Skyliner 200 Dob - First timer

[twotter]

I hope this is the right place to post this but I'm currently feeling thoroughly pleased with myself

Last Saturday I received an early birthday present in the shapely white form of a SkyWatcher Skyliner 200 Dobsonian. It was just what I wanted and I spent the afternoon showing off my DIY skills, or lack of, as I followed the instructions in building the mount. All with a big cheesy grin on my face!

The last few nights have been cloudy so no chance to try out my new telescope

But since coming home from work this afternoon under clear blue skies I've been keeping my fingers crossed that we would have a clear night. From about 6pm I've been looking at Stellarium and visiting SGL and basically trying to contain myself! About 8pm I couldn't take it any longer and took my telescope out onto the patio to cool down, just as I've read I'm supposed to do on here Then it was back inside with occasional, okay fairly often, visits to the kitchen window to see if the dreaded cloud was returning to spoil my evening. But it didn't

As my neighbours started going to bed the rear garden had been getting darker until I was able to go out just after 10-30pm. With no cloud and the houses blocking the view to the north-east I had plenty to look at.

My plan was to have a look at Jupiter and then look for Albeiro, which I'd read about on SGL.

Pointing the telescope at Jupiter it showed as a bright star in the finderscope, and with it being quite low in the sky this wasn't too painful on my back. Now at this point I will admit to feeling like an excited kid at Christmas as I bent to look through my 25mm EP. Surely the view was going to be better than looking through my 10x50 binoculars???

Well, of course it was!!!

Jupiter was about 3mm across. It was very bright and I could see a sort of 'heat haze' like you get on the roads on a sunny summer day going across it. I couldn't see much detail due to this but for a first view I could make out two bands, though not very clearly. Then there were three moons in a line.

Mrs Twotter was called down to look and much 'oohing' and 'aahing' ensued!

Then I remembered I had a 10mm EP as well so swapped to look through that.

WOW!!!

Jupiter was now a lot bigger and two bands were quite clear around the middle with some further shading towards the top half of the planet. Looking slightly to the side made viewing easier on the eye and showed the details a little more clearly. The moons now showed themselves to still be bright spots but one of them was clearly two, so I could now see four.

Okay, brilliant stuff so far. Now to find Albeiro. I know that it lies within the summer triangle and I was pretty certain I knew where it was roughly after having a look on Stellarium. This time I had to tilt the telescope nearly vertical making the effort to bend down to look through the finderscope rather painful. Might have to do something about that. Anyway, Albeiro appeared easily enough through the 25mm EP and I could see two stars very close together, one blue and one orange. Success

I was still really chuffed with the view of Jupiter so I went back to look at it some more before wrapping up and heading back indoors.

What can I say? What a fantastic experience!!! Seeing Jupiter like that was utterly brilliant and I can't wait to go out again and see more and more of the night sky. I'm looking forward to winter and the return of Orion, and in time my first view of Saturn too.

Sorry for blathering on but that was mega :D

[red dwalf]

keep ranting on ! thats what we are all here for, nice scope you have there, wait till you see Saturn for the first time, it doesn`t look real with the rings, woke my misses up at half past midnight a few months back to look at it for the first time and she stayed out for 30 minutes looking at it, that was the last time though !

[John]

What a great report twotter ! - your excitement is contageous, which is great

The SW 200 dobsonian is a brilliant scope - even though I've now moved to an 12" dob, I still miss my 8. Saturn will blow you away and there are loads of deep sky objects that it will show really nicely. Try one of the brighter globular clusters like M13 in Hercules - your scope will resolve it into hundreds of tiny stars !.

Cheers,

John

[FLO]

That was an excellent report

[Doc]

A very enjoyable read.

Your dob will show you so much when you get the hang of it.

Look at the post I made which will tell you what to go for....

http://stargazerslounge.com/primers-tutorials/81493-object-list-indexed-constellation.html

[tinvek]

great report, i love reading these "first time through a scope" reports, makes you remember what this hobby is all about

if you can stay up late enough or get up early take a look at the moon, we all curse it at times but it's another truely mindblowing sight when you first see it through a decent scope. also have a look for mars and in the morning venus, not much to see with the later but it's still pretty cool (ok its very hot but you know what i mean ) when you think about what it is.

after those go hunting for those nebula and galaxies, never as good as photos but nothing beats seeing them with your own eye. infact with the moon rising late its the perfect time, do the faint stuff and then finish off with the moon.

[Talitha]

Blather on Twotter, that was great! Wonderful read, thank you.

You might want to give M31 a try. The Moon is rising later and later every night, which means M31's area of the sky will be getting darker and darker each night.

[nitram100]

You wait until you see Saturn, the jewel of the solar system. I love reading about the first time someone views Jupiter or Saturn through a good scope, reminds me of when i first saw them

[Mikea]

Great report - may your oohs and aahs long continue! If you liked Albireo, have a crack at Almaak

[Beulah]

Twotter,

I really enjoyed reading that report.

I have very same scope. I am so impressed with it's performance. You'll get many years out of it too. We'll have to compare notes one day.

[albedo0.39]

Hey Twotter - really nice report and you have certainly captured the spirit if observing with a dob in your exploits. As the nights get darker / colder, the jewelry in the ky only seems to increase so hope you have more fun in the future !

[mike-h]

I used to get a lot of neck pain trying to find stuff in the sky. Finding some things used to be time consuming too but then I made a setting circle for my 250px dob and bought a Wixey. Try the search function above and search for 'DIY dobsonian setting circles' to see what I did. I don't think you will regret it at all.

Mike H

[hamit]

Hey! i have the same scope, and trust me, when you see saturn and mars, its just crazy, I went crazy when i first found orions nebula xD let alone saturn and mars, I woke up early one morning, like 4 am I think, and I looked outside, I saw orions belt, the moon etc. and then I saw another 2 bright stars and I was wondering what the hell are those two? so i took my scope outside, came back, went on stellarium, and it was saturn and mars, i was freaking out really, i was too excited, i waited abit, then i popped out and had a gaze, was a great experience locating and just observing really...use stellarium, or if you have a itouch/iphone, get a app called "pUniverse" just noticed that app, its great if you want portability from ur pc to outside via Wi-Fi to locate planets etc.

[bish]

Great to read the excitement of a new scope. Reminds me of when I bought my 6" reflector - I couldn't believe how good the Moon and Saturn looked and was hooked straight away. Even though I spend most of my time looking for DSO's I still find it incredible when I do look at the planets and moon.

[mdstuart]

I also loved the write up. You can almost feel the excitement in your post.

I wish you lots of enjoyment. One tip, keep a record of what you look at and comments as love going back over my notes and pictures.

Mark