Newtonian Reflections

I felt better Sunday after sleeping in. Church was encouraging because of the people. I get discouraged as treasurer because we are out of money and behind on our bills. We had a meeting about fixing the roof. It went well -- despite our lack of funds we've almost raised enough for the roof. Interacting with my friends there was also very encouraging. I was also encouraged by some generous giving. I even went to evening service, which is rare for me. Carolina and I both went. Don spoke about what we needed to do to as a church. It was convicting but good.

Sunday morning I was rambling about stars or something and found out a family at church has a decent telescope they rarely use. They have a motor drive but couldn't figure out how to use it. I asked to borrow it and they said yes. I was sure I could figure out the motor drive and offered to explain it to them. My friend from college with the big scopes explained his motor drive to me and I think I know pretty much how they work. My friends brought their Sunday night and let me take it home.

This prompted me to become more familiar with my scope and it's capabilities. Turns out I have a Meade NGC 60 (NG 60 plus a "computer"). It is a 60mm refractor with a 700mm focal length. I learned how to compute field of view and magnification and what apparent field of view mean for an eyepiece. There's even a FOV and magnification computation website. I have a 25mm eyepiece which gives 28x mag with a 1.79deg FOV. I also have a 9mm eyepiece with 77.8x mag and 0.64deg. (The computation website only lists a Meade 9.5mm. Do I have a newer eyepiece? Is there round off?) I also have a doubler. They are 1.25" eyepieces.

It's hard to compare with my binoculars, although I did learn some here. They are 7x50 (7x mag and 50mm lens) probably have about a 5 or 6 deg field of view. My scope's 60mm lens should collect 1.44 times as much light as the binocular 50mm lens. Or can I double the binoculars since there are two lenses? (Probably not since they each go to a separate eye, but it's not obvious.)

It seems like a telescope would be easier to use if you could start with a binocular like FOV. Why can't I find a 100mm or 200mm eyepiece? I suppose that's what the finder scope is for, but I have a lot of trouble seeing dim things in it.

My friends' scope looks like it is a Meade LXD75 Series 114mm Newtonian reflector. It has a 910mm focal length. They only have a 25mm eyepiece and couldn't find the motor drive. Bummer! At least my Meade 1.25" eyepieces look like they'll fit. They had a good tripod with and equatorial mount and I got it put together easily. It all looked very familiar -- a small version of what my friend of long ago had.

I took their scope out into my backyard. I wanted to look at Jupiter (easy target for practice) but it was too low and behind a tree and street light. I decided to go after Neptune again. This time I actually found δ Cap with my naked eye, and even barely saw γ. Before I had thought it was too bright at home. Practice makes perfect. I also learned at my eye examine Saturday that my right eye is weaker and doesn't see as well (I actually knew about it for a long time but hadn't thought about it). I always look through scopes with my right eye. I tried using my left eye more. Even so, I couldn't get Neptune with their scope. I need more practice. Today I realized I should also make use of the declension and RA markings on their tripod! (Duh. Hey I'm learning!)

I scanned with binoculars and at times thought I might have caught Neptune, but my final thinking is not. Too dim. I'm now very familiar with that little patch of sky and looked up the apparent magnitudes to compare with Neptune. Neptune is 7.7 (brightest) and all the stars I have values for are magnitude 7.0 or brighter.

I also got my scope out and used its computer. It pointed me at something that could have been Neptune. I never figured out how to confirm. I tried scanning for context, but just got confused.

Again I learned a lot but was a bit frustrated. And again I stayed up too late and am tired today.