We had a series of clear nights so I decided to take the Meade LX70 Refractor out for its first light. I was going to try to find the Andromeda Galaxy since I had noticed Cassiopeia overhead a couple of nights before.
I setup the refractor and the first issue I had was getting it to point straight up. I started to hit the tripod legs. The next issue was I was looking in the wrong place. I had used a reference in one of my books to do the star hopping to the Andromeda Galaxy but I got disoriented. Once I figure out the region of the sky to be looking that solved by problem of the telescope hitting the tripod legs. I also raised the telescope on it dovetail rail higher.
My next issue was using the finder scope. I was very happy to have purchased the 90 degree model but still didn’t know where I should be looking. So, I decided to just start over with the binoculars and find the galaxy first. It took a while and a lot of misses but finally found the faint fuzzy. With a more precise area of the sky to look at, I just scanned back and forth through the eyepiece and finally found it.
I tried a number of different eyepieces and the wide angle one was the best. I was starting to get cold so really didn’t try of the eyepieces much more. As I was picked things up and noticed that a lot of dew was starting to form. First time experiencing dew.
Overall, it was both a good and bad experience. But, I am still learning so that made the experience worth it.
