Real first observation via 4 inch apo

Well I actually did try to use the scope without all the beautiful eyepieces a week before. All I saw was blurry splotches of light where the moon or Jupiter were supposed to be. Even after  I fit in extension tubes onto the rack and pinion focuser, no luck. (Later days of observing a communication tower during the day with the eyepieces seemed to suggest that possibly a 3rd or 4th extension tube might have brought things into focus. But ExpSci is asking for $25 a piece. Expensive! )

Eyepieces+diagonal finally fixed the problem! Had a whale of a time observing a communication tower in the distance with the various eyepieces from explore scientific. Here's a run down on observations.

The smaller the focal length of the eyepiece, the narrower is the total field of view, but the higher is the magnification. You would think that higher magnification is awesome intuitively, but I'll have you know that higher magnification sucks (I claim that I am not color'ed by EdTing's scopereviews/eyepiece reviews). This is simply because things go blurry at higher magnifications, in the hunt for more detail. Our seeing conditions really affect whether magnification is important or not. Perhaps if I have a beautiful clear night with great seeing, then the higher magnification (such as 8.8mm, 8.8mm+2x barlow == 4.4mm, 20mm+2x barlow == 10mm lenses) might start making sense.

But on an average day or night, really fix yourself up a treat or snack (courtesy the European confectionaries star down the street :D ), fit in a 20mm, 26mm or even better - a 40mm eyepiece and soak in all the finer details that the wider fields of view that these eyepieces have to offer. Though not magnified, these allow you to realize the full power of your telescope (think of a telescope as a reservoir of light). Each low magnification power eyepiece unlocks a different new worls inside the same point of view!

For example - staring at the communication tower on the 40mm. I was able to count the number of spokes on the tower and the number of diamond shapes formed by the spokes. Or staring at some trees. I was able to see a bluejay fly around. Slyly notice that there was a window on a house peeking out from among the trees. Or even on my first night of observing, seeing random meteors!

(FYI I am using the 62 degrees series from ES. Except the 8.8 mm - which is the 82 degrees)

So I do not regret purchasing eyepieces with lower power. Thank you Ed Ting!

First nightly observation via 4 inch apo

Spent my first day staring through the right end of a 4 inch apo from explore scientific. First impressions - I might be growing old, since
(a) I am not able to see enough stars clearly with my naked eye (of course I could also blame the light pollution around Bothell and spring back to my age's rescue ;)
(b) I see too many stars through the scope! Problem of plenty! Even the finder scope shows too many stars. Really seems daunting to even see the thing I am able to see with my naked eye!
(c) that stupid alt-az mount keeps wobbling, or my eyes are. Should be the former. Also, I need to constantly keep winding the knows sideways and updown. Gosh the earth moves fast! I cannot put in my 40mm eyepiece and simply chillax and soak-in the aura of the beehive cluster. Need to keep constantly fiddling around to keep the darned cluster in field of view.
(d) Stars seem to have rays of light emitting out of it, or do not seem to focus cleanly. Is it my astigmatism? Maybe. Is the collimation of the 3 objective lenses on my refractor slightly out of whack from the shipping? Maybe, though I couldn't observe any collimation issues from the instructions. But the beehive cluster at least seemed to focus cleanly.

Saw
1) castor - supposedly a system of 6 bluish stars. I saw only 1 star(?)
2) pollux - supposedly 1 yellowish-orange star. I saw 6ish blue stars?
3) regulus - supposedly another multi-star system with blue white dwarfs. I saw maybe 1 star with a blueish tinge?
4) M44 - behive cluster. supposedly an open cluster. Definitely saw 20-30 similar points of light/stars bunched into a single point of view through the 40mm lens. Felt like the awesomest thing!

Also saw a bunch of meteors through the 40mm! These were not visible to the naked eye! Was awesome to see these again! Reminded me of the walk from jalahalli village to the main road at grannies place in Bangalore when I was 5 or so - which is when I last remember seeing random meteors just by looking up at the night sky - back when there was no light pollution and everything was observable in the heavens via the naked eye. Including all the gazillion stars I had to see last night through a 4-inch apo.

Sigh, we age, don't we? But beehive cluster == awesome!!