I’m sure I’m not alone in being given a telescope as a Christmas present when I was younger. It was a fantastic present and got me reading a lot about astronomy and probably led to me studying Physics with Astronomy. I devoured books but probably didn’t do much practical observing apart from looking at the moon.
The books were fascinating and did contain all the information I needed to get started, yet somehow the hobby never completely took off for me.
This was in the days when the internet was accessed by a modem screeching down the telephone line and taking forever to download websites with anything more than formatted text.
Now, assisted by YouTube and busy forums filled with helpful and experienced people, I’ve managed to set up my old telescope correctly, identified some real rookie errors I was making as a teenager and actually managed an observing session last night.
At the moment there are a lot of planets visible. Mars is high in the sky and has been for some time. Jupiter and Saturn are almost in conjunction this November which I believe is quite a rare event (once every 20 years according to one blog).
Given my previous experience (or lack thereof), I didn’t expect much from the telescope but aimed it at Jupiter nonetheless. Unbelievably I could not only see Jupiter as a slightly orange ball but also four dots of light around it – the Galilean moons! The view is incredible and if you have a telescope is well worth braving the cold evenings to look at.
Here are a few brilliant resources which I’ve found really useful:
Telescope Stats Explained (SkyAtNight Magazine)
Telescope Basics (Eyes On The Sky / YouTube)
Top 20 Telescope Tips (Astronomy and Nature TV / YouTube)
For next steps, I’m hoping to repair the telescope mount to make it a little more stable and also “collimate” it to improve the image quality. I’ve also ordered some better quality Plossl eyepieces and a Barlow lens to replace the ageing low quality Huygens eyepieces.
One bonus of the Barlow lens is that I should be able to connect my DSLR to the telescope and take some photos to share. Stay tuned!