Five or six years ago, the world was in the midst of the COVID 19 pandemic.
In lieu of taking up knitting or baking sourdough, I bought myself an upmarket goto telescope. I’ve had a big, low tech Dobsonian lightbucket for years, the equivalent of a point and shoot camera, but I wanted something with a computer that I could programme to find specific objects in the sky, and follow them as the earth turned. I bought it from a representative of the Auckland astronomical society, who was selling telescopes from his house on the North Shore. He was middle aged but lived with his mother, which, I’m sorry, still rings alarm bells in this day and age. He was friendly enough, but had some personality disorder whereby he could not shut up. He talked at us for an hour and a half and we still didn’t know which of the telescopes available would suit us best, or how they worked. In desperation, I just bought one on a hunch and left.
Well, it was a nightmare. I tried several times to set it up, but it was incredibly complicated and fiddly. You needed to put it together, and then point it at various stars so it could work out where it was. That sounds reasonable enough, but it would get upset and refuse to align itself if you were too near a house or a car, or other object that would affect it magnetically. I got one good nights viewing out of it and then donated it to the local astronomical society.
Then, a few weeks ago, Simon suggested we try again with one of the newer more compact smart telescopes. These ones aren’t designed to be looked through in real time, but will gather light over a number of minutes to build up a picture that can be sent to your phone. This means you can get away with much smaller mirrors and/or lenses.
I researched the various options available and finally plumped for the Vespera 3, made by the French company Vaonis. I ordered one, and after the usual painful GST import price bump, it was delivered last week.
Well, it’s been a revelation. Within minutes of opening the box, I was outside taking pictures of the moon. My family have been flooded with photos of various deep sky objects this weekend as the weather has been perfect for space viewing. Here is a small sample:
Unfortunately there weren’t any interesting planets to look at, only Venus which is very underwhelming in a telescope in spite of its brightness. I did get this picture of the moon though:
And yesterday I had a go with the solar filter. It’s rather nerve wracking using a telescope to look at the sun. Not only can you blind yourself if you accidentally look through it, but the telescope can also be irreparably damaged if you’re not careful. Here is the instrument balancing on the spa pool lid.
And here is the picture I got.
In short, this telescope has been a great success, everything I was hoping to get from the one I bought years ago and was such a terrible disappointment. To quote Samantha, another space enthusiast, it’s the coolest thing you can buy with money.