I have been meaning to get my first scope out to test the mount's
Last night I dug the old 5" tube from underneath a table in my spare bedroom. It was covered with dust (and still is). Put batteries in the red dot finder, the Orion Accufocus, and forgot to check the batteries in the illuminated reticle 12mm eyepiece (which were of course dead).
The Celestron Nexstar 130SLT is no premier package. It was my first scope and I had no idea what to buy. Wished later that I had already joined Astronomy Forum and got some good advice.
But, I really had a blast with the scope. The views weren't the best, but at F5, that were okay. The thing shakes if you even think of touching it (that's why I added the Accufocus years ago), but I remember the excitement that I would have taking it out in the evening or in the morning before work.
Spotted my first comets and 91
I don't want this post to last longer than the session, so I will get on with it.
I plugged in the old Skyportal wifi module and fired up the new ipad. Hooked up the barely working Power Tank and clicked the power button. Everything fired up nicely and connected to the Celestron wifi. Started Skysafari and began an alignment.
I slewed to Jupiter and aligned the red dot. Jupiter looked really nice in the 12mm reticle finder (with dead batteries). Not the best practice, but I went ahead and aligned to the planet anyway. I was looking for any type of success here!
Then slewed to Vega and aligned, then Deneb. The alignment was successful! I was happily surprised. First success with the mount in years! Possibly the new ipad?
Tapping the ipad on a target and tapping
The test session was a success and I was really happy. I had to do one final slew and that was back to Jupiter.
Popped right into the
I tried the 5mm Celestron X-cel. Knowing that 130x was pushing my luck, I was happy do see a decent view. Nice contrast and decent surface features. Of course, the sharpness was very variable, but I was able to spot the
Very happy with my success, I shut down after about 45 minutes and will try again soon with better preparation.
Seeing those dim smudges is what sparked my interest in