I took the new Celestron 70mm EQ refractor out tonight for it's maiden voyage. This is the first good refractor I've used and I'm liking it so far. Got a good price on it through craigslist and it is in excellent shape, almost like new. Needed a quick wipe down on the mirror in the diagonal and it was ready to go. I took out both my scopes and set them up, polar aligned them, waited for clouds to clear, and I spent all of the night using the new refractor.
For it's first light tonight I decided to have some fun with the 100% full moon tonight. I got a few good pictures through the refractor using the 32mm eyepiece, and I also got my favorite picture of the night through the 32mm in the Barlow lens doubling it's magnification. I ended up getting clouded out before totally getting my technique down tonight. We may have not had the total lunar eclipse that the west coast, Australia, New Zealand, and most of Asia got this morning, but we still got to enjoy a bright full moon.
This last shot is my favorite from the night, this is when I took the 32mm and doubled it's magnification with the Barlow lens. As weird as it may sound I couldn't get the moon in focus on my camera until I zoomed in a little bit, even then it was a little difficult to frame. This shot came out great, and of course right after I figured it out the clouds came in and left me stranded. I waited an hour and a half just for a chance to get another 5 minutes to get the moon fully in frame. The end cap on the telescope has another cutout in the center to dim a bright object like the moon. I took that cap off, took off moon filters I had on the eyepiece and everything was just about perfect.
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