Can I bring my Telescope to the Star Party?

[Matt Cronshaw]

Hi All:
I'm new to the site and relatively new to the world of astronomy so go easy on me!
I recently purchased a Skywatcher 127 Autotrak telescope but on its first outing I was obviously doing something fundamentally wrong with the set up.
When looking at the moon through the 25mm eyepiece, all I saw in view was a white blur! I checked through all the instructions and I couldn't find anything obvious. I had it outside for well over an hour so the scope got used to the temperature and I used the focus nob in an attempt to resolve it to no avail.
I plan to come along to the Star Party on Saturday and was wondering if there would be an opportunity to bring my scope along and get some advice?
What is the format of the evening?
Thanks in advance for any replies,
Matt

[brendan martin]

Hi Matt, your more than welcome to bring your scope to the Star Party and we would be only to pleased to help you out.
There will be illustrated talks throughput the evening but hopefully there will be plenty of observing.
cheers
Brendan

[John Crockatt]

Brendan,

I too have a problem.   We are complete beginners and have been learning our way around with binoculars.  We have bought a Skywatcher 130mm Reflector, and I have started to put it together.  The declination fine adjustment works perfectly, but the RA one does not.  I'll bring the tripod and the mount tomorrow night and hope someone can tell me what I'm doing wrong.

John Crockatt

[David Galvin]

Bring all your bits and pieces and I am sure some body will sort it for you. Let's hope that we get some clear sky too.

[John Crockatt]

Angela and I, then being members of fully 24 hours seniority, attended the Wirral party, and enjoyed it enormously.  We'd like to thank all those who did the hard work to make it possible, and specially the committee member who arranged for the clouds to depart at exactly the right time.

As suggested above we brought our tripod and mount and want to thank Brendan and two other members whose names we don't yet know for sorting that out for us.

As we live close by, and are familiar with the traffic problem caused by the road works at Station Road, it only took us 25 minutes to travel the mile and a half back to our home after a memorable evening.  Thanks again to everybody who made it all happen.

[Matt Cronshaw]

I'll second that.
Many thanks to David and Brendan who were a great help and have opened up a pathway to the celestial world.
The event was well organised and I hope to attend another very soon.
Cheers,
Matt

[brendan martin]

Thanks Matt, I must say I was impressed with your scope the views through it were very good the contrast was surprising, it was my first look through a Maksutov im thinking of getting one for myself now for ease of transport for camping trips.