Took the new scope (Meade ETX90AT) out into the back yard tonight for some manually pointed viewing of the near full moon, Saturn which lay about 20º east, and what I think was the Orion Nebula. The moon was super bright at waning gibbous. When I backed up from the eyepiece I was temporarily blind in that eye. I do recall reading about some kind of filter for cutting some of the moon-glare.

I definitely need to get the Meade #825 8x25mm right angle viewfinder I’ve read about as the stock, straight sight-scope is useless above 30º alt. I took a couple of shots thru the eyepiece (Meade 26mm Super Plössl) with my Olympus D-460 digital camera for kicks and giggles..

I obtained less than stellar results but remember how I did it. I’m super excited to get a Barlow and the QuickCam hooked up! I picked up an Apple iBook tonight… not specifically for this application but I will be able to use it outside for some digital imaging with the Logitech QuickCam Pro 4000 I already own. Kind of exciting.

I’m not sure why I got the astronomy bug all of a sudden but it feels good. Until tonight I hadn’t actually laid eyes on Saturn’s rings in over 20 years…it’s still there!