Since it stayed cloudless tonight, I went out stargazing. I wanted to try out my new finderscope and it worked really well. Definitely much easier to find stuff with the new scope than with the old red dot thingy. I had some troubles installing it, as it is not a standard piece for my telescope. I ended up removing the glass and electronics from the red dot finder and putting the scope in the hole. I put some tape and papir ind the gaps and adjusted the screws so it was parallel. I also had to turn the mount the other way around, which meant trimming it a little with my hobby knife.

Having the new finderscope meant that I now could find the planets. I was succesful in finder both Mars and Saturn. It was difficult to see anything interesting with Mars, I think it would improve if I had a CCD sensor, so I didn’t have to look through the eye piece, but through a computer. I tried the blue and red color filters I had bought, but it didn’t help with Mars. Saturn on the other hand was very interesting and beautiful. I used my 2x barlow and 10mm eye piece. I could see the rings and the gap between them and the planet. It was pretty cool! Now I can’t wait to take pictures of it.

I went out again last night, hoping to get better results than last time. I tried finding Polaris, but I had the same frustrations with the really bad finderscope on the Astromaster, which really is just small tube with two panes of glass and a red dot. It’s easy to use during the day, since it has a black ring of each glass, that align when the telescope barrel is pointing at the object. During the night you can’t see the rings, just a red dot that is really useless. So to fix my problem, I bought a better finderscope from Celestron. Before I get the finderscope, I’ll not be able to do any stargazing. I tried locating Mars with the telescope, but just couldn’t find it.

When looking for Venus, I stumbled upon a cluster of stars. I had no idea where it was, only that it was somewhere near Venus. I has wishing I had a pad and pencil to draw what I saw, so I could locate the stars later with some computer software. Next time I’ll need to bring som paper and a pen.

I have also bought a Astromaster accessories kit which includes filters for the moon, venus, mars, jupiter and saturn. It also has 6mm and 15mm eyepieces, which will complement my 10mm and 20mm. Included is a 2x barlow, which I already have, so I’m hoping to get a discount if they will sell the kit without it. It all comes in a case, which will improve transporting things.

When I was out last night, the light pollution really bothered me, even with the moon not out. It would be really great to be a place where the sky is pitch black and not this blue-gray color. I would say it is a 6 on the light pollution scale:

To do:

• Mount new finderscope on telescope.
• Tryout new filters with the moon, venus, mars, jupiter and saturn.
• Bring paper when stargazing and show findings here.
• Find someplace darker.

There were no clouds yesterday, which was a perfect operatunity to try out my new telescope. I had just been to wednesday café, where we had seen the movie “UP”, so Andrés, Flemming, Kevin and Baiba were there to help setup. The moon was nearly full, which is not ideal for star gazing, so I didn’t expect to see much.

I placed the telescope in the middel of the parking lot by the church and started of by balancing it. It was easy to balance it on the RA axis (Right ascension). I just had to move the two counter weights up the rod until the barrel was stationary regardless of what angle I set it to. The other axis, the declination, was more difficult. I couldn’t actually get it to balance, so I must have been doing something wrong. Though, I did notice that it would balance when the altitude was set to zero degress, but not when I increased it. I will need to research this aspect and do some more experimenting tonight.

The next thing I wanted to do was adjust the finderscope. I pointed the barrel towards a street light by guessing and looking through the 20mm eyepiece. I found it quick enough, but I had no idea how to adjust the finderscope. Do I look through it from a distance? How do I use the little red dot? Should I have both use open? I really need to do som research before tonight. I ended up not adjusting it and just using the to latches on the barrel for alignment.

I was eager to try and look at something, so I pointed the barrel towards Venus. I was a little difficult to pinpoint, as I was still trying to use the finderscope. When I found it, I discovered that it is to bright to look at. It was difficult to see it properly. However, I could make out the phase of Venus and see the 3d shape of the planet. I will need to buy filters if I am going to look at the planets.

It was difficult to focus the eyepiece, since the slightest touch of the telescope made it shake. I had to adjust it back and forth, each time waiting for the telescope to settle. Looking is also a little difficult, since I must hover my eye a little above the eye piece, to prevent shaking. It would also be nice to zoom in on the objects, which I can’t. To solve these problems, I should buy the CCD neximage camera. It will prevent the shaking and I can zoom in on objects. As a bouns I don’t have to take off my glasses every time I need to look through the eye piece. I will also help to achieving my goal of taking photographs. The problem with this is I will have to take my computer with me, to do the recording and viewing. Danish weather is most often too cold for this, so I’m quite curious as how others manage this. I would also need a table to place the computer on.

I tried polar aligning the telescope. For that I needed to put the rec to 90 degrees and have the counter weights pointing straight down. I also needed to point the barrel at north, to which I borrowed a compass of Kevin (something I need as well). When north was found, I increased the altitude until I could see the north star, Polaris. It wasn’t very easy, especially since I couldn’t use the finderscope and I had really no idea how the star looks like, only where to find it from The Big Dipper. I eventually found something, but I am not really sure that it was Polaris. I am hoping that fixing the finderscope will help me here.

After polar aligning I wanted to adjust the RA dial. I read that I should find a star lower on the sky that I know the RA of. The problem was that I couldn’t get the screw loose to change the dial. I will need to find a tool to help get it loose.

As a last thing, we pointed the scope at the moon. Since it was a full moon and I do not have a moon filter, it was impossible to look at, without going blind. I could project the image onto my hand which was fun. So if I am to look at the moon, I’ll need a moon filter, or wait till it’s near new moon.

To recap I will need:

• Research balancing the telescope on the RA axis.
• Research on how to use and adjust the finderscope.
• Buy filters for the moon and planets (probably also the stars).
• Get a CCD neximage camera.
• Find tool to loosen the RA screw.

Goal for tonight is to find a specifik star from its dec and ra. I will try and locate Zeta Herculis, which is a binary star, so will be interestning if I can see them both. RA: 16^h 41^m 17.16104. Dec: +31° 36′ 09.7873″. Or I will try Izar (epsilon Bootis).