[Nemesis6]

About half a year ago, I became interesting in stargazing. The funny thing is, I can remember the exact moment when I got hooked - I had brought a laptop and a set of binoculars out. I set it up, and had a look around with Stellarium - http://www.stellarium.org/

This was at the point where the only stars I really knew, and could find, were Deneb, Capella, and Vega. I could find those, but the real reason I had went out to have a look was because M31 was visible at this time of year, so I tried looking for that. It took a great deal of trial and error, but having a map of the night sky on the laptop, it was easy as pie once I had identified a landmark - The Hamal and Sharatan. From there on I just had to center my binoculars between those two, slowly go up, and that was kind of the first time I'd ever seen a real galaxy with my own eyes, albeit faintly, but it was awesome beyond all belief.

[IceFire]

I forget if it was Andromeda or something else but there was the one time where I was able to spot another galaxy with my own eyes.  It was cold, extremely dark (no light pollution), and the sky was unbelievably clear with a high pressure system very firmly in place...no haze... it was incredible. We could see everything.  We saw a couple of Jupiters moons, the rings, and another galaxy.  I will never forget that!

I can definitely relate   I'm not up on all of the details and cannot point much of anything out on my own but it is good fun!

[Nemesis6]

I forget if it was Andromeda or something else but there was the one time where I was able to spot another galaxy with my own eyes.  It was cold, extremely dark (no light pollution), and the sky was unbelievably clear with a high pressure system very firmly in place...no haze... it was incredible. We could see everything.  We saw a couple of Jupiters moons, the rings, and another galaxy.  I will never forget that!

I can definitely relate   I'm not up on all of the details and cannot point much of anything out on my own but it is good fun!

Oh yeah, Jupiter was actually the next "big" thing I saw with one of these: http://www.firstlightoptics.com/prodimages/skywatcher_explorer_130P_AZ_GOTO.jpg
And yeah, seeing the moons was pretty damn cool, gotta say it was just as amazing that I could actually make out the streams on the planet.

Seeing how Mars is out, and at its most clearest in recent time, I should take a look at that next.

[Pred the Penguin]

I can't see any stars where I live...
It's suffocating.

[ShadowWolf_IH]

Meade DSX 90 Mak-Cas.  The first thing i viewed when I upgraded to this was the Orion Nebula.  Now I have the Barlow, and am thinking about a StarShooter for deep space imaging, if I get it, My skyboxes will be 100% home made.  If not, well, I can't really compete with Nasa anyway can I?

[Aardwolf]

Well, there was a nice clear night a few days ago when everyone's power was out (thanks to the huge snowstorm)...

But I couldn't go outside because of all the snow.

[Mongoose]

I've had a 6" reflector for several years now (along with an older small refractor), but I've never managed to take it outside and really fool around with it.  The bizarre equatorial mount and lack of computer-tracking has intimidated me somewhat.

[Nemesis6]

Well, there was a nice clear night a few days ago when everyone's power was out (thanks to the huge snowstorm)...

But I couldn't go outside because of all the snow.

I've been walking to a nearby field on each clear night for about a week now. See we had a giant snow storm, too, but this was about 3 weeks ago now, and all the snow left in the streets is that dirty, brown sludge, with most of it gone. However, that field has been virtually untouched, so I had to to wade through like 30 inches of snow each time to get to where I needed to be. So I've been getting all tactical or whatnot recently, following my previous footprints, and making the existing ones bigger. 

ShadowWolf, I intend to check the Orion nebula, too, but I've been primarily interested in the greater nebula in M42 - might be easier to see, not too sure.

[NGTM-1R]

ShadowWolf, I intend to check the Orion nebula, too, but I've been primarily interested in the greater nebula in M42 - might be easier to see, not too sure.

Those are the same thing.

Yeah yeah card-carrying San Diego Astronomy Association member and all that. You all and your goto mounts sicken me. Learn the sky!

[Herra Tohtori]

Meade DSX 90 Mak-Cas.  The first thing i viewed when I upgraded to this was the Orion Nebula.  Now I have the Barlow, and am thinking about a StarShooter for deep space imaging, if I get it, My skyboxes will be 100% home made.  If not, well, I can't really compete with Nasa anyway can I?

You would be surprised what kind of material you can produce with that kind of equipment...

By the way for deep sky photographing I would recommend investing in high-sensitivity, high resolution low noise camera rather than using a barlow lens.

Reasons for this is as follows:

-Many of the deep sky objects are not actually very small (because they are very, VERY large) but they have a very low magnitude and capturing them effectively requires a small F number of the photographing equipment.

-Barlow lens increases the magnification by elongating the focal length of your telescope, which of course increases the F number of the objective - and the light sensitivity of an objective is inverse of F number. In effect, if you have a 90 mm diameter objective, if you increase the focal length you will have to use longer exposure times to get the same amount of light captured on the camera itself. This sets high requirements for the pedestal stability and tracking equipment, and I'm sure you know what that means for general image quality. On the other hand, with lower magnification you can use lower exposure times, or lower ISO sensitivity to reduce noise in the photographing equipment. Both are important for quality... although the noise generated by the camera can be filtered away using whiteshots and blackshots which basically expose the camera's individual "noise tendencies" and with layer modes you can use them to remove that interference from the image...

So, what you should do to increase image quality is increase the resolution of the camera equipment instead of increasing magnification of the telescope. Then you can crop the important bits out of the image, edit them as you desire and still retain high resolution in the final works.

With a maksutov-cassegrain telescope and a decent resolution digital camera you should be able to do some pretty fancy stuff. Especially if you invest in narrow band filters that allow you to fully utilize the wavelengths that are unaffected by light pollution.

I've never really gotten into star photography for budget reasons, but I did live most of my adolescence in an area relatively unaffected by light pollution. And I did learn to identify almost all constellations typically visible at my region of sky. My personal favourites to observe were planets (phases of Venus, moons of Jupiter and also Titan, the singular moon of Saturn that is visible to Earth), Andromeda galaxy, M13, Pleiades, Hyades, Orion in general and the great nebula specifically. My main observation equipment were Mark I eyeball and 15x70 binoculars (yes, 70 mm objective diameter... they require a tripod to use effectively).

Orion is such a nice constellation. I used to just keep an eye on Betelgeuse just in case it decided to go supernova as I was watching it. So far no luck.

I am also a member of Finnish astronomical society Ursa, mainly because of their excellent publication "Tähdet ja avaruus" which is pretty much the best science magazine in Finland.

[Nemesis6]

ShadowWolf, I intend to check the Orion nebula, too, but I've been primarily interested in the greater nebula in M42 - might be easier to see, not too sure.

Those are the same thing.

Yeah yeah card-carrying San Diego Astronomy Association member and all that. You all and your goto mounts sicken me. Learn the sky!

Yeah, about that... I've actually had bad experience so far with my SkyWatcher 130P Synscan. It's a ALTAZ goto version of the Normale one. It will not keep alignment, it's like it pushes itself out of alignment once it moves. Like, for instance, I'll center using 3 stars, at the end, I'll tell it to go to the last one -- The last alignment star it went it, and predictably, it will not change. It'll beep immediately without moving off the center of the star. However, if I try to move the scope to another star, that star will be a fair bit off in the 25mm eyepiece, and if I send the scope back to the last alignment star, that one will be knocked off center as well, so I've been considering getting a "normal" one. The funny thing is, I asked around a lot, and I bumped into thee very opinion you hold about the GOTO telescopes a lot, and yet I decided to shrug it off.

I was wondering if you might wanna take a look at this thread here: http://www.astronomyforum.net/skywatcher-telescopes-forum/90178-skywatcher-explorer-130p-synscan-goto-alighnment.html
All sorts of things are mentioned regarding my problem - Tightening the bolts of the tripod, filling holes with epoxy. I've been lazy regarding this this whole issue for a while now, but primarily because nothing I have tried seems to work.

[Herra Tohtori]

One thing comes to mind; is the RA axis correctly aligned to the polar axis of Earth?

I mean, you need a fair level of precision to keep things accurate (the higher the magnification, the more precision you need in aligning the telescope to begin with), and Polaris isn't quite exactly at the north pole of the sky albeit it's very close to it. So, if you align the telescope mount's right ascension axis to point directly to Polaris, there will be slight inaccuracy to the system's tracking ability.

Of course goto mounts and equatorial mounts in general work best when they are static so you don't need to re-align them every time you start the observations. Is your telescope mount static or mobile?

[Snail]

London.


The only stars I've seen are the ones I saw when I got mugged and punched in the face.

[Nemesis6]

One thing comes to mind; is the RA axis correctly aligned to the polar axis of Earth?

I mean, you need a fair level of precision to keep things accurate (the higher the magnification, the more precision you need in aligning the telescope to begin with), and Polaris isn't quite exactly at the north pole of the sky albeit it's very close to it. So, if you align the telescope mount's right ascension axis to point directly to Polaris, there will be slight inaccuracy to the system's tracking ability.

Of course goto mounts and equatorial mounts in general work best when they are static so you don't need to re-align them every time you start the observations. Is your telescope mount static or mobile?

My kind of telescope doesn't need to be polar aligned, it's not that kind of a telescope apparently. Also, regarding static/mobile: If I'm reading you correctly, it's a mobile one that can be moved and carried. If you mean whether it can be moved and still keep alignment, then it isn't. However, there is a feature that sort of allows it to be moved, in the sense that I can choose to "re-center" a star. This, however, does not help alignment either.

[Herra Tohtori]

Well I kinda mean whether you move the telescope, mount and all, inside for storage, or if the mount is stationary installation (like installed in a cement pole, roof structure or something) and you just re-attach the telescope itself into the mount when you start the observations?

[Nemesis6]

Oh, in that case it's definitely mobile. I move it back and forth the short distance assembled with the lenses covered and stuff covered until I get to the spot.

[ShadowWolf_IH]

Before i can invest anything it has to undergo severe scrutiny by the Chief Financial Officer of this institution that we call marriage.  I just know the CFO as "Tammy", or "the kid's mom", or "she whose cooking should be outlawed by people trying not to overeat (damn can she cook)"  of course, we know each other by a different set of names when we are fighting.

[watsisname]

Mmm, late reply thanks to internet being knocked out the past week. D:

Very happy to see other stargazers on this forum here.   Makes sense for a space-sim fan group, I suppose, but it is still not a very common interest.

I got started with astronomy and stargazing real young; had a small refractor setup in my backyard and was looking at random stars, and then one of them happened to be Saturn.  I'll never forget the awe of having those rings pop into the field unexpectedly like that.

Nowadays I'm using an 8" Meade Schmidt-Cassegrain.  Mainly just doing visual observing, but I've poked around with lunar and planetary imaging as well.  Some day I might try my hand at deepsky imaging but I'll need a good CCD and equatorial wedge and all that good stuff. :<

Nemesis, if you're interested, I can recommend a great program called Astroplanner http://www.ilangainc.com/astroplanner/.  It's a combination planetarium visualizer, telescope controller, and observation logger that can really come in handy if you do serious telescopic gazing.  There's a basic free version (unlimited use but limited catalogue), or a complete version which has everything for about 45 bucks.  A tad bit expensive but definitely worthwhile if you're really into it.

[lostllama]

I'd always wanted a telescope when I was little, but I felt it'd be too expensive and I was intimidated by how complex astronomy seemed to me. Recently got myself a teach yourself book on the subject, so I might finally take it up as a hobby.

I installed Stellarium, but unfortunately it has a tendency to crash on my system.

[Nemesis6]

I'd always wanted a telescope when I was little, but I felt it'd be too expensive and I was intimidated by how complex astronomy seemed to me. Recently got myself a teach yourself book on the subject, so I might finally take it up as a hobby.

I installed Stellarium, but unfortunately it has a tendency to crash on my system.

The new version crashes for everyone unfortunately. Get the 10.2 version instead: http://sourceforge.net/projects/stellarium/files/Stellarium-win32/0.10.2/stellarium-0.10.2.exe/download

Also, I'm looking at the Astroplanner software right now. It looks pretty damn complicated, and it took quite a long time for me to get another piece of software I'd been using for computerization of the telescope -- Cartes du Ciel. All those Ascom drivers, etc. But, I'm definitely liking the overview it gives, especially the magnitude indicators, because I could mess around with Stellarium and others, looking for anything with a magnitude low enough(I might have low/high backwards in this regards - I mean a magnitude as close to 0 as possible) allowing it to be viewed.