One Man & His Telescope

First Blood……….

……. I think they usually call it ‘First Light’ in astro language. However, as you may be gathering, things are rarely that straighforward.

I finally have ‘all’ of my kit. I say all, I’m sure there will be things added to this list over the months to come, astronomy as a hobby seems to offer the casual participant ever increasing circles of opportunity to spend cash. I think thats why the term ‘Black Hole’ was coined by astronomers, as a way to explain to their wives where all the income was being sucked away to.

(Did you notice that the above sentence implies that all astronomers are men?  Curious thing that. I can’t put my finger on what it is that makes standing around in the icy freezing cold, looking up a pipe at dots in the sky, something that the fairer sex dont enjoy. I have a theory that it is some kind of distorted jealousy thing. For example, the other night I rushed in, icicles dripping from my nose, eyes, ears and other appendages, and exclaimed “I’VE JUST SEEN THE MOST FANTASTIC DOUBLE CLUSTER!!!!!”, and all the missus did was roll her eyes in a way that said ‘He’s been eyeing up the next door neighbour again!’

If any proper female astronomers should ever in the course of time read this, then please make yourself known to me (Ask a male friend to show you how to send an e-mail), I’d love to meet a genuine one-of-a-kind.)

When I started this lark, they said to me, “Ooooh, Its a steep learning curve.” I now appreciate that they might have had ID-TEN-T type errors in mind for me, (written down as ID10T). So hands up if you’ve ever made any of the following mistakes……

1) Polar aligned your telescope on a completely wrong star, and spent the rest of the night working out why every photo had crazy star trails on.

2) Focused the telescope, then put the lens cap on to clear the dew while you set the camera up, then spent the rest of the night taking pictures of the inside of the lens cap.

3) Tried focusing with lens cap on. (“Geee, its REAL dark tonight….”) Score more ID10T points for every time you went thru the entire focusing range.

4) Spent an hour getting everything precisely aligned with reticle eyepieces etc to get the most from your pictures, and then kicked the leg of the tripod.

5) Spent an hour getting everything precisely aligned with reticle eyepieces etc to get the most form your pictures, and it started to rain.

6) Used too short a cable from laptop to camera and had the mount slew round and pull the laptop off the table.

7) Accidentally undone the click fitting for the camera and watched said camera fall off when you rotate the eyepiece.

8) Spent 30 mins getting your eyes used to the dark, and then half-blinded yourself looking at the moon.

9) Spent longer looking at the image of the moon on the back of your hand when you remove the eyepiece, than you do actually looking through the eyepiece. (Try 57.5mm for optimum focus….)

10) Spent 8 hours trying to get your PC to communicate with your camera via serial cable, (repeating swear words like a Buddhist with his mantra), only to find you have the wrong cable and it would never work.

By now you are get the picture, or more likely, an out of focus shot of star trails. But I know what you are thinking…….”TELL US ABOUT THE BLOOD!!”   (All except for ‘Precious’ from Bedfordshire who passed out at the word ‘Blood’ and has only just come round. Oh, there he goes again.)

So there I was in the midst of a black forest. Not the gateau, the place. Not THE Black forest, just A black forest. There was a little window to the stars and it was a really dark site, I just HAD to get the scope out. Besides, the villa was full of relatives and in-laws, so even if it had been raining the being outdoors would have been a better choice. Jabba the Hutt was there too, and I could see in her red eyes that she was imagining me strapped to a railway line, whilst being covered in angry red ants and then set on fire, while my eyelids and fingernails were being chewed by rats. But the mother-in-law is a different story.

Strange powers were at work. I did have some fortune. As luck would have it I did manage to take this photo;

http://www.btinternet.com/~mr.squeegee/Astro/M42_08012008.JPG

Somebody somewhere said I was a ‘ringer’ when I showed it to him, which I think is somebody who takes pictures of Saturn. The next bit of luck came in my decision to remove the telescope from the mount before moving it. If I hadn’t, the next bit could have been so much worse.

So it was late, and I was all alone in the forest, (except for the owls and the wierd guy in the mac looking in all the windows). In a frequent moment of insanity, I decided it would be best to move the mount, still with counterweights attached, into the safety of the villa. It was also uphill to the van, so that clinched it. But moving the mount with legs extended is difficult, like dancing with a girl so fat you cant get your arms around her. So I lowered the legs, seemed an obvious thing to do. First one, then another, and then………. It was at this point that the counterweights, in the absence of the scope weight they were countering, decided to swing round on the RA axis. This in turn made the whole tripod, already leaning crazily because of two shortened legs, go crashing over.

In that horrible slow motion that follows such things, I decided to play the hero, I would take the bullet for the president. Kicking my leg out wildly, I managed to catch the falling ensemble on the outside of my foot, just below the ankle bone. It was the counterweight rod, complete with 10kg of counterweights that struck me. The force was something akin to being hit with a sledgehammer. The impact went through my shoe, forged a gash in my sock, and made a meteorite like impact crater on my foot. In the irony of rough justice, the warm blood flowing freely from the gash helped to warm up my frozen foot.

When I realized it was unlikely I would die from the injury, I had to face the prospect of still putting the mount away, this time on one leg. It may be useful to note that in emergency situations, a telescope tripod can make a semi effective crutch, albeit three legged which forces you to walk in a semi-circle to your destination.

Somehow I dragged my bleeding way into the villa, poured myself a small whisky for the pain, and collapsed in a heap on the couch. Through painful hazy eyes I can just remember a shadowy, Hutt-like being hovering over me and muttering “He must have had a skinful…….look at the state of him. I told you you should of married that nice boy from Oxford!”

It’s a good job….

….It’s been cloudy.

If the nights had been clear I would have been tearing my few remaining hairs out. No eyepieces for the telescope, except for the one that came with it, (which doesn’t count because it doesn’t have its own shiny and new box).

 They, and the rest of their bits are due to fly in tomorrow, with a following wind, but I’m not holding my breath.

When you buy a new car, you suddenly start to notice how many other similar cars there are to yours. (My last car was a Fiat (I know, I know) Multipla, and when I got that all the other Multipla drivers started waving at me. Once or twice even I was ambushed into returning the royal wave. My wife says they are just thanking me for not crashing into them.)

Anyway, I have suddenly started to become aware of the number of people who are interested in astronomy. And I mean GENUINELY interested, not like those that go “Oh yeah, I always wanted to get a telescope” and you go “Well hey! Come round and see mine, I can show you saturn and xyz cool things!” and they go, ” erm, well, yeah, I wish I could but I have to stay home and erm, shave my forearms.”

Really, young and old alike, and even girls!! Some appear to just be closet astronomers, whilst others are wearing T-shirts that say “I’d rather be glued to my telescope!” (which, incidentally, is illegal in Lithuania, after the “Incident”).

But I guess really we are just pursuing the oldest visual appreciation technique there is, and there’s something comforting in the knowledge that even without Bill Gates, Kofi Annan, George Bush and Paris Hilton, there are some constants in life. And they aint going anywhere fast.

So come on eyepieces! There’s clear nights on the way!!

It’s Behind You!!…..

…”Oh No It Isn’t!”

 Well, It’s pantomime season. If you don’t have Pantomime in your part of the world, let me explain it in the briefest way i can.

Pantomime: A short story where the men dress as women, the women dress as men, the hero goes through a series of adventures and triumphs in the end, but it’s the bad guy that every really loves and remembers and who gets the biggest laughs. A bit like America I suppose. At any rate, if you have never been to a performance, dont fret, you haven’t missed out on one of life’s choicer morsels. Sure, it’s a laugh, the audience get involved, but there’s no hiding what panto really is, theatre for thick people.

And it’s a lot like astronomy……….

Ladies & Gentlemen, may I present, “Jack & The Giant Beanscope/Telestalk!”

Narrator: Not long ago on a planet 93 Million miles from our sun, there was a young man called Jack. (Much more dynamic than my real name.) Jack was devilishly handsome, the offspring of Adonis himself. At least, so his mother says. (His mother-in-LAW however will insist that he is the personification of the devil, with a family line including Attila the Hun, Pol Pott, Adolf Hitler and Robert Mugabe.) Jack was poor. Although he worked every waking hour, and proof-read blog sites while he was asleep, he never had much in the way of golden coins. Not only that, he was the sole provider for several mouths, always open and squawking for food, new shoes, handbags and playstation games. Luckily the absurd fashions of the day made Jack’s ragged clothes look deliberately torn. But Jack had a dream………

Jack: Oh yes! I DO have a dream! I dream of building a ladder to the stars, and climbing on every rung! I dream of ……

Narrator: Thank you Jack, we get the picture. I would point out that whilst Jack’s outburst may give you the impression that he wouldn’t be out of place in a ‘luvvy’ (theatrical) crowd, he is in fact so masculine he makes the late great Barry White look like a schoolgirl. But would Jack’s dream ever come true? But Wait! Who is that wizened old woman standing by the road with www.stargazerslounge.com written on the back of her cloak?

Old Woman: Hello Jack! How about swapping that faithful old cow you are leading around for this magic box?

Jack: How dare you call my wife an old cow!! I guess you were joking, so I’ll tell you to pull the udder one! THIS is the cow that makes me jump over the Moooon, THIS is the cow that provided my rugrats with their Milky Whey, THIS is a really SPECIAL cow, no bull. What’s in the box anyway?

Old Woman: In this box is the first rung on your ladder Jack, but you have to swap. You can’t spend your nights with the cow and with what’s in the box. What do you choose Jack?

Narrator: Our hero makes his choice. Vowing to return for her when he is rich and famous, or bored, he swaps his beloved ‘Daisy’ (Much less dynamic than her real name.) for the box. Jack set off in the direction of home. The old crone set off in the direction of the abbatoir. Back home, Jack starts gingerly opening the box, when all of a sudden he gests a surprise….

Jack:…..Just pull this little bit here and WOWEEE! A giant beanstalk jumped out of the box! And what is even more surprising is that it looks just like a tripod. I’m going to climb it right now!

Narrator: So Jack set off up the tripod, sorry, beanstalk. Eventually after what seemed like seconds of climbing he reached the top. Before him lay a cavernous room, full of mirrors and glass and tubes, like the House of Fun at the fair. But Jack had a problem.

Jack: Oh No! I’m Lost! How will I EVER find my way around in here? All this glass and mirrors, how will I know which way is to the stars? Help me!

Narr: Jack’s pleas did not fall on deaf ears. In the distance he heard the tinkling of a bicycle bell, or was it the beeping of an electronic box?

Beeping thing: BOO! Heard you call for help, I’m the one who knows everything round here, I can start you on your way!

Jack: Oh, Thanks, but who are you?

Beeping thing: My official title is Skywatcher SynScan Goto The Third, but everyone just calls me Buttons.

Narr: Jack felt he had at last found a friend. He playfully poked Buttons on his ample belly. At once there was another BEEEP and the cavernous room started to spin around. Just as suddenly the room stopped spinning. Jack made a silent promise that he would never have more than three wine guns again.

Jack: Where are we?

Buttons: You just took the first step on your ladder Jack, look out through that round window!

Narr: Jack looked out in amazement. There was nothing there. Buttons had a smug look on his face that said “Alignment successful”. Jack had a quizzical look that said “I could have been snuggled up with my cow right now, and I swapped it for THIS?”.

Jack: What’s going on? I thought this was gonna be great?

Buttons: It IS Great!! Look! It’s the Seven (Ugly) Sisters!!

Jack: What the! For a start I can only count six, and they are just stars!

Narr: In the background there was a deep and evil laugh. Jack thought his mother in law had turned up, but he swung round to see a giant with a torch shining it in everyones eyes. Jack himself was half blinded by it.

Giant Moon: MUHAHAHAHAHAHOHOHOHEHEHEHEHAHAHAHAH!

Jack: Damn You! I can’t see anything! (He was exaggerating, he could see six ugly sisters).

Buttons: Oh never mind the moon, I call him ‘Karate Kid’. Its always “Wax On, Wane Off, Wax On, Wane Off!”, you just get used to it. Why dont you try somewhere different?

Narr: So Jack pressed Button’s buttons. Buttons promised him a deep sky tour. Through Jack’s mind there raced all sorts of scenarios, he was being chased by Great Bear, he was riding the wings of a flying horse, he was dodging the arrows of a mighty hunter, and was playing matador to a giant bull. Suddenly Jack was breathless…

Jack: Quick! Where’s my asthma inhaler?

Narr: Jack pressed another button, the promise of the jewels of the sky lay before him. He paused briefly to contemplate what sort of dilbert could be so unimaginative to come up with a name like “M31” for such a fantastic nebula. He decided that when Mr Whittington was deposed, and HE was mayor of Londontown that he would rename the entire Messier list with much more better names, like “The Swirling Spinning Super Smashing Star Party”, and “The Fluffy Red White & Blue Amazing Fantastic Gas Explosion”, and so on. So it was with great excitement that Jack once again approached the little round window………

Jack: OI! BUTTONS!! Now What? Where’s the amazing stuff? Where’s the colours? Where’s the galaxies?

Buttons: (Smugly again) Right there. Its right there.

Narr: But try as he might, Jack could see jack. Up above, the laughter echoed around the room again….

Moon: ITS BEHIND YOU!  HO HO HO HAH AH HAH HEH!

Jack: Oh No it Isnt!

Buttons: Oh yes it is.

Narr: But Buttons was wrong. He had guided jack to a completely boring part of the sky. Of course, in the court case that followed. Buttons’ defence insisted that Jack hadn’t told him where he was properly in the first place. But now Jack was all alone, he was hungry, he was freezing, and the cavernous room was covered in dew. Jack had opened the box with a promise of magic, and had come away without even seeing a cheap conjurers trick. The moon rolled with mirth, and flashed his torch brighter still in Jacks face. Jack picked up the giant beantripod, and hauled it into the nearby stable. The stable where once he had frolicked freely with Daisy, now just accompanied by the beeping Buttons.

Jack: I’m pulling the plug on our friendship Buttons!

Buttons: Ok, but you’ll be back!!

Narr: Jack pulled the cord on Buttons, the light in his eyes dimmed, and he stopped beeping. Jack knew they hadn’t got off to the best of starts, he knew their friendship could have been so much more rewarding, If only he had taken time to get to know him properly. Slowly, Jack made his freezing way to the nearest window which showed the warmth of a firelight glow. Longingly he gazed in. Were his eyes playing tricks? There, snuggled happily by the fire was Daisy! Jack rushed inside.

Jack: Oh Daisy, Daisy, I missed you so, its so cold out there, there’s nothing to see, the moon is laughing at me, Buttons doesn’t know what he’s doing…..

Daisy: There there Jack, I’m glad you’re back. Now then, do you promise you won’t go out there again and leave me all alone? It really wasn’t worth it was it?

Jack: No, I have learnt my lesson, you won’t catch me out there again in a hurry!

Narr: And at this point I would like to tell you that they all lived happily ever after. Jack gave up on his ladder to the stars, Daisy stopped asking for handbags, the mother-in-law emigrated to Jupiter, and chocolate was prescribed as a wonder medicine and made freely available on the National Health.

I’d like to tell you that. But this very night Jack found himself watching the weather forecast. Unaware of the impact of her words, the innocent presenter simply said “and there’ll be some nice clear nights on their way.”

Jack’s eyes narrowed. The corners of his mouth turned up slightly. In the back of his mind his dear old mother’s voice whispered to him….

Dear Old Mother: Make sure you wear clean underpants…

Narr: No no no! The other one!

Dear Old Mother: Follow your Dreams Jack! Always follow your dreams! (And dont forget to wear clean underpants!

Narr: Jack opened the door and looked up. Time to build a ladder.

The End.

Come The Revolution…..

…..I will make it compulsory to send out the instruction manuals for things before the thing itself. Maybe then the Y chromosomed population could stop dreaming of owning light-sabres for 10 mins and actually READ THE STINKIN MANUAL! DOH!

So apparently you cant just whack the doo-da onto the wotsit and hope to have the jewels of heaven revealed Tommy Cooper style. (Jus’ Like That!)

Apparently you have to unscrew the mini millenium dome, pop off the cheap plastic cap, and you reveal a secret mini-telescope. (If ever I take up mini-telescope smuggling, this is exactly how I’m gonna hide them). There’s a gadget called a Polar Scope or something. Quite appropriate given the weather. Anyways, tonight I shall try it out again. It is surprising I saw ANYTHING last night. Beginners luck I guess.

Make way for the Mounties!!

They say you always remember the first time you fell in love. I know I do. Heaven only knows who the girl was though. But those old feelings come flooding back, the increased heart rate, the gentle perspiration, the panic over whether your breath smells / feet stink / hair sticks up etc, and the desperate clenching of the butt to hold that fart captive, whilst trying to maintain a smile that looks normal. (Tip: Don’t Laugh, Sneeze, or try to cover the sound with a fake cough.)

But tonight I had a blind date!! All set up through some introduction agency called ParcelFarce or something. They called me and said they would be dropping off my date for the night, the rest was up to me.

When I got home, she was waiting for me. A tall, leggy beauty. Three legs to be precise. Sporting a pale complexion with a confident sturdiness, her one arm had plenty of muscle. I could tell she was a pro. You never know on a blind date, (and I had never seen this chick before), exactly how the stranger will look, but I was pleasantly surprised. The only thing that struck me as cheap about her was the jewellery, plasticy and nasty looking, I’m sure her perfect man would buy her a nice decent set of knobs, bells & whistles.

I had decided we would stay in, get to know each other gently, but the daft lass seemed to get confused. “Where Am I?” was all she said. I nipped out to the car to get her exact latitude/longitude from the SATNAV, (a big improvement on my previous ‘FATNAV’ system, which involved a big girl and a map). Anyway, en route to the vehicle, I just happened to glance skywards to see why it wasn’t raining, and LO! and, BEHOLD!! The clouds which had so blighted my efforts at a sun tan, had gone into hiding, making way for a lovely clear night. La Lune was playing the Dominatrix mind you, but even so, I decided to take my blind date out for a while.

(In case any of my wives are reading this, the new chick in question is actually a three legged telescope mount. She doesn’t wear shoes, doesn’t need a handbag, and will not make giggling comments to her friends as you walk by. She goes by the name of Skywatcher HEQ5 PRO (GOTO with Synscan). Yes she will be demanding some of my time, but on the bright side you will get more beauty sleep. Heaven knows you need it. Thank you my dears.)

OK, I’ll drop the metaphors and similes now. Like a hot brick. My attitude to something new is generally, “How hard can it be?”, and so I hurriedly plonked the telescope itself onto the new mount, rushed through the see-saw balancing act thing, and then dragged the ensemble outside.

Now let me tell you about wife No.1. She is a thoughtful so and so. Our dog (actually HER dog, he hates me with a passion, I fully expect to wake up with his teeth clenched on my throat one day) had taken a leak on our patio. Knowing I hate this, No.1 missus washed the patio down. With water. Just before dark. In the coldest week of the year. Now I have nothing against ice-skating, but when you are struggling under the weight of a morbidly obese partner, held aloft in your arms, the last thing you want to be doing is a triple axle with half lutz and pirouette, especially in your bed slippers. At any rate, the assembly and I somehow managed to survive this impromptu Beauty & The Beast On Ice performance, and came to rest roughly on location. Skipping the step of levelling the legs (dare not face the ice patch again) I poked the front leg labelled N roughly facing Polaris. Looked up through the finderscope, and couldn’t actually find polaris, there’s too many other stars up there, but how hard can it be right?

So it was time for the big turn on. Must be those long legs. Anyway, flicking the switch, everything I had told the Pro inside, she had remembered, except for the time. So I told her again. She told me something unintelligible about Polaris. Must be some kind of countdown before it turns into a black hole or something. Hit the enter button. Select 3-star alignment is the first option. (All this follows a warning not to look at the sun. Which would be a neat trick at 22:00 two days from the winter solstice). You have to pick a star. I thought you had to pick a PLACE, and saw “VEGAS” on the display. Anyway, it slewed around and stopped, facing roughly NW. I pressed the arrows until the brightest star in the finderscope was in the centre. Then in the eyepiece too. BLEEP! My first star. No.2 was another place, Mekong or something. Same again, BLEEP! By now I was smugly rolling, quietly chuckling to myself over all those chappies in the Star Gazers Lounge Bar who can’t get the alignment right, and here was I on my first night. For the next and final star, I chose one I knew. In fact, the ONLY one I know. Beetlejuice (much better in english, dont you think?) BEEP, BEEEP, WHIIRRRRR went the Pro, slewing all over the place. I had every confidence that she would drop straight onto Orions right shoulder.

I did find it slightly odd that the slewing kept on. In fact it kept on till the OTA was horizontal, and pointing squarely at my neighbours fence. I say fence, its a 10 foot high, electrified, guard dog patrolled galvanised steel security feature. So something strange was up. If this keeps on I will just have to read the lousy manual. Eventually, using ONE star align, I got sort of near to  seeing things, got Mars nicely, M42. but that was it. Then the dew came, a brass monkey popped in shivering and asking if I knew any decent welders, and I decided it was time to blog the evenings events, and drink a healthy (?) measure of the malt whisky a grateful customer presented me with. Gonna go and read the books now, see what I did wrong, but before I do…….

…..I have to say that having that mighty scope on a mighty mount, all spinning round the sky till make me feel just a little bit like Ming the Merciless, or Darth Sidious. All that things needs is a laser beam, and the galaxy will never be the same again!! I only wish I had this when I was a teenager, I could have gotten my kid sisters dolls and threatened them with the LASER beam of death if they didn’t let on what REALLY happened with Ken & Barbie. When they refused to comply, CLICK, WHIIRRR, BLEEEP, !!!ZAP!!! frying tonight!

Good Nights.

Dr. Celestron I presume?

…So there I was, languishing at work, the mountain of paperwork crashing down on me like an angry concert pianist performing Beethoven’s fifth. When my cell-phone (I call it that because they gave it me in prison) stared flashing and beeping that a new text message had arrived. It was from No.1 wife.

“SCP HR”

Which I took to mean that Scamp our dog has rabies. But it seems I have nothing to worry about, the frothing at the mouth was caused by No.2 Son putting Fairy Liquid in his drinking bowl. What the MSG (see what I did there?) REALLY said was………..

“YOUR NEW TELESCOPE HAS ARRIVED!! COME HOME IMMEDIATELY AND MAKE PASSIONATE LOVE TO ME!!”

To be honest, I made the last bit up. BUT! The new scope did arrive, and left me aching at work, eager to get home and play with my new toy. Following is a blow by blow account, it may prove useful to anyone ordering from First Light Optics or similar.

1) Ordered telescope and kit on tuesday afternoon. The order fell into three categories;

a) Optical Tube Assembly itself (That’s the telescope bit)

b) The mount for it (That’s a tripod like thing which holds the OTA steady)

c) Some extra eyepieces, filters, camera adapters, and anti-dew accessories.

The OTA arrived today, precisely 48 hours after ordering, by courier. The package was well wrapped, shipped straight from David Hinds, and the box hadn’t been crashed about. Everything was there and in good condition, the only exception to this was the Celestron CD which was not in the box, not sure if that is useful or not?

2) The OTA is packed all around with expanded foam in a paper wrap. I lift the top piece for the first time. I don’t really know what I was expecting, but the sheer size of the thing surprised me. I knew this thing would bring me closer to the moon, what I didn’t realise is that by fixing a rocket motor to one end, I could probably sit in the thing and visit the moon in person. And it’s pretty heavy. I do hope the mount is sturdy enough to hold it alright. For those that don’t know, my purchase was 100% guided by the suggestions in the Star Gazers Lounge forum. I hadn’t seen ANY of the kit in person before buying it. I’m sure Steve at FLO would have mentioned if it was a problem though?

3) I read the instruction manual. First time for everything I guess. Hope that doesn’t mean I’m turning into a woman or anything. All seems pretty simple. You screw in the back of the OTA an adapter they call the ‘Visual Back’, which I think is just what you need to use the telescope for looking through (as opposed to taking photos through). Into that you pop the ‘Star Diagonal’, which is like a mini-periscope without the submarine and torpedos. The great thing about this is that it flips your upside down back to front image over, so that at least it is only back to front. Into that then goes the eyepiece of choice. Of course my choice was severely limited by the fact that I only had one to choose from, so I popped that into the top. The supplied eye piece is a 25mm plossl. That word just looks, and sounds wrong. Plossl. Like something you would say after having all four sides of your mouth anaethetised at the dentists. After this you fit the ‘finderscope’, which is a small (looks like a toy) scope which rides on the top, and apparently makes it easier to find the stars you are looking for. This needs setting up properly in the daytime, but it was also the point where unknown terms fogged up my understanding of the process. Something about fitting it with the RA and DEC in the right places. I have no idea what that means, and no explanation is offered in the 6 page manual. The finderscope has a crosshair. I guess that is fitted in case you decide to turn your telescope into a high power LASER focusing device, and use it to target misunderstood minorities, like people who say they are “Normal”. Yeah right.

As a side note, I found the rubber ‘O’ ring a trifle hard (NB: For more information on hard trifles please apply in person to my wife, her custard and jelly surprise bent my gold teeth…), to get into the rear supporting ring as the manual described. But I found that by loosening the eyepiece end of the finderscope a little, the O ring dropped into the newly created groove, and then if you put it back into the supporting ring and re-tighten the scope back together, the O ring is pushed out of the groove and neatly into place.

4) And that was it. A scope without a mount. Sat there like a gun-toting homocidal maniac with no enemies. Like a Ferrari on a race track starting line without the ignition key. Like an Olympic athlete without his steroids. Damn shame too, it was still clear when I got home, Mars was flying high, and the moon was low in the west. M45 Pleiades was carving its way up the sky too. And to make it worse, the next few nights are gonna be cloudy. But all I could do was sit there and polish my impotent monster. (Telescope).

5) No, cant resist it! I mean, how hard can it be to fashion a simple mount right? and with Mars so hunky in the east, surely I could have a quick gawp at him? Grabbing the mat from by the back door, I plonked that on the hot tub cover, to prevent my ‘mount’ slipping off, as it was covered in ice. The packing foam from the box became the mount. Aiming at the patch of sky where Mars was lurking, I peered into the eyepiece for the first time. Nothing there. Twiddled the focusing nob for quite a while, then a few little stars popped into view. Da DAAAAAHH!

But I was surprised. Surprised at what you could see, loads of stars that just aint there with the naked eye, and surprised at what you couldn’t see. Like Mars. Where the hell was it? I moved that thing up and down and round and round and up and down and etc etc etc. No sign. Out of exasperation I decided to fit the focal reducer, which gives you a wider field of view (see more sky). That done, fumblingly in the dark, I found what I thought was Mars. To be honest I dont know, it just looked like a star. But it was bright enough. Whipped the focal reducer off, and tried again. No Mars. I tried and tried and tried for half an hour, and eventually, Hooray! there was Mars!! A little disc about 3mm in diameter I suppose. I called the wife to see. Wife skidded on the hot tub icy cover, nudged the mount, and Mars was away again.

At this point I did consider smashing out the front end of the OTA and using it as the world’s most expensive litter bin, but managed to rally my nerves and popped the whole assembly back in the box. Took about 5 mins to dismantle. Gonna wait till the real mount comes before trying again, it can’t be healthy to get that violent towards inanimate objects!

Oh! I also purchased Noel Carboni’s Astro Tools through Paypal. Cost ten english quid. Just need to get Photoshop now!! In the meantime, here’s a shot I took of the ISS passing overhead. In the upper left is Perseus doing his merry jig with Comet 17P Holmes, and also a lucky snap with Polaris in the middle. Hopefully these will get better……..time will tell.

http://www.btinternet.com/~mr.squeegee/Astro/HolmesandISS.JPG

http://www.btinternet.com/~mr.squeegee/Astro/IMG_0309a.JPG

Results just in….

Another clear night. But what to do? I have in the post a Schmidt-Cassegrain Optical tube assembly, and I have in the house the Toys R Us Special. Also have the Canon 400D digital SLR camera and a tripod for it. It is time for an experiment!

I have always been fond of empirical research, ever since finding out that ‘Empiricism’ is not the pursuit of a galaxy ruled by Sith Lords who can shoot lightning from their fingertips, (be careful picking your nose), but rather the process of establishing accurate data through repeatable experimentation.

So tonight the mood was perfect for establishing, once and for all, which is the best way to view the skies with the naked eye.

In the blue corner we have the time honoured tradition of donning 47 layers of vests, jumpers, and the wife’s thick tights, and lying frozen on the floor, with tears forming icicles on your cheeks, whilst your fingers and toes lose all blood supply and are at very real risk of shattering if oyu knock them against anything.

Vying for the crown of “Best Way to Gawp at the Sky” in the red corner, we find the newcomer. This method involves the naked eye being brought into balance with a naked everything. Everything except the Naked Chef. Jamie Oliver puts me off my dinner. In fact, I think I’d rather shove my head in a wasps nest than have him on my telly. Besides, it can’t be hygienic. Obviously you cant go about lying naked on the floor in the winter, hypothermia would get you long before the rats, so I suggest immersing oneself in warm water. At the budget end of the scale, this can be acheived with an old tin bath and a willing assistant with a kettle of boiling water every 10 minutes. In the absence of a willing assistant, try lighting a small fire underneath the tub. I personally recommend spending just a few pounds more, and installing something a little more permanent. I favour the Sundance range of star gazing accessories, more information can be found on their website http://www.sundancespas.com/ 

The model I chose for this experiment has a seat facing every direction, and ample storage slots for that most vital element of the experiment, a large Bacardi & Coke.

The Results: Method one was found to offer a clearer view of the night sky, as method two produced localised patchy cloud cover. Method one was found to offer considerably less chance of drowning than Method two. Method one does not allow for testing of one’s spouse/partner’s lifeguarding technique. For instance, it is well known that lying on your back freezing on the ground can cause hypothermia, and that lying on your back boiling in 38 degree water can cause hyPERthermia. (That might be the other way round, what matters is, they both shouldn’t be on your “Do Before I Die” list, unless you wanna speed up the process that is). So, not wishing to spend the whole night passed out and slowly poaching (like an egg, not like somebody stealing salmon), I employed the services of my non-experimenting other half. Actually, pound for pound, she’s more like my other two thirds. The instruction seemed simple enough, “Dont let me drown.”

I suppose strictly speaking, she DID carry that task out, as here I am to tell the tale, but let me tell you that when I was testing out the service, i.e. lying floating face down, the rescue was a long time coming. In fact i’m not sure she even noticed until I turned up the ham and started thrashing around, throwing the rubber ducks at the window.

At the end of the day, all things considered, I’d have to recommend method two as the modus operandi most likely to yield the most satisfying results. You may even see a few stars.

Forsooth & Gadzooks!

‘Tis done fair gentlefolk of Internet Village! Verily is an ample chest of golden sovereigns winding its merry way to the Wise Man of Exeter. The Old Nag express should be delivering the various bits over the next few days…….

 It’s time to play with the big boys!!

Unbelievable!!

How often does a guy get it SO right, that it feels like it should be wrong?

Hows about this for a list of rights!!

1) Bought New £14.99 Telescope for No.1 Son - RIGHT!!

2) Performed reverse Apache raindance all sunday night - RIGHT!!

3) Waited up freezing cold with crystal clear skies for Saturn - RIGHT!!

4) Took a gamble and woke up No.1 Wife to see Saturn - RIGHT!!

Now, I don’t use expletives where possible. People are always using them to me or about me, and any additional ones would merely complicate matters. But if I DID, then I guess I would be expleting vigorously. The fact is, YES, you CAN see Saturn’s rings with a £14.99 telescope from Toys R Us. I found Saturn simply with the 18x eyepiece, and then zoomed in with the 90x. I near wet meself. Caught up in the madness of the moment, I rushed into the master bedroom, and started to rouse my wife. Now, those of you who know my wife, will also know that we have an unwritten law in our house. Generally, it would be wiser to shave the eyebrows off a grizzly bear using a cheese grater than wake up my missus. The law states that there can only ever be two good reasons for waking the slumbering dragon.

1) You have discovered the house is on fire.

2) You have cooked a sticky toffee pudding.

In the case of the house being set on fire as a direct result of cooking the sticky toffee pudding, then two positives make a negative and the dragon should be left a-slumbering.

Anyway, it was done now. “You HAVE to see this!!” I screamed. “Have you called the fire brigade?” she sleepily replied, the vast array of curlers making her head look like an explosion in a plastic pipe factory.

So down she trundles to the telescope. It all hinged on the next 3 seconds. If she didn’t like what she saw, I’d be eating Paraquat sandwiches all week. But NO!, it was all worth it! No.1 Wife came out with the most remarkable responses, the like of which I hadn’t heard since our wedding night.

“WOW!”, “Im quite impressed”, “That’s really good”, and “Can I have another look?”

!!!!!!! And then to top it all, this … “Can’t you take a picture?”

That’s all the encouragement I need. “But YOU were the one who said “Buy a telescope that takes pictures!”“. At last I can justify spending a little more than £14.99 on some kit now, knowing I have the wife’s blessing.

To sum up, an excellent night, no moon, clear skies, and the firm start to what should be a fascinating hobby. No.1 Wife is already eager to see Saturn again, through a bigger and better scope. The cretin card arrives tommorrow, all being well I wil be calling Steve @ First Light Optics to confirm and pay for my order. I might even call my next child ‘Cassini’. Watch this space…….

Just waiting for that glimpse….

…of Saturns rings. She’ll be along in an hour or so.

It seems that No.1 Wife (which is not in the strictest sense the same as No.1 Choice),(Oh boy! Now I’m gonna pay) has taken exception to my statement that she is hard to impress.

I heard her on the phone to her mother complaining bitterly, ”It’s hard to be impressed by Orion, when you are married to Adonis.”  At least that’s what she was attempting to say. Her lips must have been affected by the cold because it kind of sounded like “He’s doin’ my head in!”. This was accompanied at the other end of the line by Jabba’s sympathetic “Told you he was no good, didn’t I tell you, there there come home to mama”, and I could have sworn in the background there was the sound of knives being sharpened.

But I shouldn’t be unkind to the mother-in-law, after all she works very hard. They got her a job at British Airways, kick-starting jumbo jets. As soon as she arrives on my doorstep, the door is opened to her. (Leave her there too long and the paint starts to peel).

Right, it is now just after midnight. Saturn has popped her chops over the garden fence and cleared the atmospheric haze. It is time to test the truth of the manual, and discover once and for all if you CAN see Saturns rings for £14.99. So here we go.

Safety notice. If I haven’t posted after this for two days, please call an ambulance, and tell them to bring a hypothermia blanket, there’s a layer of ice on my viewing table/tub cover, I can well see me getting stuck fast to it……