First light Intes MK66 Mak

[dark star]

I put my alarm on and went out around 3.30 a.m. to find the clouds had finally cleared.

I got the Intes MK66 Mak second hand (it's no longer in production).

First impressions are that I love the way stars look through this telescope!

I looked for a long time at a star cluster in Cassiopeia, I am not sure which one as there are so many, and I always find it hard to orientate when pointing the telescope almost straight up.

The stars were sharp and like jewels!

I also looked at the Orion Nebula for the first time this year, I found it seemed to stand out more than through my Skywatcher 150PL reflector.

It is really beautiful, but I must admit it still looks like a beautiful cloud of slightly faint mist! I gues this is due to light pollution. Also, it was only visible late in the night, so it was already starting to get a bit light, and the moon doesn't help.

I could easily see the four stars in the trapezium.

I also looked at Jupiter and it's moons, Jupiter looked great but was shimmering a bit as it was low in the sky by the time I got to look at it.

I looked at the moon well, which was amazing, the craters looked razor sharp.

It has been cloudy so long that I am out of practise finding my way around the sky. Because of this I didn't look at half as much as I hoped to, but I still had a really good time.

So far I really love this telescope, I am looking forward to having a longer observing session when we finally get a whole night without clouds!

Off to bed feeling really happy!

[Demonperformer]

I also looked at the Orion Nebula for the first time this year

Now I know winter is just around the corner:)

Seriously, sounds like a good session and well worth the early alarm call

[tooth_dr]

Yep, nice report and bet your glad you got up early/late/ridiculous time. I took saw Orion on Friday morning, really cannot wait for him to rise now