Waxing Cresent

 

Tonight has been fun. I have replaced the finder scope with a red dot finder and this has improved things considerably. It weighs much less than the finderscope so i had to rebalance the scope ready for tonight.

I didn't think i was going to be able to go out tonight but we got a few breaks in the cloud which made it worthwhile.

It has seemed like forwever since the moon was up in the sky, so i thought i would have a play with the phone adapter. It was simple to use though my photography skills are severely lacking.

Though this photo does not show it, i manage to find an interesting feature using high power. The feature i found looked a little like a landslip above a cliff face which appear of overhang the surface below.

Once improved the photography skills i will try get a photo of it with a high power eyepiece.

Big Bertha

 

As you may recall from my previous post, after finding Andromeda, I celebrated by ordering the StellaLyra 8" Dobsonian. It is huge. We had clear skies tonight so i had to take it out for a test run.

The telescope itself is a joy to use, i can focus without the whole scope wobbling everwhere and hopping between targets is smooth and efforless.

If i have one niggle it is this. I am finsing the finderscope incredibly difficult to find targets. Not because it isnt set up correctly but because i am too used to just using a red dot finder. I will of course give it more time but i suspect I will be putting a red dot finder on it in the near future.

....

I viewed the easier targets tonight, Orions Nebula, Jupiter, Mars and Pleiades, all of which looked significantly better. The nebular was much more visible and showed faint hues of colour. Jupiters two main bandsshowed much more detail with hints of swirls at the edges and i could also make out 2 thinner and fainter bands at x133 magnification.

Mars was a huge improvement. It was still very birght, however there were hints of surface detail in hues of dark brown.

Finally, Andromeda!!!

 

Tonight, as it has been clear skies, I thought I would spend an hour or so in the garden and play about with my phone holder. The moon was not out but I thought, it would be fun to try and focus on a planet. Venus was in the sky, so I decided to take a shot.

The holder made it incredibly easy to get the planet in the middle of the shot. Obviously, this is a terrible picture, too much glare but I accept I have much to learn, and that is part of the fun for me.

I was surprised by just for steady the skies were this evening, for the first time I have been able to use my x2 barlow paired with the 6mm plossl on Jupiter and I could still see the bands. Not quite as well as I could at lower magnification but certainly the best clarity, I have ever had so zoomed in. I am not sure if I saw hints of the GRS tonight or whether my eyes were playing tricks on me. This has happened to me before and I would love to be certain on whether I am seeing the red spot.

 

Now for the good bit, I am buzzing. I fired up Stellarium and thought I would use it to check for M31 (Andromeda Galaxy) and was amazed to have found it. Sure, it was very faint and showed little to no detail, but I found it in my tiny, little, 114/500 Bresser. I spent over 40 minutes just looking at this patch of light that has taken over 2.5 million light years away. Surprisingly averting my vision and moving the scope showed more of its shape.

I don’t think words can express the sense of achievement and how happy I am feeling right now, utterly elated!

To celebrate, I am about to buy myself an 8 inch Dobsonian!

The Moon

On the 3rd of Feburary i was particulary impressed with the views I had of the moon. So much so i had to try an take a photo of what i was seeing with my mobile phone. This was much harder than i thought it would be as i didnt have a phone holder at the time. At the moment i am competely clueless on how to take a decent photo with a mobile phone through a telescope. But, that said, i was rther pleased with this as it captured what had caught my curiousity. Obviously, this photo does no justice to what i was observing through the eyepiece, but none-the-less i had to capture it.

After a little research i found learned that the craters i was interested in were Theophilus, Cyrilus & Catharina. Each of these craters are apparently 100km across. What caught my eye the most was how Cyrilus & Catharina appear to be joined by some kind of gouge in the lune surface.

Inspired by the views and want to take better images next time I purchased what is said to be a great phone mount called a "Move-Shoot-Move" which it adjustable on all 3 axis. When the mount arrived it seems to be very robust and easy to use.

Thus far i have been reluctant to use it to try and take images of the planets, not because i think it isnt up to the job but because i know taking a 

 

The Bresser 114/500 Solarix

So, I have had my telescope for 8 weeks now and though I have been happy with it I am looking buy a bigger scope.

 

The telescope has been great and offered some stunning views of the planets.

 

Jupiter.

 

This was the first thing I looked at on a very cold and crisp January evening. I was amazed at the view. To be able to see the planet and the red/orange bands of cloud as well as it moons was simply wonderous, a memory I will never forget.

 

Saturn.

 

This was the second planet I looked at. I spent over 90 minutes completely I awe of what I was seeing. Sure, it was tiny, and I could only just make out its rings, but I was looking at Saturn, SATURN!!!

I cannot wait until it once again become visible in the night sky.

 

Mars.

 

Mars has been an utter disappointment for me. I have managed to find it easily, but I have been unable to resolve any detail at all on its surface. Perhaps my telescope lacks the power to bring out the details or maybe I need to invest in better eyepieces.

 

Venus.

 

I have read the Venus is boring and featureless. And on my first night of viewing her I would have agreed. However, last night 22/02/25, I spent a good 30 minutes watching her as she flew across the night sky. She was in crescent phase and thought blinding bright, she looked beautiful. I will certainly be viewing her again, perhaps with a moon filter to cut the glare.

 

Orion Nebular.

 

Turn expectation into appreciation is a phrase that will always stay with me after hearing Jason on his YouTube channel Small Optics. The internet is flooded with stunning images of planets and deep sky objects, so when I first saw the nebular in Orion, I had mixed feelings at first.

However, this has become one of my favourite targets. The view seems to change from night to night I seem to be able to find more nebulosity every time. It is amazing to think I can see clouds of dust, forming new stars from 1500 light years away. Viewing this target brings real prospective and wonder and real sense that I am indeed looking back in time. I don’t think I will ever get bored of this target.

 

The Pleiades.

 

The seven sisters’ reputation for being a beautiful sight isn’t unfounded. Like the Orion nebula, this cluster of stars is a favourite of mine. To see so many stars packed into such a small area is simply gorgeous to look at. I find myself hopping to the Pleiades every time I am out with the telescope.

 

The Moon.

 

My first experience viewing the moon with my Bresser 114/500 brought back memories of looking through my dad’s telescope. However, I used a Moon filter and because my telescope is better than the one my dad had, my mind was blown. The detail I can see then the moon is in one of its phases is amazing. I have even bought myself a move-shoot-move phone holder so I can take photos of it next tie it is in the sky.

 

So why am I wanting a bigger scope?

The 114/500 seems a little limiting on what I can see, and it does have some frustrations.

The focuser isn’t great, it can be a little stiff. The mount can also make tracking objects in the sky tricky as it isn’t overly smooth.

 

More importantly, however, I want to be able to see more deep sky objects too faint for my current telescope to gather enough light from. More aperture and focal length will also allow me to see greater detail on targets I am already viewing.

 

I will probably keep the 114/500 as it is small enough to travel will. It will even go in hand luggage, useful for when we go on holiday overseas!

About me and this journal

 

If you have found this blog, then welcome to my astronomy journal. I have been interested in space from a very young age. I remember been 8 years old or so and looking at the moon through a telescope that my mum had bought my dad one Christmas. This was in the 1980's, the brightness of the moon was blinding but it looked close enough to touch.

For some reason, I never actually bought me a telescope. As a teenage I was too busy with video games and as a young adult there were far too many other distractions, to cut a long, boring and irrelevant story short, in 2024, my wife bought me a Bresser 114/500 Solarix for Christmas, after mentioning I wouldn’t mind a small entry level telescope as a gift.

As a way of recording my plunge into the world of astronomy I have created this journal, to share my experiences, frustrations and of course my achievements.

This is very much a personal blog, and I hope any amateur astronomers who stumble across it will follow it and share my journey with me.