XT6 First Light and First Thoughts (Long)

Recently, I had solicited advice on a beginner's scope for myself and
my 5-year old son. Based on my own research and the recommendations of
this group, I purchased an XT6 Dob. This is a report of my experience
with it so far.

The scope arrived the Saturday after Thanksgiving. I spent a couple of
hours Sunday putting it together. Collimation was pretty good out of
the box, but I decided to tweak it in some more. I think I did
reasonably well -I just used the supplied pinhole eyepiece and the dots
lined up pretty well, with the star test looking good.

As luck would have it, most of the days soon after the scope arrived
were typical Portland weather, cold and rainy and it was mid December
before I got a clear night to really spend some quality time on the
instrument. Overall, I am very pleased wth the quality of the scope.
I got great views of a lot of things, as I have indicated below.

I picked a clear (and cold) night to drag the scope out at around 8pm
and let it sit out for an hour or so. Since I have been doing
naked-eye astronomy for about 30 years, I had no trouble finding the
connstellations although clearly I had no concept of hunting for DSOs
peering through a telescope! I figured that I would find the nearest
familar star with the finder scope and just point the scope with dead
reckoning from that point. So, somewhat naively, armed with a copy of
Nightwatch from the local public library, I got going. The following
is a compilation of viewing over 3 nights.

The Good:

The scope is great with deep space objects in my opinion. Keep in mind
though that I am an erstwhile naked-eye amateur with no context for
telescope viewing, so just seeing the magnificent swaths of star fields
and more multiple stars that one imagined existed was breathtaking.

I started with Orion since it was high in the sky.. I of course found
M42 with no trouble, as well as M78 and the NGC2244 clsuter. I spent a
lot of time just cruising around the incredibly rich swath of the Milky
Way in this area.

I tried to swing down to Lepus to try to find M79, but didn't have much
luck as it was too low from my vantage point.

Found M45 of course and it was glorious. Found NGC1647 in Taurus and
M36/37/38 in Auriga.

Moved on to Canis Major and saw M41, M46 and M48. Couldn't see
NGC2477, NGC2451 or Pi-Puppis as this area was too low in the south for
me, right near the treeline.

Looked for and found the Beehive cluster, M44, right by Saturn. It was
glorious of course.

Resolved Castor and saw the M35 cluster.

Located most of the clusters in and around Cassiopeia. M31 was a bit
of a let down as I could only get a blur, maybe because of the
moonlight. Cassiopeia and Andromeda were very difficult viewing
because they were right overhead and I quickly tired of the contortions
I had to do to view anything through the finder scope.

Tried to look for the M3 globular cluster in Bootes but couldn't find
it. Stumbled on to some galaxies instead - didn't verify it they were
part of the Coma Berenices group or the ones in Canes Venatici.

Tried to look for M51 and M81/M82 but Ursa Major was not a favorable
position for me.

Saw lots and lots of multiple stars - I tried to locate as many of the
doubles, triples, etc. that were listed in Nightwatch.

The moon was great - got a good look at the craters and got some wows
from my son - star clusters and the moon were his favorite things to
see.

The Not-so-good:

Planetary viewing was a major major letdown. I was very eagerly
looking forward to seeing Saturn but the views were underwhelming to
say the least. I could clearly see it as an oblate spheroid with rings
around it but I could barely make out the separation between the rings
and the planet, let alone spot the Cassini division. The seeing was
atrociously bad (or was par for the course, I just don't know since
this is the first time I am being affected by it). The whole planet
was bubbling like looking down on a saucepan of boiling water. Even at
120X (10mm eyepiece), I could barely get a viewable image and the 2X
barlow stayed in its case. Jupiter was no better. At least with Mars,
I could convince myself that the blob in the eyepiece was whitish at
the bottom. Whether this was actually the pole or just wishful
thinking on my part, I don't know.

I don't know if seeing gets any better in a different season, or wheter
this is my lot in life living in the middle of Portland. I do now that
my son and I were pretty disappointed. Even the edges of the moon were
shimmering badly like a desert highway at midday.

So, overall, I would say that I am quite pleased with my purchase. I
assume my planetary difficulties are due to poor seeing although I
would love to get feedback from saa regulars in case i am doing
something wrong. I am looking forward to the next patch of good
weather to continue going down the list of viewable objects.

.

Relevant Pages

  • OR: Cepheus etc.
    ... Since I had a couple new accessories for my scope to play with, ... I had my new finderscope to help me star hop around. ... Struve double star references below are to the catalog ordered by RA. ... The next stop on Garfinkle's hop was the open cluster NGC 7160. ...
    (sci.astro.amateur)
  • Re: RAT NOTES - TEC 200 F9 Triplet Apochromat - 09/01/04
    ... Sounds like a great scope. ... on bright stars at low power my eyes are crap, ... It was apparent as being a double star, ... >star patterns with APO refractors. ...
    (sci.astro.amateur)
  • Newbie Astronomy Misadventures (with Questions)
    ... It is A LOT more scope than I imagined - my skills certainly do not ... that big tube back and forth and around, ... Found a bright star, Mintaka, and eventually got them aligned. ... I have several lists printed out like Beginner's Watch List, ...
    (sci.astro.amateur)
  • Re: Rat Notes: AP 160 First Light Comments
    ... Refractor on Tuesday, August 16th and I thought it was time that I post my first impressions. ... "Text Book Perfect" is a cliché with regards to star images ... What I really need to do is to spend some time with it using my 10" Zambuto equipped reflector, because it is the only scope I have that I can use to compare what I am seeing in the AP 160. ... the contrast in this instrument is simply ...
    (sci.astro.amateur)
  • Re: Rat Notes: AP 160 First Light Comments
    ... AP 160 First Light Comments ... I put the scope out at about 12:00 pm to cool ... > that I have seen in any refractor, ever, period. ... > star party scope and it will fit the bill perfectly. ...
    (sci.astro.amateur)