I finally recieved my new telescope yesterday (a 200mm dobsonian) and after putting it together and aligning the finder scope got straight to looking at the heavens.

There was a transparent hazy cloud cover all night which was unfortunate, but I could still see some stars and of course the moon. Looking at the moon through a high magnification scope is truly amazing and I highly recommend it, as sometimes we forget what an interesting object it is to look at. All the craters were clearly visible and I spent some time trying to identify which ones I was looking at.

Because of the poor visibility there wasn't much else to see (or so I thought), but I decided to give Saturn a chance just in case. To my surpise it was easily found and the view was spectacular, with the rings clearly visible.

For a first night it was a great success and I have no doubt that I made the right choice of scope. Fingers crossed for a clear night tonight!

When you looked at Saturn how big did it appear? Was it a clear image? Could you see any of the colour variations in the surface? I think I could spend all night looking at Saturn if I had a telescope such as your one. Maybe I should do some more research on buying one.

Many years ago, when I first met my husband, he had a telescope (although I can't remember what size it was). It was always cloudy out when we tried to go viewing, but I do remember seeing one of the comets very well. I don't think we ever got a good look at Saturn though.

Kingfisher

I haven't had a chance to see any comets yet, I would imagine they are quite hard to spot because they don't orbit in the same way planets do.