Looking good for a first light experiece

[mark RD]

I just put the 10inch reflector in the garage to cool, Sky's are looking good at the moment, but I'm not setting the mount up till its dark just in case it all goes pear shaped.

First targets will be:

M31

M42

M45

Then If I can get the goto to agree I will be adding to this list

RD

[SteelRat]

Best o luck mate - cloudy here already, pah

[mark RD]

Fingers crossed

[geppetto]

Yep, good luck with it, hope you get chance to play

[daz]

Had the pleasure of seeing Marks bew toy in the flesh today - very impressive!!

Fingers crossed for you Mark - I'm going for some lunar photography (kit is all packed up in the shed )

[lunator]

It's clear here as well at the mo.

I'm going to spend a bit of time viewing the moon 1st and take it from there.

Cheers

ian

[Martin 2]

Hope it stays clear for you,

No chance here

[Saso]

Have a realy nice time. I have one yesterday.

Saso

[mark RD]

Well had my first session until I dewed up

OK I think I was a fair bit out with my pole alignment due to not seeing the stars very well. Set up the goto to two stars to start with Deneb and Caph, I also realised I'm going to need to learn a few star names here. I'm still not 100 % sure of all the settings yet and the best I could get the goto was within 3 finderscope FOVs.

Weather conditions where far from ideal, low level fog hung about and the odd bit of cloud here and there, The moon light up the fog so I got a pretty light sky

First object was M45. The background was very blue still as it had only just gone dark ( 17.30 ) stars shone out wonderfully using the moonfish 32mm. After playing with the goto some more still with no luck I decided to go for the double cluster. Using the goto got somewhere close again. And again with the 32mm moonfish I was rewarded with a stunning view of the doublecluster easily being able to pick out a few stars of the red kind! All in all I'm very happy with the scope even though I was not so Impressed with the view of the moon, The 127mm refractor has nothing to worry about there it,s still the chosen scope for planets and the moon. Very impressed with the EQ6 pro mount, it is very solid even with around 15Kg of scope sat on it focusing was easy and wobble free.

RD

[lunator]

Mark

Glad you got some viewing in.

The cloud arrived about 7.30.

I manged to take a few hurried afocal pics of the Moon.

I will have to se how they have come out

[mark RD]

Will keep an eye out for them, Some great detail on the terminator line I notice while observing

RD

[Kain]

It is very dewy tonight, I was only out for about an hour and the scope was dripping wet.

Glad people who had scopes for xmas managed to get out for a bit!

Kain