On Saturday, March 13, 2004, my scope had it's REAL First Light. The Santa Cruz Astronomy Club had a viewing night at Bonny Doon Airfield, NW of Santa Cruz in the mountains.
Here are some notes I made after the viewing night was over:
First Light: March 13, 2004 Bonny Doon Airfield
Viewing time: 7 pm to midnight.
Very clear night, dry, warm, shirtsleeve temperatures almost all night. Fairly dark, with some sky glow to the SE from Santa Cruz, and to the N from San Jose. 16 scopes attending, about 30 people mostly from the local astronomy club. We also had some kids from a local high school there with their teacher as part of their science course.
For most of my viewing I was using my Nagler 31mm and Panoptic 35mm. For greater magnification, I used my Nagler 22mm or 17mm (rarely). I tried using my Barlow, but the weight made the scope top-heavy, and that's when I discovered that I'd failed to bring my counterweights. :(
This evening I chose not to make use of the ServoCat or the ArgoNavis systems. Dave K recommends that the first few times you use your new Obsession, you use it just manually, to get used to it and appreciate how well made it is. I followed his advice tonight.
We had a lot of people showing interest in my Obsession, so each object took a long time for everyone to view. Here are some brief notes on what I saw tonight (no particular order, mostly I was taking requests from the students and other astronomers there):
Jupiter: Very bright, clearly saw bands, moons and a moon shadow.
Saturn: Rings clearly defined, planet shadow on rings very sharp, Cassini Gap very defined.
Orion Great Nebula: AMAZING! More nebulosity than I've ever seen before, color was actually visible! Clear and sharp, very large in the eyepiece. This is one of my favorite objects to view, much more so now!
Andromeda Galaxy: A bit of a disappointment, mainly due to being close to horizon with lots of moisture and skyglow.
Venus: What a mistake! WAYYYYY too bright for viewing through this scope without a filter. Totally blew away my night-adapted vision (in one eye, anyway). Gibbous in shape.
M51: (Whirlpool Galaxy) One of the most amazing views of the evening. Very clear dust lanes, spiral structure, could clearly see it's companion galaxy (NGC5195)
Flame Nebula: faint, but definitely visible, structure was fairly clear. Had we had darker skies, contrast would have been greater.
Horsehead Nebula: The local astronomy club stood in line to see this one. I suspect most of us used "averted imagination" to see it! Again, if we'd had darker skies, there would have been greater contrast. What we saw was only visible due to the use of the H-Beta filter.
M65 & M66, NGC3628: Structures very clear on M66 & NGC3628.
M81 & M82: Structure of M81 very clear
M101: Fairly bright, the center was noticibly brighter than the surrounding edges.
The 25" was a big hit with the club, being the largest aperture scope in the club. Lots of help from the more experienced astronomers, but they were delighted with the performance. Many kudos received on how smoothly the scope moves.
I learned a number of things this trip:
- I need longer ramps (currently they're 6' long; I need 8' ramps). Either that or get a trailer with a lower deck than my van.
- Get to the site earlier. Give myself an hour of daylight to set everything up (not just the scope, but all the peripheral stuff as well).
- Check to make sure the batteries in my camera are fresh. I planned on trying some astro-photography, but the batteries died on my 3rd shot.
- Have a rigid base (or firm ground) to set the scope on, instead of the woven plastic rug I normally use. The lower corners of the Obsession catch on the rug as I turn it.
On Saturday, February 28, my 25 inch Obsession telescope had an "unofficial" First
Light.
After spending the day installing the mirrors,
I was getting ready to break it down and pack it into my van. I had pulled the
light shroud off, and was packing up my eyepieces. My brother Lynn had climbed
the ladder to detach the UTA.
I looked up at Lynn, and over his shoulder in the afternoon sky (which had cleared
up some), I saw the gibbous Moon! I thought "This is it! I'm finally going to
see something through my new telescope!"
I quickly told Lynn to leave everything up there, and I grabbed my 31mm Nagler
TeleView eyepiece (otherwise known as
The Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch)
I climbed up the ladder and put the eyepiece into the focuser. Lynn helped me
guide the scope to roughly the right place in the sky to view the Moon.
I looked in the eyepiece, but couldn't see anything but blurry blue sky.
After several minutes of searching, I took the eyepiece out and just stared down the focuser tube directly at the mirror. I moved the scope around, scanning the sky, and finally saw a white blur. I popped the eyepiece back in, looked in and brought it into focus.
And this is what I saw. The first image viewed through my new telescope:
The limb of the Moon.
And this was in full daylight, without the light shroud! I took this photo using my digital camera, just holding it up to the eyepiece. So if I can get this good an image with such an spur-of-the-moment maneuver, you can imagine just how clear it was to the naked eye.
This truly is an amazing telescope.
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And this was in full daylight, without the light shroud! I took this photo using my digital camera, just holding it up to the eyepiece. So if I can get this good an image with such an spur-of-the-moment maneuver, you can imagine just how clear it was to the naked eye.
This truly is an amazing telescope.