be buying more eyepieces, barlows, cameras, and.......bigger telescopes!

Enjoy the sky, it is beautiful and wondrous.

I realized that, having a long list already...

PS: I know a left kidney for sale.... 

[SzabiB]

1 hour ago, RobertI said:

Fantastic! Sounds like you are on the start of a love affair with this wonderful hobby. You've got a great scope there - plenty of fun to be had and it doesn't have to be expensive - although it probably will be.  

Keep at it with Jupiter - it's just the start. If you can observe when the seeing is good (little atmospheric turbulence) and it is high in the sky, you can crank the magnification up to 150x - 200x and start to see amazing detail, fleetingly at first, takes practice, but it will come - great red spot, festoons, shadow transits - you've got a lot to look forward to.  

Edit: I should just should add that on nights of bad seeing, high magnifications won't help and you just won't see much detail, so also be prepared for some disappointments!  

Can't wait to get outside of the city and do some nice session on a dark site. 

Yep, I was reading up on the magnification just now and like other things in life, I have to stay realistic...