Jump to content

Banner.jpg.b89429c566825f6ab32bcafbada449c9.jpg

Hi All

CrazyMike

By CrazyMike
in Welcome

Recommended Posts

CrazyMike

CrazyMike

Posted
Posted

Hi,

Finally took the plunge and bought myself a scope. After checking out various sites I settled on a Skywatcher Explorer 150PL. Must confess i was supprised how big the thing was what it arrived (in my bit of research i should have worked out that L meant long, lol).

Still ive had it about a month or so now and have a system worked out for storage and quickly setting it up, lols.

Must confess it was darn hard finding things at first, on my first night there was practically nothing, I was getting rather frustrated, and even worse my girlfriend came outside and asked me to show her something with with my new 200 quid purchase! Randomly and half out of frustration i just kinda span it and aimed at a random part of the sky, it landed on M3! Nice globular cluster! With that stroke of luck I had managed to save face and was officially hooked :D

I now pop out whenever there is a clear sky, i used Stellarium and still use it to locate harder to find objects and learn the sky. I demolished and old webcam to have a go at imaging, results were ok, will keep trying at this. Ive managed to get a few nice pics using my scope and phone camera, lols. will post them sometime.

Anyways, just stumbled upon this forum and thought id sign up :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites
barkis

barkis

Posted
Posted

Hello Mike,

Welcome to the SGL Forum. Nice scope you got yourself, and will show you some nice views once you are able to find your way around the night sky. If you need any help or advice, then just post your questions, and you will get a lot of replies.

Stick to lower power eyepieces initially, it will enable you to find things easier. The moon will be a great object to study in your instrument, and you can ramp up the magnification a lot more.

Jupiter too will be a fine object, low down in the southern sky, it is a very bright starlike object until you turn the scope to it, then you see it as a lovely planet with it's moons in attendance.

Enjoy your stay, and happy observing.

Ron.:D

Link to comment
Share on other sites
CrazyMike

CrazyMike

Posted
  • Author
Posted
Hello Mike,

Welcome to the SGL Forum. Nice scope you got yourself, and will show you some nice views once you are able to find your way around the night sky. If you need any help or advice, then just post your questions, and you will get a lot of replies.

Stick to lower power eyepieces initially, it will enable you to find things easier. The moon will be a great object to study in your instrument, and you can ramp up the magnification a lot more.

Jupiter too will be a fine object, low down in the southern sky, it is a very bright starlike object until you turn the scope to it, then you see it as a lovely planet with it's moons in attendance.

Enjoy your stay, and happy observing.

Ron.:D

Hi Ron,

Yeah im getting used to it now, im using the equatorial mount that came with it, took a while tog et used to things being back to front and upside down through the scope and with this kind of mount it added to the inital frustration. But its added to the learning experience, I can now usualy find most things im looking for, im ok with the constallations. Ive taken to using binoculars to locate the targets, i looks for star patterns nearby and then train my scope on it :D

Ive had some great views of jupiter and its moons and also many of the moon when it finally made an appearance (some photos i took fo them are in the imaging section). Last night i got my first view of mars, it was tiny! Im going to work on that, hehe, viewing wasnt good and i had only momentary glimpses thorugh the cloud cover, didnt have chance to really dial in on it. Will try again tonight if im up late, nice and easy to find at the moment with it being near one of geminis heads, lols (my rather simplistic description) lols. Shame the moon is soooo bright :)

Thanks for the warm welcome, i look forward to learning fromy you all!

Mike

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Go to topic listing

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue. By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.