What to look for first?

[mattsmithster]

Hi

I've just bought my first telescope (Skyliner 200p Dob) and am waiting for it to arrive. I'd love for someone to give me advice on what to look for first/what's easiest to find on my first go. Also, what to expect from the eye pieces it's supplied with (10mm and 25mm I think) and whether I should invest in any more.

Any advice you can give would be great.

Thanks

Matt

[Doc]

A 200p dob is a great telescope which from dark skies will enable you to see a lifetime of objects.

Try my thread here:

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

Almost all of these you will be able to see, as long as you know where to look of course.

Download Stellarium to see where your constellations are.

[yeti monster]

Enjpy the eyepieces you get first, before you become immersed in the dizzy world of SWANs, UWANs, Naglers, Orthos etc. etc. etc. Then there's the crazy war of the filters to content with.

A quality (TAL) 2x Barlow would be useful, to increase your magnification range.

Once your wallet starts ruling your brain, you'll suddenly find that you have more EPs, scopes and filters than you'll know what to do with.............

Welcome to stargazing, welcome to SGL.

[Bizibilder]

Hi Matt and welcome to SGL!!

While you are waiting for your scope to arrive why not sit back and relax with this month's "Sky at Night" magazine (No I'm not a sales rep for it!!!!!). Seriously, it has a section of interesting things to look at for the month in question, complete with easy to read maps and diagrams. There are all sorts of objects on view - Saturn is well placed as is Mars (though it is now quite small and difficult to see any detail). The Moon is a definate "must see". There are also pleanty of DSO's (nebulea and galaxies) visible at the moment.

As for eyepieces - get used to the ones you have first - I just looked at the spec and would recomend a Barlow lens (this will enable you to effectivly increase the magnification of any eyepiece) as none is supplied this will give you x96 and x240 for a 2x barlow - 240x being about the most you could use with your scope due to both the atmosphere and your ability to nudge the mount successfully.

[mattsmithster]

Thanks for your replies. I'm really looking forward to getting started. With this scope will I be able to see reasonable detail on the planets? i.e. saturn, jupiter, mars? And how easy is it to track these with a Dob?

Thanks

[Doc]

If your scope is balanced well then tracking is not really that hard and you will soon get used to it. Wider field of view eyepieces help alot as the object takes longer to drift accross your field of view. But I found balance was the key to easy tracking.