Fantastic Night

[TopHouse]

Well, tonight was our third outing in total with our first telescope, as mentioned in other threads, it's a 200P on EQ5 which now has the dual axis motor fitted.

me and my wife are both enthusiastic but still struggling, however it's an enjoyable struggle as even though it was only our third night, we've come along in bounds and each time has been better than the last.

Tonight on TV, even fred the weather man mentioned it was going to be clear and mars could be seen. So, the scope was outside by 9PM First thing was just general looking around as we waited for mars and the moon to appear over our roof. Mars showed up first, had a little while with it, going right up to 6mm EP with x2 barlow, have to say though it was quite disappointing, moved on to the mon which i know isn't at it's best, being VERY bright tonight and being full, so it was just a quick lunar explore more than anything else. We had bigger fish to fry.

We tried a little while for the orion nebula but still can't find it, here's where my first problem lies, find orions belt, check (easy peasy) I know the nebula is roughly down from the middle of the belt, so, point scope in general direction of the belt, look in guide scope..... WTF!!! where did all those other stars come from!! So now the belt has merged into what looks like 200 other stars, reminds me of yellow ribbons and oak trees. What do i need to do about this? Do i need to add a red dot finder or is there an easier way? I'm starting to think the finder scope on my 200p is too strong. We struggled and struggled with that one but to no avail.

OK, change of plan, let's try the double cluster in cassiopia, same thing, cassiopia was no problem with the naked eye, but through the guide scope it's lost, however, I persevered and twiddled the slowmo buttons for all I was worth with my eye glued to the finder... OOO, what was that? That looks like it, (still in finder scope) if it isn't it's one hell of a lot of stars, so, with the 32mm EP in, had a good look, ran in and out a few times to look at stellarium, sure enough, it was the double cluster, we had a serious wow moment over that, one of many through the night, we spent quite a while looking at it, changing eyepieces, looking again we were really pleased with ourselves.

OK, lets try something else, whilst we're in the vicinity, lets try andromeda galaxy, we searched and searched and searched for it, double checked on stellarium, found our landmark stars, same thing, fine with the naked eye, as soon as you look through the finder scope the sky suddenly goes like the view out of the enterprise as they go into warp! Having said that, the view through just the finder was jaw dropping, you just never knew how many stars there are, you put your eye to that finder scope and the sky comes alive!

We tried for ages for andromeda, no joy, so, final target of the night, the pliades, we could see them with the naked eye so it was a lot easier to find, was still a bit of a hunt though, I think i seriously need to learn how to work those clocks on the EQ5! The pliades was amazing though, stunningly beautiful, we did find though that perhaps the the 32mm may even be too much as we couldn't get all of the pliades in even with that.

Well, we started at 9 ish, we finished at about 1:20 am, so we had a good session really, have to say though it was absolutely blumming freezing!

We did however have a really, really good time.

One thing is however VERY noticeable, when I bought the 200p I also bought one of the antares eyepiece and filter kits, I reckon if i hadn't bought the antares eyepieces i would have been disappointed, compared to the antares, the ones included with the 200p are absolutely Rubbish! I've read where people have said the 10mm one is poor but the 25 is OK, i have to say I disagree, I find them both poor compared to the antares kit, and I can't recommend the Antares ones enough, I will say though that the barlow in the antares kit aint great, but the rest of the kit I am REALLY happy with.

[superjody]

Well, tonight was our third outing in total with our first telescope, as mentioned in other threads, it's a 200P on EQ5 which now has the dual axis motor fitted.

me and my wife are both enthusiastic but still struggling, however it's an enjoyable struggle as even though it was only our third night, we've come along in bounds and each time has been better than the last.

Tonight on TV, even fred the weather man mentioned it was going to be clear and mars could be seen. So, the scope was outside by 9PM First thing was just general looking around as we waited for mars and the moon to appear over our roof. Mars showed up first, had a little while with it, going right up to 6mm EP with x2 barlow, have to say though it was quite disappointing, moved on to the mon which i know isn't at it's best, being VERY bright tonight and being full, so it was just a quick lunar explore more than anything else. We had bigger fish to fry.

We tried a little while for the orion nebula but still can't find it, here's where my first problem lies, find orions belt, check (easy peasy) I know the nebula is roughly down from the middle of the belt, so, point scope in general direction of the belt, look in guide scope..... WTF!!! where did all those other stars come from!! So now the belt has merged into what looks like 200 other stars, reminds me of yellow ribbons and oak trees. What do i need to do about this? Do i need to add a red dot finder or is there an easier way? I'm starting to think the finder scope on my 200p is too strong. We struggled and struggled with that one but to no avail.

OK, change of plan, let's try the double cluster in cassiopia, same thing, cassiopia was no problem with the naked eye, but through the guide scope it's lost, however, I persevered and twiddled the slowmo buttons for all I was worth with my eye glued to the finder... OOO, what was that? That looks like it, (still in finder scope) if it isn't it's one hell of a lot of stars, so, with the 32mm EP in, had a good look, ran in and out a few times to look at stellarium, sure enough, it was the double cluster, we had a serious wow moment over that, one of many through the night, we spent quite a while looking at it, changing eyepieces, looking again we were really pleased with ourselves.

OK, lets try something else, whilst we're in the vicinity, lets try andromeda galaxy, we searched and searched and searched for it, double checked on stellarium, found our landmark stars, same thing, fine with the naked eye, as soon as you look through the finder scope the sky suddenly goes like the view out of the enterprise as they go into warp! Having said that, the view through just the finder was jaw dropping, you just never knew how many stars there are, you put your eye to that finder scope and the sky comes alive!

We tried for ages for andromeda, no joy, so, final target of the night, the pliades, we could see them with the naked eye so it was a lot easier to find, was still a bit of a hunt though, I think i seriously need to learn how to work those clocks on the EQ5! The pliades was amazing though, stunningly beautiful, we did find though that perhaps the the 32mm may even be too much as we couldn't get all of the pliades in even with that.

Well, we started at 9 ish, we finished at about 1:20 am, so we had a good session really, have to say though it was absolutely blumming freezing!

We did however have a really, really good time.

One thing is however VERY noticeable, when I bought the 200p I also bought one of the antares eyepiece and filter kits, I reckon if i hadn't bought the antares eyepieces i would have been disappointed, compared to the antares, the ones included with the 200p are absolutely Rubbish! I've read where people have said the 10mm one is poor but the 25 is OK, i have to say I disagree, I find them both poor compared to the antares kit, and I can't recommend the Antares ones enough, I will say though that the barlow in the antares kit aint great, but the rest of the kit I am REALLY happy with.

mars was looking rather white tonight...blumming moon being too close!!!

orions nebula...what eyepiece did you use?? im pretty new to all this but id say that its very easy to find, especially with a low mag eyepiece, i have the standard 25mm and 10mm that come with the scope and i have a 5mm and a tal x2 barlow, my scope is only a 130 but with all eyepieces i have great views of the nebula. with your 32mm eyepiece you shouldnt have any probs finding it as you can see the blue haze around it which i find really stands out.

i was trying for andromeda one night, took me a long time to find it but finally got there after counting loads stars and tilting my head to figure out where i was looking, i was quite disappointed as i could only see a greyish smudge but i think thats down to all the light pollution here i can now kind of locate it by eye but still dont get good views of it

had some good views of saturn tonight though at x260 magnification, thought you would have added that to your list, im sure your extra 70mm aperture will give you better images than mine

[TopHouse]

To have seen Saturn i'd have needed one of the newer model x ray scopes as it's on the other side of my house. ;o)

[Wurzil]

We tried a little while for the orion nebula but still can't find it, here's where my first problem lies, find orions belt, check (easy peasy) I know the nebula is roughly down from the middle of the belt, so, point scope in general direction of the belt, look in guide scope..... WTF!!! where did all those other stars come from!! .

Just out of interest - when you say you go down from the middle of the belt, are you definitely going the right direction? the finderscope makes things go upside down and left-right reversed, which can be disorientating. The nebula should be easily visible as a cloudy smudge over the top some stars through the finderscope.

good luck

warren

[John]

The Orion nebula (M42) lies in the middle of what I think is generally called Orion's Sword. To the naked eye this looks like a "chain" of stars running downwards from Orions Belt:

[arad85]

The moon will also help wash out any nebulosity. I was looking at M42 last night with the 12" and could only just detect the nebulosity.

[TopHouse]

My problem wasn't 'knowing where it is' so to speak, my problem is that with naked eye, i see the belt no problems, so i slew round in the general direction, look along the scope getting a rough position, then when i look through the finderscope the belt is swamped by all the other stars that now come into view that i cant pick out the belt even! It's like the finder scope is too powerfull, I'm thinking maybe a non magnifying red dot finder would help me a lot. it it possible to fit one of these AND keep the finderscope on?

[Chris H]

Yes, I have my 9 x 50 finderscope and a little to the right I have my telrad mounted on a four inch riser. Since I fitted the telrad I have not used the finderscope, I might remove it.

Have a read of this from cloudy nights Telescope Reviews: Help with installing Telrad on XT10i I know you don't have the scope in question but you have a similar tube.

I really struggled to find anything last night due to the brightness of the moon ,as the moon wanes it will be easier to find M31 and M42.