Okay, so my birthday/christmas give from Colin arrived yesterday, and as colin was well aware I have been highly covetous of his night watching ability. Astronomy has always held an interest to me, and I still kick myself for not taking the course at university, but it just never fit my time table. I digress, so yesterday arrived my Celestron First Scope (the IYofA model.) It is a Dobson Reflector style scope (sorry if my jargon is off I'm just learning.) I wasn't planning on opening it until after the move to keep it safe, but at Colin's suggestion it was a nearly full moon last night, so after D&D Erin and I stood on the driveway while I bumbled my way through setup, aiming and focus (this took a touch of time.)
Once I got the moon in my sights (you would think a giant glowing ball would be easy to find) It took a touch longer to sleuth out the shadow edge as colin suggested. Now it was late, and I was tired, but I have to say that it looked like the whole leading edge of moon was "on fire." I'm going to assume that I was in effect observing either some reflection or artifact of the sun at the leading edge of the shadow, but it was cool. Either that or NASA seriously needs to get on putting the moon out :P
It was vary vary cool, and I know I will get a lot more going once I move, but I'm going to go out again tonight when I have a touch more time, and a coat, and see that else I can see, and play around with the second eye piece which I realized this morning was different. I'm also super looking forward to getting up to the cottage where their is no light pollution (except Bob's high intensity discharge fixture, but that ballad is for another blog post.)
I will keep you all posted on alien sightings as well,
thanks colin!
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