Hello fellow CelestronLife members!

I finally went out last night (Thursday October 29, 2009) to see the first quarter moon. The weather has been still weird, even during the summer..that thing called "new telescope curse" is really lasting way too long. This year the weather is just horrible, so I haven't had many chances to look up at the sky. Yesterday, I was out for most of the day and part of the evening. My mom wanted to return something to a local pharmacy so that was our last stop. It was a little after 6pm (still light outside) and I've noticed that the Moon is out! I decided that if we get home while it is still light outside I will take some during-the-day photos of the Moon. But of course I got home around 7pm and it was dark out. I checked if I can use my telescope from the backyard to see the Moon cause I really didn't feel like being on the front lawn front of the house.. So around 7:30pm, I dragged my telescope out to the backyard to my "secret observatory"!

First I used the 20mm eyepiece and tried to take photos. They were all becoming so blurry that I was getting pissed that I can't take any decet pictures. I managed to take only a few pictures with that.. here is one

Then for some reason I decided to use the 10mm eyepiece.... which I NEVER use for some reason. Most likely cause I think since it's a lower #, it will show a smaller imagine. But once I located the Moon again, I was stunned how big the Moon looked with the 10mm eyepiece. All this time I neglected it cause I thought it was worse than the 20mm, but now I see it's actually better! So for the rest of the night, I used the 10mm eyepiece. I took many many photos. They actually came out better... much much better! There is a big improvement in my astrophotography from last time, which makes me happy:) Here is one of the close ups

Then I decided, for fun, to play around with the color settings on my digital camera.. so I took a sepia toned Moon and cyanotype toned Moon.

And then some really awesome close ups! I also took many many videos. Some of them are close up, some of them are REAL close ups. I used the 10mm eyepiece for that as well. These pictures are in a bigger size on my profile, and a video as well. So feel free to check them out and comment:) I will also be getting Moon filters soon so I won't be blinded by the brightness of the Moon. I'm very happy about the outcome of my pictures since I was already getting worried they won't be as good. Now just have to get a better digital camera :-)

-EvaCZE

Hello everyone!

So as I've been told since I have received my telescope (back in March 09) that I'll have the new telescope curse, so the weather won't be all that great for a week or two.. I was excited about the new telescope and how much I'll get outside with it and attempt to locate planets besides the moon. Well, I didn't think the curse was going to last THAT LONG. It's mid-june, and the weather honestly sucks. Every day, it is either cloudy, around 60 degrees, rainy, or thunder..lightning... and basically and honestly there are no good days to star gaze. And when it happens to be nice outside and warm, it is cloudy, very cloudy. Hence, there were no new pictures or updates.

Even my parents agree, that since ever I got the telescope the weather has been real bad, and that we should return the telescope so we get nice weather again! No worries..that was a joke, I'm not returning it but as you can see, at least I am not the only one who thinks and noticed the change in weather since ever I got the telescope. So you can definitely say that this "new telescope curse" is lasting just wayyyyy longer than expected! It is supposed to rain for the next week and half, is it ever gonna be nice out? I got out with my telescope about 2 weeks ago, just by luck because the weather was nice, but the moon wasn't out, and the planets were few degrees above horizon and all the trees and houses and light pollution was in my way! So I ended up looking at random stars (aka dots in my AstroMaster 130EQ) without finding anything. And when I was bringing the telescope back into my house, I noticed Jupiter (I had to go around my house to bring the telescope back inside), but it was already apart so I wasn't gonna put that thing back together. Poor Jupiter was blocked by trees, houses, etc from where I was.

So as of right now, my lovely AstroMaster 130EQ-MD is a nice decoration in my room

-EvaCZE

Hi everyone!

I finally got a chance to take out my telescope for the first time since I've received it..which was 3 weeks ago! Unfortunately, the weather hasn't been all that great, so tonight was my chance. It was a beautiful day with 60 degrees and cloudless skies. At night, it turned to 40 degrees with cloudless skies. So of course, I decided to get out into my backyard and just randomly look around, since I am not 100% familiar with the use of telescopes. I camped out in my backyard at 11pm (April 9th), to be exact I took my telescope out on the deck by the pool to be up higher.

And then I decided to move the telescope down on the ground, cause it will be much more stable than the deck. I rotated my telescope so I could see the moon! Of course it was a full moon, so I couldn't really stare at the moon through the eyepiece for too long, cause it would blind me (I'll have to get those filters)!! And then I decided, that even though my digital camera isn't so great, I'll attempt to take a picture of the Moon! I took a few, but only one was a decent one! I didn't use the piggy mount for my camera, I don't have any mounts to hold the camera to take the picture, I was holding my Nikon CoolPix 4100 with my hand, right up in the eyepiece. And actually came out with a decent picture :) Don't even ask how I did this, but somehow it happened

The Moon

April 9th, 2009. AstroMaster 130EQ-MD w/ Nikon CoolPix 4100

Then I spent until 2am talking to my brother on the phone, asking what I should do and where I should move it. Then had some troubles aligning it and actually finding what I wanted to. The moon was TOO bright, and lit up a lot of the sky. Plus it was very light polluted already, so it was hard to see! But either way, Im glad I got one decent moon picture, since it was the biggest thing in the sky! I packed up by 2am, and went back inside. So this is my first astronomy night with my own telescope:)))

EvaCZE

Hello fellow CelestronLife members! This is my first post in this blog, so I thought I'd share an awesome story from today.

This morning, I left for college at 9am. My college is kinda far, all the way in Queens, NY. I got to my college around 9:40am. I decided to go to the student lounge and just wait around for my class. Not too long after I received a phone call from my mom, telling me that this big box came this morning (not too long after I left for school). Unfortunately, I was stuck in my college all day, so I was awaiting the moment until I'd get home! My dad finally came to pick me up at around 4:40pm, and I was on the way home. And with the terrible traffic, it took a little over an hour to get home. I finally got home, and saw this big box staring at me. Knowing that my parents weren't awaiting anything that big, I decided to take it upstairs to my room and check it out! Of course, while dragging it up the stairs, I got stuck on the stairs cause the box was too big for the staircase. I got a help from my dad, and we carried it to my room. There I was left alone with the box again. Then I had only one question......

So I decided that I might as well, just open the box and take a good look at what is inside. I cut the yellow lines, and then I had to cut the tape of the box. It was weird, cause one side of the box was really heavy, and the other side was really light. What kind of an unbalanced thing could it be, huh? Made me wonder for a little while.... So as I was opening it, I noticed a box in a box. Strange.. who sends a box in a box? Well, I opened the flaps of the brown cardboard box and I saw this big beautiful box with a really nice picture...... The box in a box happened to be a ..............

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AstroMaster 130EQ-MD!

I jumped for joy! This unbalanced heavy box happened to be a telescope! A good telescope for an amatuer. I took the blue Celestron box out of the brown box, basically dragged it out of the brown box, cause the blue Celestron box was pretty heavy.... So I took it out, and took the cover off of the blue box. And what do you know..... there were more boxes!

So I was digging through them, and found some really interesting things. Two of the small boxes were extremely heavy, and I thought my hand was gonna fall off. But I took all the boxes out, and started opening them! I jumped more with joy. But the real "fun" was gonna be to actually put this together. That's probably the least favorite part in this thing. So I was taking all these different things out of these million boxes..... I called my dad for help, who left me not too long after, because he was beyond confused. That left me and the telescope together, and me trying to put this together. Well, it was assembled together, but was it assembled together correctly? Oh I hope so.... My final image is an image of this beautiful blue telescope

And please excuse the mess in my room behind the telescope. Now I'm gonna have fun with this, most likely next weekend, since there are a couple more tests.... But hopefully I'll be looking up at the sky next weekend, and hopefully I'll be able to locate stars/planets/nebulae, etc. Unfortunately, I have this sucky out-of-print Nikon CoolPix 4100 which won't work for my AstroPhotography which I hope to master someday (soon, of course). For now, I'll either take "okay" videos of the moon, plus I'll have to ask my brother to take some awesome photographs with his Nikon D70.

Last but not least, I have to thank one of our own CelestronLife's member Justin who I bombarded with my Astronomy questions, and who helped me to make sure I got the right scope that is good enough for me. And of course, ask him any question I wanted and I'd always get an answer:)

Now I'm off to play with my brand new toy.. or maybe more of like try and attempt to learn all of this stuff and how to use it. Where have my memories from Astronomy 105 & 106 have gone?? One year of Astronomy, and I still lack all the info I learned. At least I saved my $120 astronomy book, and dug it out a few days ago. I know it would be useful someday!!!! Starting today....someday IS the today!

-EvaCZE