First shot w/ the 10" Newtonian Reflector (A)

So... they aren't called Dobs for the scope, but for the mount. I learned that today reading my most excellent field guide (NightWatch). Tonight was clear and pretty damned bright due to a full moon acting as a spotlight pointed at my eye. That being said I still made some strides.



I spent over an hour collimating the scope for the first time. There are basically two mirrors that can be out of alignment (thus giving you not so great performance). Collimation is the process of aligning them and making sure that it's all kosher before you get out under the stars. Now that I've done it the manual way I totally want a laser collimator (just because it makes it easier and faster).



Initial feelings for going from a 125mm (5 inch) to a 254mm (10 inch) were a little disappointing. Sure it's big, but I looked at a few things and didn't get any noticeable difference. Orion's Nebula, check - looks the same... maybe slightly brighter, but with a full moon who the hell can tell? Pleaides, check - now I'm noticing that the entire sky is grayish yellow instead of just dark gray (since I'm in town it never gets super good, but new moon with decent seeing is the best).



Mars. Oh how I want to see anything on Mars. It looks like a bright circle... that's it - pretty much the same view I had before, but now that I'm realizing the light from the moon is killing me it's not so bad. One proud moment... when looking around with my binoculars I noticed and identified the Beehive Cluster which was cool.



So... I've Ebay'ed my retail $699 computer scope and now I'm using this monster on full manual with zero computer help at all. It's got 4 times the light gathering capability and twice the aperture. It's not small. I'm expecting to see Hubble stuff with it and I'm let down (which I think is a lot to do with the light of the full moon, but whatever). That is... until I see Saturn.



Saturn has been getting a lot of crap lately because this year it's rings are on edge to us which makes them thinner. I have to be honest in saying that no matter what tilt it has, Saturn is one of the prettiest sights a telescope can offer. Previously I'd looked at it with a 25mm, 15mm, and my 9.7mm (which being the highest power meant basically 128x magnification and was blurry and hard to see). It might be the collimation or it might be the scope, but Saturn was great looking at 123x :) I could see the shadow beneath the rings and because this scope is manual I basically put it at the top of the ocular and let it drift all the way across w/o touching it. That way I could see the "seeing" change from turbulent to smooth (and thus give up some more detail). I put some filters in play to tweak it (polarizing one for the moon / glare, yellow to just pump up the details) and it looked even better.



Score for the Newt! Now if I can get a night like this w/o the G.D. moon kicking my butt :)

Learning Guitar (G) and Astronomy (A)

Last night I started using this exercise to begin the fingertip toughening that I'll need to play for real. Here is the site.



Also, I'm starting with AC/DC Back in Black (thx to James) and I've got a little bit of Fell on Black Days as well. Chords I'm learning... E, D (tricksy), A.



It's killing me to wait on the new telescope. Since yesterday was patch day I went up on the roof of my building to see if the seeing was any better... nah - way too much light. On a plus note I'm enjoying my binoculars more and more (mostly whenever I can find something to prop/steady them on).



(the notation in the title denotes this as a minor blog post just documenting where I'm at in that particular hobby, regular observations won't have that)

Astronomy Fun

So... I'm waiting to get my new telescope and it's back-ordered till the 26th. I'm going from a Computerized 5" aperture to a fully manual 10" aperture. The truth is I never really got the alignment to work as well as I'd have liked to. It was never centered when I got done and always seemed to take way longer to align than to do any viewing.
Click here to check out the new scope :)



So tonight I finally had clear skies enough to look around and I was rewarded decently. With my binoculars, I found the Beehive Cluster pretty easily and with the aid of my Adirondack chair was able to look at it for a while w/o killing my arms. It's times like these I wish I lived in the woods (or had access to the power grid). :)