first light: sw st102

[kingkong]

hi all,
foa, thanks for all the valuable advices y'all have so generous given both in the forum and pm.
special thanks to sellers & vendors who entertained price & delivery enquiries.
anyway...
i've received my 1025az3 today.
putting things together was poc.
build of the scope looks ok. everythings that's suppose to turn did turn.
the painting of the ota is not the most impressive but ok.
quality of the accessories can do lah.
the tripod can do also lah.
aligned the finder scope using a clock face 10m away....
venus here i come! or at least i thought it's venus - toward wnw, bright and visible before the sun set at 18++hrs. and the only star visible in the cloudy sky... at 1900hrs

now.
it's not cloudy only!
it's raining!
#$%^&*( !! damn the curse of first light !!

[IceAngel]

Hi KingKong, can we have a look of ur first scope? Any pictures??

[Airconvent]

Hi KingKong, can we have a look of ur first scope? Any pictures??

Unless I understand wrongly, I think he bought the Skywatcher 102mm which would make his scope the same as that of Gary Goh's.
Only difference is Gary's scope is "semi apo" as he has an experimental MV1 coating dusted directly onto his objective lens.

Kingkong : yes...the bright spot due west is venus. surprising although its a crescent, it very bright on a clear day...

[kingkong]

finally, first light for my brand new sky-watcher 102mm f/5 az3 this evening.
it was around 1900hrs, the sun just set, still got light in the sky.
first thing i checked was the suspected venus, yup it's a crescent alright.
next the moon. moderate violet haze, fitting the lens cap to reduce light input helped quite a bit. half moon, nice craters. wife was impressed.
next, on to what i suspected was jupiter... wow three moons!!.... focus... focus... yes 2 redish bands. 3 down, 2 more to go...
looked for saturn. first try failed. 2nd try got it. got ring! got ring! can see band.
ok, that was it. 1730hrs - time to call it a night, a busy night ahead. and travelling early tomorrow.
i'm pretty happy with the scope performance. was rather proud of myself for finding the 3 planets in 1/2 an hour without a chart, still not sure where's mars... was a bit cloudy... may be next week.
now i wonder if i should get another eyepieace to get bigger manification.... so i can see a bigger, hopefully clearer, saturn.
i think the dso's should prove a lot more challenging, since i can't see any of them with naked eye. except that blur thingie in orion....

[Airconvent]

i'm pretty happy with the scope performance. was rather proud of myself for finding the 3 planets in 1/2 an hour without a chart, still not sure where's mars... was a bit cloudy... may be next week.
now i wonder if i should get another eyepieace to get bigger manification.... so i can see a bigger, hopefully clearer, saturn.
i think the dso's should prove a lot more challenging, since i can't see any of them with naked eye. except that blur thingie in orion....

hi king kong,
congrats on finally putting your scope into practice.
mars is currently very dim and not a very interesting target except that its a small orange dot! if you can wait later in the night, all those interesting stuff in the sagittarius region will appear.
as for your scope, rule of thumb says maximum usuable magnification is about 200. That means with a fl of 500mm, smallest eyepiece this baby can take without image breakdown is theoretically 2.5mm.
however, optics quality and atmospheric condition, I think you will be lucky to get a clear image at x170-x180. better for you to get a 9mm and a x2 barlow. the combination will give you about x111 which should be decent enough for your scope.
remember this is a wideview scope, so its main strengths is wide views like M42, M45 , not planets. So make sure you have a 15mm and 32mm for that purpose as well.

rich