Our First Night Out With A Telescope

Astronomy for the Absolute Beginner
Our First Night Out With A Telescope

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My son and I had our first experience with our new scope on Saturday December 27, 2003. The temperature as dusk approached was around 40F (that is supposed to be the high for this time of year) and the sky was clear. We set our 8" dobsonian telescope up in the backyard and left it to cool down. About 45 minutes later with eyepieces in hand we set out on our first adventure. The first thing we noticed was how many trees there are in our yard. Funny that never bothered us before. The next thing we noticed was how many annoying lights there were around. Stupid insecurity lights! Popped in our 25mm Plossl and swung the scope towards an obvious first choice the 1st quarter moon.

You know how the instructions say to align the finder scope during the day with a terrestrial object? Well, I left that to my son who by the way did read the instructions. It wasn’t even close. Do not wait until you are in the dark to find out this has not been done properly.

Finally found the moon. Both of us had the same reaction – wow! I have seen it through binoculars and toy telescopes but was totally unprepared for this sight. After viewing for only a moment we realized how badly its brightness was affecting our night vision. Put the moon-filter on the 9mm and went back at it. Mare Crisium was gorgeous. The mountains were just amazing.

Next turned the scope toward the horizon where Venus was very bright. Kept loosing it in the trees. After much work we did succeed. It was just a white disc – no surprise there, however we can officially say we have seen it.

The next target was Mars high in the southern sky. Did I mention the trees? Moved the scope further towards the North so Mars would be above the trees. We saw it at its closest approach in 60,000 years this last summer at a star party. Just a few months later it is a very unimpressive sight, very small, even with the 9mm. No detail that we could discern.

About this time we were beginning to feel the cold of the damp ground, and the effects of bending over to look into the viewfinder. The dobsonian scope sits very low to the ground. We will probably find a lightweight platform to sit under it for future use. This time we went inside long enough to grab a short stool to sit on and to warm up our toes. We also grabbed a fold-up chair and our binoculars.

Changing the eyepieces was a bit of a hassle as well. We had a red flashlight but after awhile you get used to the dark and it isn’t particularly necessary. The problem wasn't seeing the eyepieces, it was the gloves I was wearing. I was continually taking them off to change eyepieces. I also tried forcing myself not to put the spare eyepiece in my pocket loose. I kept putting it back in its box. Didn’t want to start out with bad habits.

My oldest son joined us about mid-adventure. While the youngest and I were surveying the sky sharing the binoculars, my oldest took over the Deep Space Hunter and started looking for Saturn. It was just coming up in the East from behind the trees. Suddenly with great excitement we heard him yell, “I see the rings!” The first view of Saturn is almost surreal. You know it is really there but it is so unlike anything you have ever seen before it is hard to accept your eyes aren’t deceiving you. The air was so bad we couldn’t make out the Cassini division, which we did expect would be visible. I was actually a little disappointed that Saturn was so small in the eyepiece. We need more power (and better air), can’t wait until my Celestron eyepiece kit arrives.

Another thing we learned was how difficult it is to find something in the telescope you can easily see with the naked eye. I think we need a Telrad 1x viewfinder. We could find Andromeda through the binoculars but could not find it in the scope. Which leads to another interesting topic - giving directions to someone about where you are looking in the sky. The conversation was almost comical. Couldn’t use the dippers or Orion as guideposts because they weren’t visible due to the trees. We did pick out Cassiopeia, which looks like a big M this time of year and was close enough to vertical to be used to point to other objects. Except we are lousy at giving each other directions.

My oldest son found the Pleiades (M45) and called it a miniature little dipper. It is easily seen with bare eyes but it was beautiful through the binoculars. Read on it after we came back inside and discovered it is an open cluster. We also saw the Orion Nebula (M42), which is also easily seen with unaided eyes. Through the binoculars it was very bright. Did not turn the scope on it as it was still (you guessed it) in the trees.

Between both of my sons they saw a total of three meteors. I saw none. Sigh. Saw several manmade satellites. Satellite spotting has been a summertime hobby of ours for years. The first one of the evening my son spotted as it moved through his field of view while trying to observe Mars. What a neat coincidence.

We saw a for real UFO, as long as you take it at its real definition. We could not identify what we saw therefore it was unidentified. At first we thought it was a bright blue star low in the western horizon. We had observed it for several minutes when one of the guys got the bright idea they would turn the scope on it. He declared it had flashing lights all over it. The other confirmed he saw red lights through the binoculars. I laughed at them, took the binoculars to look for myself and thought that’s really weird. Got to the scope which revealed an even more bizarre picture; blue and red lights everywhere. I’m not saying it was alien technology, but I’m not saying it wasn’t either (my attempt at humor – I’m not a nut, really).

That is about the extent of our viewing for the first night out. Much fun was had by all but the time was too short due to our freezing legs. We are such wimps. Can't wait for summer!

**UFO update – there was a letter in the February 2004 issue of Astronomy that described a very similar experience. The object in question turned out to be a star whose viewing was greatly affected by really bad air low on the horizon. Pretty well matches our viewing conditions for the evening. So we might have to mark this case closed except for explaining what those men in black were doing running through my neighbor’s yard.

I hope you found something of interest here. If you did drop me a note. If I have written something that is not correct please point it out to me and I will get it changed.

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