Astronomy has been
my long time Passion, I always try looking up at the sky and wonder
at the marvel of the universe. I have been very busy with my IT life
where I usually spend up most of time in office and I really started
feeling tired, burn out and frustrated. Last week finally I decided
to buy a telescope so that I can atleast enjoy my passion. When it
comes to telescope I was having very limited knowledge on which one
to buy, at first I was planning to buy a professional telescope which
is at the range of 15k to 30 k, soon I realised that without learning
the basics of the telescope this 15k investment may go waste, so I
decided to go for starter telescope for amateur astronomers. After
weeks of research I decided to go with a table top dobsonian
telescope either from celestron or orion. Finally I decided to go
with the Celestron FirstScope Telescope which I got it from Amazon at
a price of 3K, well its actual price was around 6K and luckily when I
bought, Amazon was offering 51% off. The Telescope landed at my
doorstep after 5 days and I opened it, I had mixed feelings when I
opened the box. The Positive part is the Telescope looks great with
all the big names of astronomers on the tube and it also came with 2
eyepieces one 4 mm and 20 mm. The negative part is there were no
instruction on how to use the telescope instead I got page on what
extra items will make this telescope more awesome. That extra part
needs 2K more. Finally at 19:00 hrs I took my telescope outside for
my first star gazing.
19:00 hrs – It was
a full moon day and only few stars were visible in the sky as the
moonlight shined far brigher than the other stars. Being an amateur I
started pointing the telescope to Moon and it took time for me to
get used to pointing. Finally I was able to point to the moon with
the 20mm eyepieces and immediately I can notice the fractured faces,
craters on the moon. Lot of details which were visible with the naked
eye were enhanced through the telescope and it reallly looked
beautiful. Then I tried out the 4 mm eyepiece which magnified even
more I was able to look at some stunning craters and landscape on the
moon. I kept on gazing the moon for almost 45 mins with all my
wonder.
19:45 hrs – Due to
Full moon there were less stars visible, the only other bright stars
that were visible are Sirius and the stars of Orion constellation.
With lot of effort I was able to point out at sirius and I noticed a
Blueish whitish color, First I thought I didn't focus my telescope
properly and with all my attempts failed I decided to check google
what the heck is wrong . When I searched “Is Sirius a blue Star ?”
voila I got my answer, Sirius was indeed a Blueish whitish star and
It also mentioned that through telescope some of the rays may look like
rainbow which indeed was the case. Feeling satisfied I turned my
telescope to the orion Constellation
20:15 hrs – Orion
Constellation was very clear in the telescope, I was able to view the
dimmest star which were not visible with the naked eye. I also tried looking at the Great Orion Nebula but due to lot of
light pollution I was not able to see anything , so i decided to look at Orion nebula when there is no moon and less light pollution
After 1 and half
hour of star gazing and feeling tired ( Ya , been standing and
bending a lot to view the stars ) I have decided to take a break or
call it a night. Finally my friend came and he was as excited as
me about the telescope, he took the telescope and started focusing on
the moon.
22:00 hrs – I told
my friend that Jupiter should be visible on the eastern sky and it
was bright enough in the full moon night to the naked eyes. Me and my
friend decided to see Jupiter. I was very skeptical about this cause
I was not expecting to see jupiter properly on a full moon night.
Finally we focused on jupiter and we were only able to see it as
point of light. My friend kept watching Jupiter and he said he is
able to see the Galilean moons, I though he was kidding, then when I
saw I was indeed able to see one of the moons (not all four). Then he
kept saying he is able to see all 4 , with great difficulty and
finally adjusting the focus I was able to see 3 moons one closest to
Jupiter was not visible. I felt really happy that with an amateur
telescope I was alteast able to see the Jupiter and its 3 Galilean
moons that too on full moon day. We kept staring at Jupiter, moon for
almost 2 hrs before calling it out. I tried taking some pics with my mobile phone but it all looked bad.
Today I am planning to try looking for Orion Nebula, Hoping it will not disappoint.
