The universe is fine (geekery)
But I still went ahead and went up to my roof with the intent of at least checking out the optics, and after looking at a few distant street lights, I looked up and noticed that some stars were visible. So I pulled out my phone and started up Google Sky Map to get my bearings, and then failed to get any of the visible stars off to the West.
At this point, my upstairs neighbors (who are across the hall from the roof access) noticed me outside and interrupted to ask if he knew what was going on with the garage (as we have an ongoing parking situation). We chatted a bit, and then they wished me happy stargazing.
Then, as if on cue (but really just lucky happenstance, of course), I looked off to the Southeast and noticed a patch of sky opening up with a bright speck in it. Sky Map indicated this was Jupiter, with Neptune nearby. So I reduced the magnification on the scope to 25x and pointed it at the speck, and got a bright blob in my view. Carefully I adjusted the focus, and all of the sudden with amazing clarity I saw a big white disc and a few white pinpoints aligned almost in a straight line.
I switched to the 50x eyepiece but couldn't manage to get them in view before the cloud covered them over.
I have never been so happy to see Jupiter, and I had (and have) more than a few (happy) tears in my eyes.
Comments
In THEORY the Galileoscope would be equivalent to a 1750mm lens, but the optics are kind of crappy (they claim to be without any chromatic aberration but there is definitely plenty), it's EXTREMELY prone to vibration and even gentle breezes (due mostly to it being made mostly of plastic, although I'm sure my crappy tripod is also somewhat to blame for this), and at best I could just get an out-of-focus glimpse of Jupiter and its moons.
Also, its focus is all friction-based, so any sort of weight on it would make it quickly go out of focus, not that I had much luck getting it into particularly sharp focus to begin with. The instructions actually specifically say that while you could put most aftermarket telescope eye pieces onto the Galileoscope, they'll probably just end up falling out.
I think you can get camera mounts that basically turn a Newtonian scope into a giant telephoto lens, and right now I'm feeling VERY tempted to do that (if only for a justification to still have my old high school 35mm Pentax-mount camera around). For that sort of thing I might even bother to take a Zipcar out of town on some clear night.
As a kid I always pored over the telescope section of the Edmund Scientific catalog, and always wanted an Astroscan. I forgot about that along the way. Maybe it's time I finally got one.
Or maybe I'll just hold out for that 5D Mark II, 100-400 and 2x teleconverter. Suitable for astrophotography and stalking.
Drinking birds? In-hand boilers? Make-your own hot sauce kits?!