Telescope Reviews: WidowMaker's observatory project under way!

Ok...First light report. Forgive me, yall. Im trying to do this between math and history.

It was great! Its so dark in there, what a drastic change from sitting on the lit up deck!

I am up pretty high on the dob slab thats for sure, but thanks to the Catsperch pro chair, I easily adjusted the back and foot prop to accomodate.

I lined up with Polaris and I think since (thanks to the wife) im level, it was easier to find things than it was sitting on the wobbly non level deck.

I spent forever gazing at M3-a cluster. Its so pretty! I kept staring to the left and right of it and using my perephrial vision to see more, very cool.

I easily found:
M3
M63
M51
M102
M64
...then spent the rest of the time staring at Jupiter!

I couldnt believe it-I just turned my scope to the brightest star up there out of curiosity and it was Jupiter!
The only planet I have seen so far and could tell what it was was Saturn, but lastnight I saw Jupiter with three moons on one side, and one on the other.
Yes!

It was about 28-35° ESE around 12:30 or so when I first found it and I couldnt stop trying to get closer and closer, but settled on the T5 9mm through the Televue 2x Big Barlow.

Scary thing though.

Im sitting there watching it wondering if those are moons around it, when I hear a low growl that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
I froze!
Again, a low growl like right beside me out the South wall.
it sounded like the growl from 'Monster Quest'!
As im sitting there thinking to myself 'arent I a big boy?' I shined my light out and found a big dog had found a way into the backyard and was growling at me! In my own backyard!

Aside from that everything was great, I hated to go back in but I knew I had school this morning.

I left my little drawing of what I thought was Jupiter and its moons on my wifes work stuff and called her to see if she saw my drawing as soon as I woke up.

Having my own observatory, after being on the deck, is like sitting in a cave thats dark and black. i actually have to use my red flashlight here, instead of on the deck where you could see everything thanks to the neighborhood light pollution.

A minor gripe is I guess where it got down to about 60°, the roof didnt close or open like it did in the middle of the hot day.
I may have to open the South wall to shut the roof back which is a small price to pay in my opinion.

Also, since my dob is about a foot and a half up from the floor, I can see down to about 27° which is beyond what I would expect for good seeing conditions anyway. It may go lower but that far I know for sure, and thats off the west wall, not even using the fold down South wall.

Im very pleased! Today im going to work on removing that 9 tons of dirt we thought we needed so I can shut up the rest of the yard.

Also, the electrician came yesterday, looked at everything then called back about 6ish lastnight and said to put 4 outlets inside, 2 20amp fuses in their own box, a red light and a white light bulb thingie, and a motion detection light outside the door would be about $1,650!

What?! And an additional $250.00 if they needed to dig the ditch to run everything to it as well?!
Remarkable!

Needless to say, I'll be using extension cords for some time if thats how its gonna be!

What a shock, I thought high end might be around $5-600.00.

That hurts, but the observatory did exacatly what I wanted it to.

So there ya go.

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Sleep is the Cousin of Death