The joy of a small telescope
I return to a nostalgic time, using a 51mm DIY telescope to explore the night sky
Dr. Derrick Lim
8/20/20251 min read
August 19th - 20th 2025
The joy of small telescope observing
After using for many years, scopes ranging from 6" up to 12.5" for visual observing, its a wonderful, nostalgic experience returning to a small DIY, 51mm scope. The skies were crystal clear tonight except for some clouds around midnight, so I took out the little 51mm to visit some late summer/early autumn sights. Light pollution is at about Bortle 5 to 6 and a bright LED streetlight hangs in the northwest at about 40 degrees altitude from my front yard.
M31 was easy and bright, at about 15X mag, but I could just see M32 and M110 with averted vision.
The Pleiades beautifully fits the 15X view, I counted 40+ stars
NGC 457 Owl/ET/Flat cat - this was fun, initially I only saw the "eyes", Phi Cass and the star beside it... then averted vision revealed the "arms" (wings) and legs.
M33 was a feeble faint glow barely shining over the background.
NGC 869 & 884 (Double Cluster) was okay at 15X, smatter of stars, can't make out much without averted vision, which revealed a smatter of tiny stars around the brighter stars of the clusters
M34 was a nice sprinkle of stars forming a triangular shape, pretty!
While observing, I also had the ZWO Seestar S30 imaging while I explored the night sky. Below are the images I got using the Seestar:
