finally Mag 6 sky

From: atm (atm98_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 07/15/04 

Date: Thu, 15 Jul 2004 04:51:45 GMT

It was sure a treat to sit under Mag 6 and 5.5 skies finally. Southern
Alberta near the 49th
provided a real spectacle. I was so overwhelmed at what I was seeing and
had been missing that
I trashed the scope after an hour and just re-aquainted myself with a number
of constellations
and some I have never seen yet. M31 was easy to spot. My daughter saw the
milky way for the first time and was amazed.
It is a real rewarding mental exercise picking out constellations from
a chart that only shows up to Mag 4. Infact, I am going to make a habit of
just using binocs
and my eyes to become much more aquainted with constellations and clusters
and such.

I realize that star-hopping is a waste of time with the scope. I still
haven't spent any time learning the GP mount
setting circles even though I know how to polar align. I don't have any
diffinitive directions on how to
read and set the RA and DEC dials. There are vernier markings too that
aren't explained at all either.