First viewing with Binos...

[itchy]

First stargazing session with my Celestron 15x70s last night (first-ever stargazing session at all, in fact..).

A cloudy evening lifted at about 2000 so myself and Dog legged it up the local hill and stuck the Binos on my el-cheapo photography tripod.

Managed to see:-

1. Jupiter and 3 (possibly 4) moons. I say possibly 4 as the tripod is so **** that trying to steady the binos was virtually impossible - i was unsure whether two moons were close together or if the tripod vibration was causing this effect!

2. Double cluster - found fairly easily

3. M31 - Found fairly easily but was just a faint smudge.

4. Lots of general gazing at nothing in particular.

What stood out :-

Stellarium - very useful. Did mange to have the date settings for december (?) though, which i didn't notice until this morning, so my attempt at Comet 103p was futile as i was looking in the wrong place. Also explains why the sky was not orientated with the PC...

Light pollution - I was on a 270 metre hill miles from the nearest light. However the general orange glow from the nearest town about 6 miles away completely wiped out a lot of the lower stars. Not sure if the weather contributed to this as it was a humid evening and somewhat hazy.

Dew - I was only out for about 90 mins yet everything was soaking.

Tripod - I need a decent one. Time to start saving.

Dog - Doesn't like the dark much.

[Toadeh]

Sounds like a fun time. I've found M31 to have quite a lot of white light coming from the smudge with my 10x50's.

I've also started looking at Pleiades (M45), that looks really impressive through the bins

[tinvek]

+1 about pleiades

[jgs001]

Nice session. From the Double Cluster, go down into Perseus and find the brightest star (Mirfak), there's a nice little cluster there. M45 (Pleiades is stunning in Bins). As for a tripod, I've got a redsnapper, they aren't too expensive and work great with 15x70's. I use it with my C80ED scope on it for single shot moon images and it handles that load (with a few wobbles that takes only 1 or 2 seconds to settle).

[Star child]

It might not have been the tripod at fault, the adapter supplied with the celestron 15x70's isnt that sturdy.

There are quite a few people saying its naff and its bettter to get a metal one, and i'm inclined to agree, having experieced the wobbling myself, although the tripoid is rather flimsy as well and even with legs fully extended and raised as high as it can, its not tall enough so i have to stoop to use it.

So maybe a new more taller and rigid tripod is in order, as well as a new adapter! the bino's themselves are fantastic though!

[Makron]

A strong tripod is a must.