Eyepiece mystery

It's becoming increasingly clear to me that the key to making the most of my telescope will be the eyepieces that I choose to purchase for it.
I've been asking around on the forums but no one can really give me any solid advice on what to buy except that it varies from person to person and of course, the more you spend the better you get. Sadly this doesn't really work for me since I have no money to spend on eyepieces so cheap and cheerful is all I can go for.
I spent some time last night viewing various things in the sky such as Saturn and various star clusters just to try and get an idea of what I want to improve to get better views.
As far as planets are concerned, it seems like I'm lacking magnification. Saturn just appears too small for my liking so a good bet would be to go for a higher magnification eyepiece. In terms of Deep Space Objects (DSOs) I can only think that light pollution is stopping me from getting anything like a good image. Once I get out into the countryside hopefully I can start to judge what eyepieces I need for DSOs....

Saturn

Tonight we went out for a drink with Stu and Lorraine which was great fun and we came back to our place afterwards with a takeaway.
I spotted that the moon was out for the first time since the cloud hit so I couldn't resist getting out the telescope. I was particularly interested because my Stellarium software suggested that Saturn might be in a good location for viewing...
First I lined up on the moon for Stu since seeing the moon through a telescope for the first time is quite amazing. I think the moon was full the night before so there weren't many shadows cast over the craters but it was a good sight anyway.
Next we swung round and went for Saturn. With the 25mm lens it was little more than a small blob but once I cracked open the 10mm lens I was elated to clearly make out the rings around the planet :-)
I took a few pics although like always they weren't the best. Nevertheless I'll post the best one here for your viewing pleasure...

Trust me when I say that even at maximum size, this picture does not do what we saw justice. We could clearly make out a very sharp image of Saturn.
I was also really happy to see a tiny little dot of light moving along with Saturn which given it's position could only have been Titan - the largest moon of Saturn.
We also had a look at Mars although it's sad to see it moving further away and becoming even less visible than when I saw it earlier in the week. I guess I'll just have to wait for its two yearly close point to Earth.
I'm seriously considering buying another lens to get in even closer and really maximise the potential of my telescope. Hopefully then I can get some better sights and come back with some better pics :-)
ttfn

More astronomy stuff

Back out again last night although not for quite as long since it was soooo cold. I've worked out why it's so bad though - the telescope drops in temperature as the temperature outside drops which means that everytime I touch it I get direct contact with a freezing object...
Anyway, I checked out the moon again last night and got a really good picture with minimal blurring. As I understand it, this is pretty much the best time to photograph the moon since it's not quite full yet. When it gets full there are no shadows and the craters are harder to make out.

After this I tracked down the Pleiades Star Cluster which was pretty amazing. Its basically just loads of stars really close to each other. As was pointed out to me, in my picture the stars almost form a heart shape which is nice :-)

After that I had a go at tracking down the Andromeda galaxy and even though I'm sure I was lined up pretty exactly, I couldn't really see anything. Maybe a slight blur but nothing definite. With such a deep space object theres a good chance that light pollution was a major factor so I'll be giving that one another go in the future.

Second go

Last night I was out again with the new telescope. I must remember to buy some gloves today or I run a serious risk of losing some fingers with the temperature as low as it is at the moment.
Yesterday I had the chance to read the manual that came with the telescope. A lot of it is completely foreign to me and will take some more reading to work out. There's lots of stuff about polar alignment, declination and right ascention that means very little me and isn't made entirely clear in the manual.
The good thing was that I worked out how to use the red dot finder! My first mistake was not turning it on...
My second mistake was assuming that it would have been aligned with my telescope. What this basically means is that on Saturday when I couldn't find the moon even though I had it centered in the red dot finder it was because my telescope was pointing in a completely different direction.
Anyway, I did some basic alignment during the day and found the moon immediately in the evening. Once centered on the moon I could then adjust the red dot finder even more accurately and all of a sudden I was a celestial object finding machine!
I had another go at tracking down the M42 nebula but didn't have much luck. I decided to go for something a little closer to home - Mars. I loaded up Stellarium - a software program that shows me in real time exactly where everything should be in the sky. As it happened, Mars was supposed to be exactly between Betelgeuse and Capella (two bright stars) and Betelgeuse and Capella were forming a perfect right angled triangle with the moon:

It's not a great starchart but you get the idea. Fortunately Betelgeuse is the top left star in the Orion constellation which made finding it very easy. I was amazed how easily I could see Mars with the naked eye. Admittedly it looked just like any other point of light and would therefore be easily misidentified as a star but once you start maginifying the image, you can clearly see that it's a bit close to be a star:

Unfortunately my lack of camera mount means that the photo is marginally blurry. Also my camera adjusted for the mostly dark image by brightening everything up so mars looks like a big flash but you get the idea. Coupled with the fact that Mars isn't in a great position right now (Mars is close to Earth every two years - right now it is moving away from us) and this is a pretty good shot.
That done, I decided to take one last crack at the M42 nebula. For some reason none of the stars lined up with my star chart even though I knew that I must be in the right region because my red dot finder was now so accurate. I panned around a bit and then suddenly I saw something I recognised. There was a series of stars that looked suspiciously like something on my star chart, only upside down.
My telescope is a reflector so to some degree this makes a huge amount of sense since images in mirrors are flipped and all of a sudden I knew where I was. A little bit more adjusting and jackpot!

Look at the two blurry stars in the middle. The colouration in that area is the M42 nebula. Now, don't be too disheartened by this image. Bear in mind that the odds are stacked against me in getting a decent picture. By this point my hands are freezing - I can barely feel the camera, let alone hold it still. That accounts for the blurring. The major issue, from my limited understanding, is light pollution. Because I'm sat in the back garden, in South Manchester, there is a huge amount of light competing with the very small amount of light given off by M42. The fact that I can see anything at all is probably a miracle. Once I take the telescope out into the coutryside where there is no light pollution I should be able to get much better images of this nebula.

All in all this was a far more successful evening than Saturday night. I worked out how to track stuff down quite easily and saw some amazing sights. It's a shame that I can't get better shots with my camera but until I get a mount most of my pics will probably be quite blurry.
ttfn

New hobby

So today I bought a telescope. I should really take a photo of it for reference but here's a pic of it from online:

It currently stands taller than me. In fact tonight I mostly stood on tiptoes to look through the eyepiece...
I didn't have time to read the manual today so I went for the point and hope method and found the moon quite easily. It initially appeared as a blurry blob until Andy pointed out that there was a control to adjust focus.
Once adjusted I was genuinely impressed by what I could see. The visible detail is amazing. I quickly switched to my 10x lens and got even more detail of the moon's surface. Wanting to try out everything I had, I then added my 2x barlow lens which in theory doubles your current magnification.
Unfotunately this proved to be a bit too much and I'm not sure if I nudged the scope while I was attaching the lens but I lost the moon. I switched back to my 10x lens and then my wide angle lens but the moon was nowhere to be seen.I tried lining it back up with my red dot finder but in the end it took me nearly and hour of randomly scanning the general area to get the moon lined up again.
Once my panic was over I decided to go for something a bit more ambitious. The M42 nebula is supposed to be quite easy to see and Orion (where M42 lies) was clearly visible so I swung my scope round and had a go. Sadly, even with my starchart, I couldn't work out where I was aiming and I had to give up.
I swung back round to the moon and snapped a shot or two by holding my camera up to the eyepiece. The pics are a little blurry but you get the idea:

This pic was taken with the wide angle lens. I can highly advise clicking on this pic to see the detail since it isn't immediately apparent in the small version embedded in this post.
All in all it was a good first night although I clearly have a lot to learn...