Among other good and interesting presents that I received for Christmas, I received something unusual and surprising: an Orion SkyQuest XT6 (Dobsonian) telescope, which Amber gave to me. That meant as little to me as it likely does to you, as of a few days ago, but I’m down with it now. I’m interested in all of the sciences, so I’m just as pleased to have a telescope as fine as this one as I would be with a microscope, bird identification guide, globe (which, incidentally, Amber and I received from my parents), or mineral specimen kit.
This SkyQuest has a 150mm-diameter, 1200mm focal length parabolic primary mirror, a 1.25″ aluminum focuser and, also, it’s really freaking huge. It’s intended as a solid beginner’s scope, for the wanna-be hobbyist, and that sounds about right for me. We took it out last night, but it was too cloudy. Instead, we pointed it at the neighbor’s place, across the valley, where we found we could watch the football game on the TV in their living room.
It’s 26° out right now, and Saturn is the only planet above the horizon here (and it’s not visible, since it’s tracking with the moon tonight). There is, however, comet Machholz to be seen, just west of Orion and south of Taurus. If I get bundled up enough, I may get a glimpse of something yet.
11:36pm Update: Oh. My. God. I just saw the rings of Saturn. And the full moon. My Lord, the moon — what a sight.
Lol! Yup, the moon has been shining through the trees the last few nights like a huge outdoor “nite light.” Beautiful sight indeed. Y’all are welcome to come see the stars down here whenever you like. Since we have no city lights nearby, we have some incredibly clear views of the stars.
We’re wonderfully free of city lights here, too, since we’re on the eastern slope of a mountain east of town, but it’s perhaps a little too tree-laden. :) We see maybe a 30° slice of the sky, which effectively rules out viewing of Venus and Mars this time of year. Presumably the view will get even more narrow come spring, when the leaves are on the trees, but who knows where we’ll live then?