Christmas Pics
Okay, here are those pics, finally. There's just a few, but I mostly wanted to show you what my husband got me. I'm still totally stunned that he did! I had put it on my Amazon wishlist more as a joke than anything -- I did really, really want it, of course, it's just that I didn't actually want (or expect) him to spend that much on me. O__O


W00T!


And after we set it up:


The only thing is, we haven't been able to see quite as much as we thought we could. I hate sounding like I'm complaining, as I still feel guilty I got the telescope at all, but I think the Celestron company does a bit of false-advertising. On their site for this model it says "you can see Jupiter's red spot, the rings of Saturn, and surface detail on Mars!" But we can't. Well, we can't see Saturn or Jupiter at all, as they're not in our skies this time of year, but we sure as hell can't see surface detail on Mars. :P

The telescope comes with a 25mm lens, which... honestly, you can't see much at all with. There's a 12mm in the accessory kit (the lower the mm, the further the distance -- go figure), but that's only slightly better. With the 25mm, Mars just looks like a fairly bigger "star" than it normally does to the naked eye; with the 12mm, it actually looks like a round planet, but it's really not that much bigger than the way it looks as a "star," you know? It's still tiny, and the only "detail" you can just about see is it's reddish color. And that's even with attaching the 2X Barlow lens, which supposedly doubles the strength of whatever lens you're using, and which also came in the kit (though when you use the Barlow lens, you lose some focus clarity). I don't yet know what the lowest mm lens is they make for this model, but I just feel that if the 12 is not all that strong, is a 5 or even a 3 going to be THAT much better?

I'm not trying to be a pain about it, but even my husband is rather disappointed. We really feel that they're not completely honest about what you can and cannot see (at least, in regards to lens power -- they could've said "but really you'll need a much stronger lens than what it comes with"), or about how easy it is to use. It is fairly easy, as it's all computerized and everything, but you still need to fiddle with it. Like, once you align it to a certain star or planet, it self-aligns and then can automatically bring you to whatever object you want to view, but it's not pin-point accurate. Even the "laser-pointer" doesn't help much. Sooo... we're kind of thinking about returning it and just saving up for a better model, but... I dunno. We'll see. Maybe it's just a matter of working with it more and figuring out new things. First I have to find out about the lenses.

Anyway, more pics. This is what I got my husband, hehe:


Gifts from LJ user=gooniegal:

The Barry Trotter book, Darkwing Duck DVDs, Untouchables DVD and When Love Speaks CD were all randomly chosen from my Amazon wishlist, hee! That cube thingy is a beautiful laser-cut paperweight, and the other, in case you can't tell, is an OWL necklace, eee! :D (And the CD features Alan Rickman, Ralph and Joseph Fiennes, Kenneth Branaugh, Imelda Staunton and many others reading/performing Shakespeare sonnets!)

Close up of the paperweight:


Gifts from LJ user=thejunebug and LJ user=freyaskat:

That's a Slytherin wall banner and magnet, the "Ghost Hunting" book written by the guys on the TV show Ghost Hunters, and a Cranium game called Sculptorades! I can't wait to play that with someone. The only game my husband likes is Boggle, which I hate, so we almost never play board games together. *g*

Some other things I got for Christmas:
* The book "NightWatch: A Practical Guide to Viewing the Universe" from LJ user=galvyn and his wife, which hopefully will come in handy with the telescope.
* The book "Top Secret Restaurant Recipes" from my SIL and her fiance.
* A Paul Potts CD, and Old Navy giftcard from my BIL and his wife.
* Two nice houseplants from my MIL... my luck with plants is kind of hit-and-miss, but for now they're still alive!
* My husband and I both got gift cards from the exchange we do with my family -- a Best Buy and a Linens-N-Things.
* A large pointsettia from my Grandparents. Again with the plants... this one's still alive, but looking a little wilted, heh.
* A set of Yankee Candle Christmas scents from my aunt, mmm.
* Two pretty candle holders from my mom.

Some examples of my frou-frou wrapping:

I love that black/snowflake paper! The pic doesn't do it justice, but it's so pretty; I'm glad I found it. And as you can tell, I really enjoy wrapping gifts, too. ;)

My mom's and my little cousin's birthdays were on December 30 and 27, respectively, so we had a cake for them on Christmas -- Publix really does some beautiful cakes:


And lastly, look at this DORK:

Yes, those are Christmas tree earrings. I took this pic because little Luke pointed out that I was taking all the pics and therefore wasn't IN any of them, so he said I should take one of myself, heh. And I was talking to my aunt while taking it, so that's why I've got that dumb look on my face and my hand is up, ready to point at something. (Well, okay, the dumb look is probably always there. *g*)

That's about it for Christmas pics! I'd like to finally post some of my nature pics next, but there's a lot of those, and I'm still working on organizing them.

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This is another topic altogether, but I felt I must squee about it: I have now seen Sweeney Todd twice! Once with LJ user= gooniegal and once with LJ user=galvyn. I love that movie. I mean, Alan Rickman, Johnny Depp, AND Helena Bonham-Carter all together? And singing (fairly well, too, I might add)?? SO MUCH LOVE! :D