At about 7:30 PM Arizona time, I stepped outside in the backyard, looked up to the sky, and was surprised to see the constellation Orion, Sirius, and a few other bright stars poking through the clouds. I tried to view Sirius first, but was unsuccessful. I then pointed the scope to Orion to locate M42, the Orion Nebula, but no success there either.
Part of the problem was the lack of a proper finder on the scope. It was just too dark to see the little plastic protrusions on the
At 7:45 PM, I looked up to see M45, the Pleiades cluster, in the constellation Taurus, and found it almost instantly in the 20mm reverse kellner eyepiece that came with the scope! It only took a few seconds to get it in perfect focus. At 37.5 x magnification, I could only see half of the cluster in the eyepiece and had to move the scope around to see all of it!
About 5 minutes later, I tried my second attempt to see M42, and found it after a few minutes of searching. I could see the 3 brighter stars of the Trapezium,: A, C, and D but not B, and despite the approaching clouds, I could see quite a bit of what my eyes perceive as a greenish-gray color of the nebula.
At 7:54 PM, I turned back to Sirius and found it within a minute, very bright of course. At this time I'm starting to think I'm getting the hang of this tripod and basically no finder! Attempted another quick look at the Orion Nebula, but the clouds took over and now the sky is covered, so I called it a night.
I like this little MAK 60mm. I like that it comes with a very easy to use phone adapter too, although I did not take any photos for First Light. With the addition of a red dot finder and a mount that works
, it's going to make for a great very lightweight Grab & Go!
Looking forward to more reports.
