Tag Archives: astronomy

All, Observations

I Bagged My First DSO with a Pair of Binoculars

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My Nikon 8×40 Action VII

Last night, I setup my Newt to look for M13, the Hercules globular cluster. My 4th attempt.

Earlier in the day, I had been in contact with another astronomer an hour away to the north. At night fall, he texted me and told me that he’s got M13 in his CPC 800 through 18mm and it was brilliant taking up a third of the frame. That prompted me to quickly setup my gear in the yard: collimated scope, eyepieces, Stellarium, eye patch, towel & coffee… check! Darkness was good (before the moon rose anyway), excellent transparency, good seeing, no wind, normal humidity, and mild temperatures.

After an hour, I still could not find M13. I know where it should be and what it looks like. I tried it with my binoculars and I still can’t find it. I brought out my 90mm refractor and I still cannot find it. I has been 2 hours and the moonlight has started to make the sky glow. So I packed up.

The last thing I brought back inside were my binoculars (Nikon 8×40 Action VII). But before I walked in, I thought of checking out Andromeda with my binos. I slewed towards Cassiopaea then scanned downwards diagonally to where it points. Then, there it was. I noticed a blurry dark grey patch at the corner of my eye. I slewed towards it, past it, back and forth. It was undeniable: that was the Andromeda Galaxy. My first DSO. The feeling was a mix of excitement and awkward fear. Excited because I finally bagged my first DSO ever. Awkward fear was because it was like unveiling a ghost that had been staring at me since birth and all I saw was a tiny portion of it.

My bino’s beat out my telescopes even on a sky with moonlight. I suspect the problem is with my eyepieces. Today, I will be receiving my first real eyepieces (Celestron X-Cel LX). The forecast tonight looks good and will give it another go at M13.

All, Observations

My Second Night Out with my Discovery 8 EQ

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My Discovery 8 EQ

I’m a newbie amateur astronomer from Oshawa, ON (Canada). Tonight, I setup my Discovery 8″ EQ reflector in the middle of an open field in my neighbourhood 200 feet away from the nearest street light. I also used this chance to align my finder. With my limited knowledge of the skies, I was able to observe:

Venus: It was so close to the rooftops by the time I was ready to view it. It was so small and so bright that it was hard to see the disk. It seemed like it was better through my refractor.

Saturn: It was bigger than Venus and sharper in medium magnification. It seemed the same through my refractor. At higher magnification, it got blurry that I thought there was dust in my eyepiece so I took it out and blew at both sides of the lens. Bad newbie move. It fogged up.

Moon: This was the first time I looked at the moon through a telescope ever, and my first reaction was saying “holy f***” in the middle of the field. As I continued to increase the magnification using different eyepieces, I was amazed at the detail. I saw a crater in the middle of a crater! I began to wonder how big these craters were and how could meteors hit the near side of the moon yet missing Earth! I began to wonder how the dark side might be even worse! Then within 3 minutes, my eye began to hurt, so I put on the tube cover and removed the 2 small hole covers to reduce the intensity, but it didn’t help much.

Then I scanned the summer triangle, looking for the one that is supposed to be a double star. I couldn’t find it.

In total, it was 20 mins for setup and tear down, and an hour of observing. I’m loving this new hobby. Now if I can find someone else in my neighbourhood with experience to join me in darker skies, that would be even better so that I don’t look like a creep in the middle of our field. Signing out!