Introduction
Date: August 5th 2018
Location: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (22° 55′ 46.03” S, 43° 10′ 22.43” W)
Weather: Cloudy and windy
Timezone: GMT-3
Motivation
Today’s observation was not planned due to the poor weather conditions. A week ago I had my first observation after assembling the telescope for the first time and the weather in Rio de Janeiro has been cloudy and rainy ever since. So, I was very happy when I casually looked out the window around 2:15am and saw the Moon struggling to appear behind all those clouds. “Way to go, girl!”, I though to myself as I brought my telescope as fast as I could to the balcony and started observing.
Equipment
Optical Design: Refractor
Mount: EQ1
Aperture: 70mm
Focal Length: 700mm
Focal Ratio: f/10
Eyepiece: 25mm
Log
2:15 am
As expected, the image was very blurred and barely visible but I still count it as a victory!
2:30 am
“Ugh, me and my luck”. Soon after I started observing, the Moon vanished behind the clouds. Since I’m already here, I might as well wait a little bit.
3:00 am
The wait was worth it, the Moon reappered sharper than before! Although the image is still a bit blurred, it’s time to try to take some pictures (with a below-average camera).
3:20am
Clouds are dispersing now and the Moon is much more visible. I hope this means that the next days are going to have a better weather. But for now, some more pictures to end the night, let’s try some zoom this time!
Conclusions
Most of my relevant conclusions at this moment are related to the equipment rather than to the observation itself. I suppose it’s going to be like this until I get the hang of how everything works. So, let’s see…
- I have not gotten used to the equatorial mount yet and I have to pay attention to this in the future because it’ll definitely make my future observations easier;
- I’m not sure, but I think the finderscope needs a small adjustment. I’ll look into it (no pun intended);
- Due to the lack of planning, I totally forgot to test 2x barlow lens in this observation. Maybe I should not forget it the next time?
Not much information at this moment but it’s pretty good for a first try after a week of staring into clouds. If the weather is good in the next days *crosses fingers* I’ll make attempts to observe Jupiter and Mars because they’re on a good position in the sky when I’m at home.
