Newbie.

dubtom

Hi all, I just got myself a telescope after the conversation on the Lidl one, which I couldn't find so I went to astronomy ireland and bought one.I haven't had a chance to set it up properly with the weather lately but I got a book and have been reading up different aspects of astronomy and tbh it seems like quite a complicted hobby. It took me a while to get to grips with photography but the amount of info regarding how to find stuff in the sky, never mind knowing what they are, is staggering.So I may focus on the moon for the time being, even though my first half hearted attempt didn't reveal much, I should have read the manual first I suppose.I ended up getting the celestron 90 eq, doesn't have the go to feature that was talked about, probably just as well though judging by my first attempt with a completly manual one.Maybe one day I'll get a sharp image of the moon posted up, thats the first goal anyway.


PS, a quick question. which side of the moon did the appollo lads land on. If our side, how come with all this new technology in telescopes that can see for billions of miles has no one took a pic of the landing site. Just to add I dont expect to see that detail with my little yoke, always wondered why a pic has never been produced though.Forgive me if it's a silly question, I'm new ya know.;)

Redshift

Hey welcome to your new hobby, I suggest you read up all about setup and alignment of polar mounted telescopes, they seem a bit tricky to start off with but once you get to grips with the setup it makes complete sense.

About your moon question all of the landing sites are on the near side of the moon but there isn't a telescope in existence that has optics anywhere large enough to resolve something that small at that distance, that includes hubble and the largest optical telescope on earth which has a 10 metre mirror.
See this link for a good explanation
http://calgary.rasc.ca/moonscope.htm

Welcome aboard I do hope you stick with it, don't set your expectations of what you are going to see too high IE the full colour pictures of saturn and galaxies you see plastered all over the boxes containing new scopes, these are taken by the likes of hubble or via long exposure shots with special equipment. but do take the time to appreciate what you can see. Remember this: The more you look the more you see.
Do take your time and don't be disappointed if you don't get it right straight away.

dubtom

Thanks redshift, a good link there, at least someone asked the question before so not such a silly one.Thanks for the encouragement, I've set my goals low so I won't be dissapointed.
Cheers, Tommy.