First light

From Scope F70076

April 15, 2008. Tonight, my telescope saw first light. But the sky is still not clear enough, so I could only observe the Moon. The Moon was an almost full moon, I saw clearly the craters and the edges of the craters were kind of rough, so I was able to see even more details. I saw the Moon with all eyepieces, with the 12.5mm eyepiece the Moon covered almost all the field of view, which means that the field of view with that eyepiece is almost 0.5 degrees, with the 20mm eyepiece it should be almost 1 degree. I saw craters through the 4mm eyepiece as well, but I was not able to focus properly, because I observed the moon through the window, where I had not enough room to move properly, and the 4mm eyepiece needs a very fine focusing.

The 4mm eyepiece can be used for observing the Moon, as the Moon is very bright so that the aperture of the telescope is not that important while observing it, all that matters is the magnification. But the problem is that the mount of this telescope makes the 4mm eyepiece useless even for the Moon, as the fork wobbles too much, making any observing impossible with such high magnification -- a wobbling image with high magnification doesn't give a better resolution than an image with lower magnification with no noticeable wobbling. The vertical adjustment rod may decrease the wobbling somewhat, but the telescope cannot be normally used with that rod always in, and inserting the rod every time when using higher magnification is too frustrating, and would not improve the view that much either.