sean and the moon
amy and the moon
sean at the eyepiece
after waiting a few days the clouds finally broke so amy and i took the portaball out to the deck for our first star party. the conditions were less that perfect with slightly overcast clouds and less than ideal transparency but rather than wait for perfect conditions we were anxious to use our new toy.


the first object we trained the telescope on was the moon. the craters were popping out and the detail was amazing. the small craterlets and the craters within a crater were stunning. the views were light years better than the rental scope we used last year. i can’t wait until we can use the telescope on a clear night at a less light polluted observing site.


we also trained the telescope on mars, saturn, the orion nebula, a double star, and some other random stuff. the observing session wasn’t planned so we didn’t have a list of objects ready, we really just wanted to look at something. i’m going to start putting together some objects to observe from our light polluted back deck as well as our club observing sites. the first thing we really need to do is learn our way around the sky with the scope. i know my way around a bit but haven’t used those skills since earlier this year when i was supposed to receive the telescope. i have a lot to relearn.


we took a few pictures on the right just to commemorate the event.