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Hi from Hull, East Riding


Holderness

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After having an interest in astronomy for more years than I care to remember I finally bought my 1st Telescope (a Skywatcher 130M Newtonian Refletor) last Saturday. The purchase was followed by cloudy nights until last night.

I was therefore very pleased to at last be able to try out my new aquisition. Whilst I became very aware that I was at the start of a very steep learning curve, not only learning the positions of stars/constellation/planets but also getting to grips with the scope itself.

I enjoyed great views of Jupiter and its moons at magnifications of 36X and 72X (25mm eyepiece with 2X Barlow) but failed miserably with the higher magnification of the 10mm lens.

I also managed to locate and view the Orion nebula.

All in all a great first experience which left me with many questions about the best way to use the equipment.

I suppose the first question I need to answer is what is the best height to have the tripod set at? I initially had it set quite low, but when viewing Jupiter found I was bending my back too much for too long. So I raised the tripod to allow me to stand more erect. Then when I tried to view the Pleiades, higher in the sky, I couldn't reach the eyepiece and had to lower the tripod again.

Here's hoping for many more clear nights soon!

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Hi. Welcome to SGL. A good first scope choice.

The problem of a newtonian is that the eyepiece height varies. If you move the tripod legs, you will into mount algnment, assuming you bother with polar alignemt - another subject.

I have quite a long tube newt based scope set up with a fixed pier in my shed. I can't change the scope height, and it moves more than your '130. The solution I have used is a lightweight plastic (caravan) step. Being able to bring the observer to the scope is very useful when someone asks for a look.

David.

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Hi and welcome to the forum.

As David has said, the newtonian design will get you into some nice interesting positions, and I believe it to be astronomy's answer to twister! ;):D

Short steps are a good idea. Some people argue having another scope ring positioned in front of the first uppermost ring, so that as you loosen the tube ring bolts, you can then turn the scope around within the rings so that the focuser is easier to get at without the scope sliding to the floor. But I'm afraid this difficulty is part and parcel of that design, each scope has them, it's all a question of trading one advantage against a difficulty.

Keep up with the observing and congratulations on what you seen so far.

James

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