This is a picture of the brand and size I have.
I haven't had much chance to use it yet. Since buying it we had record rainfall around here, apparently Mr Murphy followed me from Tn back home when I got it! Then there was hunting season and then I spent some time sorting out a medical issue that had me in the hospital for awhile.
Because of a bright moon, last night was not a really good night for "deep sky objects," the catch all term for things beyond our solar system. But I was able to spend some good time looking at Jupiter which is currently the bright "star" nearest the moon directly overhead at around 9 or 10pm eastern. Mars was just rising around 10 so I had to wait until 2am to get a decent look at him. It is best to view objects as close to straight up as this the shortest path through the atmosphere with the least distortion.
The deep sky objects I looked at were mostly Open Clusters which often give the appearance of Jewels on a dark cloth.
M48:
M67:
The M in the names is for Charles Messier, a french astronomer of the 18th century who was a comet hunter. These objects appeared to Messier in his telescope as little fuzzy spots, which is what comets look like when first spotted. So M. Messier made a list of "fuzzies" to avoid. Now his list is the quintessential starting point for amateur astronomers with their binoculars and or telescopes.
I also spent a little while viewing some binary star systems like Zeta Cancri where, in this case 4 stars, or more!, are orbiting each other.
Its nice to get out like this, the air was cool and the surroundings quiet and the sky makes for good company.
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