Big Things Come From Small Beginnings

Knock, knock.

Who's there? 

U.P.S.

U.P.S. who?

U.P.S. YOURS!

Joke aside, the courier came on Monday afternoon with a parcel delivered from Germany - I had ordered some telescope accessories from Telescope Express last Friday. I was crossing my fingers hoping that the shipment had gone all right. Thanks to the people handling the logistics, the shipment and delivery time were impeccable.

2.5kg worth of stuff.

Upon inspection of the items in the box, everything was fine. I had bought a 2-inch diagonal with SCT treading, a couple of 2-inch eyepieces, and a huge telrad finder. 

Is it Christmas or what?!

2" toys.

I had wanted to go from 1.25 inch to 2 inch ever since I saw the view on Dave's similar setup. The F.O.V. (field of view) was wider and I was willing to pay more for a nice view.

Eager to test it out in the field the next day, I told the usual suspects that I would do a sidewalk at Bishan Park. I packed up and brought the entire setup to Gary's abbot. He had something fun for me to try out - a quadcopter drone!

After some drone fun, Gary and I left for Bishan Park. 

The Moon and Jupiter were already high up in the sky when we reached. I hastily deployed the 6" SCT. I had to do a little bit of work on the telrad finder by removing both the sticky tapes at the bottom of the plate and replaced them with the blue tack that Gary had brought along. After it was done, I mounted the finder on top of the SCT and went on to slot the new 2" diagonal and Badder click-zoom eyepiece. The slot wasn't exactly smooth, it was a little tight-fitting. I had to force the eyepieces into the diagonal. I guess it needs to be used often.  

Aligning the finder.

"You see at all these places you go, there are so many people terribly interested in these things. And you have to understand that the population of the Earth is several billions, with all those eyes waiting to see, all those ears waiting to hear, all those minds eager to understand. And somebody's got this job to do." - John Dobson  

The rest of the gang; Thejo, Kwan, Dave, and Ava came later in the evening for the sidewalk at Bishan Park. Thejo brought his 8" Meade SCT and the view of Mars and Saturn through it were amazing! It was thanks to him that I managed to tighten the Vixen Porta mount. The gearing that controls the altitude was coming loose and he lent me a no. 2 hex key to fasten it. Thanks to Kwan for getting us the much needed bottles of water from a nearby provision shop. 

Note the dire wolf-looking dog on the right. Yes, another 4 more days to Game Of Thrones Season 6!!!

I also realized something about myself that night - I need to get a new pair of spectacles. I had trouble looking for many deep sky objects through the telrad while Dave and Kwan was telling me it's there. They can see it while I can't.

An astronomer's worse nightmare - deteriorating eyesight.