Saw my FIRST real object!!!

And it was ....... 'Saturn'...

Here's a brief report of a rathy shaky start to my observational life!

Weather was bad, a lot of stars around the horizon were fuzzy because of the
very high cloud, but there was a 'window' of clearer sky directly above, and
about halfway down the sky. I'd had my new lens and barlow, so I thought what
the hell...

Straight up to the PC to look for Jupiter on Cartes du Ceil, but saw that it was
well down the sky, so - on to Saturn. Yes - in Gemini, and close to a
recognisable feature, so should be easy enough to find.

Down to the garage, out with the scope, over the dustbin, onto the rear patio.
No time for polar alignment - I decided to just wing it, and hop to where it
should be. Set the scope down - took a step back, and - hey - that finderscope
shouldn't be pointing that way??? It was about 15 degrees right if the way the
scope was pointing!! No doubt done by me during the trip over the dustbin...
Damn. So - with the weather failing, I straightened it up by hand, and pointed
at the bright object around about where I though saturn was. The finders red dot
was bang on - and when I looked through the scope - that was bang on too - I'd
got it exactly right by hand!!!

So anyway - I had the 23x eypiece in and it looked just like a bright dot, but
somehow different. Up to the 50x, focus, and hey - that doesn't look like a star
- it's not the right shape... I was getting excited now... OK - time for the
barlow, to give me 100x, focus, and there she was - small, white, but THERE,
rings and all. I just stood there - keeping it centered as best I could.

I tried the 125x 4mm lens, and the picture was not much better, just harded to
see because of the tiny hole. And the 250x was a definite no go, as was
expected.

I think I really need a 6mm to give me 160x views.

So thats it - I'm really chuffed with myself, but at the same time a wee bit
disappointed that it was so small, and so white.

A couple of questions to round off. 100x and 125x was basically the same which I
was a disturbed by - will 160x be that much bigger? What x do you have to go up
to to see any detail on saturn and jupiter for my 114m Newt? I'm assuming that
even if it's perfect seeing, object don't get physicall BIGGER in the eypiece do
they, just clearer?

Congrats if you've got to the end of this ramble..

CandT