On 12/30/99 11:42 AM, Mark Wagner wrote:
Still, the night was rather bright and a bit hazy, although things did improve later in the evening. David Kingsley was there with the 7" Starmaster Oak Classic, Richard Ozer showed up with a beautifully built home made 10" Dob (the mirror gave truly beautiful images of M42... nice job Richard!), Kurt (chanik@aol.com) K brought an outstanding 16" truss tube Dob with a Pegasus mirror, and I shared my 10" f/5.6 Dob with the new "Bob Fies" coatings (primary and secondary) with Ken Head. Joining us with binoculars was first timer Jason Newquist.Heart-felt thanks to all these guys for their time and the benefit of their experience (and scopes!).
I had a *great* time. I decided to go on a lark, hoping to meet some folks who wouldn't mind a new guy trudging around and getting in the way, asking some questions, and having an occasional view.
The experience was better than I had dared hope for. Richard got me started by letting me participate a little in collimating his nice 10" Dob, explaining all sorts of interesting ATM stuff along the way. Before listening to him, I was certain I'd never make a scope of my own, but now I'm not so sure... :-)
I'd never seen much through my binos on my view-obstructed 2nd floor porch in Santa Clara, so David spent a few minutes showing me how to find M31 -- which was a huge surprise! Back arched, neck craned, I must have stared at it for 10 minutes. Amazing.
I spent most of the night hopping between Mark's 10" Dob and Kurt's 16" (complete with green laser!). I've been doing a lot of reading of observing reports on the TAC and SJAA web pages, and I somehow got the impression (probably from reading lots of Jay Freeman's lyrical reports) that naming one's scope is standard operating procedure. However, I noted that Mark and Kurt didn't obviously call their instruments by name. More research required.
Mark was pointing at some really faint objects for most of the night. Faint, and many were all but invisible to my eye. One thing was very reassuring, though -- averted vision is not difficult. From what I had heard of it online, I thought it was some sort of voodoo -- not so. The basic technique is a piece of cake. There was clearly a difference between what I was able to pick out, and what the seasoned vets saw, but this is to be expected. In some cases I made out only the faintest wisps, but when Kurt would get to the eyepiece he'd exclaim that it was a pretty good view, and comment on some structure or other. This is, oddly, encouraging to me, since it means that one's sensation and appreciation of deep sky objects can increase with time.
At one point, we spent some time comparing views with and without filters of various types.
Between executing items on their programs, Mark w/Ken as well as Kurt all spent a lot of time explaining fundamentals, aiming their scopes at sights that they thought a first-timer should see, and answering more questions than I can remember asking.
Finally, it was damn cold! I thought I was dressing warm by adding a layer of long-johns under my jeans, and a coat. Boy, was I stupid. I nearly froze my legs off. Apparently, people noticed, and I started getting offers for gloves, hats, and such. Mark said it was actually a fairly warm night, all things considered. I decided that I needed to shop for insulated boots and several more layers of everything.
Even so, it was a marvelous first experience. I'm hooked.