Telescopes for space stuff

[dieselboy]

So, seeing that Mars is very obvious to me like a bright orange dot in the sky I went out and purchased a 8" Dobsonian reflector. I actually paid $499 which I thought wasn't that bad.

Does any of the forum view the night sky with a telescope and the like?

I've a 25mm and a 10mm 1.25" eyepieces that came with the "set". I'm thinking of getting a Barlow lens and possibly another eyepiece or two - one higher power and one mid-range of the 10 and 25.

This is the first time I've owned one of these things. I know a little about whats up there, but practically nothing about telescopes etc other than what I've seen on The Sky At Night and from reading online.

[Bogus]

Does any of the forum view the night sky with a telescope and the like?

There will be a few who claim that they do, as a cover for their "peeping Tom" activities, maybe they can help.

[shokenore]

I use one of the ipod apps to generally orient myself to what is or should be viewable "SkyView" and "VinmeenLite" may be worth having a look for obviously not much help if you don't have an ipod.

[dieselboy]

I use Google Sky Map app for my phone. Otherwise I'd have never found any of them!

So far, I have quickly looked at
the nebulae in Orion (as it was setting i.e. time was up),
Mars,
Saturn and the rings,
A globular star cluster (NGC5139).

Have been trying to find spiral galaxies and things of that nature but they're either not up which has mostly been the case, or I think I found one but it was just a "star" through my eyepiece.

Shokenore what kit do you have? This was really an impulse buy as I wanted something to do last night. The guy in the shop seems to have led me in the right direction. Although I would like to have a play with a cassegrain.

One thing I was not expecting was that even with a magnification equivelant of 120x the object is not in view for very long, may be 20 or 30 seconds before the Earths rotation brings it out of view.

[dieselboy]

There will be a few who claim that they do, as a cover for their "peeping Tom" activities, maybe they can help.

... a secondary use

[tavvi]

One thing I was not expecting was that even with a magnification equivelant of 120x the object is not in view for very long, may be 20 or 30 seconds before the Earths rotation brings it out of view.

Your supplier can probably fix you up with a GOTO mount for your Dobsonian which will allow you to set up the telescope so that you can automaticaly track whatever object you are viewing. Will probably cost at least as much as the telescope was, depending on model. This also gives the option of astrophotography.

You will also need a collimator for a Dobsonian / Reflector because the lens alignment is likely to go off everytime you move the telescope. Most astronomers just include collimation as part of their setup exercise, i.e unless it is permanently located in a home observatory they collimate the scope everytime they use it.

You have just impulse bought your way into a hobby with more expensive add-on options than you can shake a stick at. The standard advice to newbies is to get half decent binoculars and a star atlas to start with and use this to find your way around the night sky while you spend more time looking into what telescope to buy (or whether you even want to get one).

One huge advantage you will have over UK astronomers is that you will have far more clear nights - in the UK they seem to use their telescopes for about 5 freezing cold nights per year and the rest of the year buying more kit (including the gear to keep warm in).

Check out one of the user forums - you'll get loads of advice. You should also be able to find an active group near you at which you will be able to get loads of practical advice. Two of the most popular forums are the Stargazers Lounge and Cloudy Nights but there are bound to be Aussie specific sites that concentrate on the southern sky.

[dieselboy]

Hi Tavvi,
I looked up the GOTO mount and it's about $800~ish. At this point in time I'm not really looking to spend that amount of money. I'm not sure on the viability of shipping the whole thing back to England when my term is up - I may just sell the lot and repurchase back home. It may get damaged in transit, is my concern - and the shipping costs.

I'll need to look into collimating. Thanks for the tips!