You don't need to be an 'investor' to invest in Singletrack: 6 days left: 95% of target - Find out more
Well no, no one does, but they will! I bought a 5" refractor at the weekend and just got it out for a quick play with my space obsessed 3 and a half year old. Whoop whoop! Managed a view of the moon, Jupiter and its Moons, and after a bit of effort got it in focus enough with the 10mm EP in (×60 mag) that I could just make out some banding! Awesome. My 3 yo has just this second fallen asleep as I write, he was whispering 'Jupiter Jupiter Jupiter....' 😁
I've lots of learning to do, but, wow.
My 3 yo has just this second fallen asleep as I write, he was whispering ‘Jupiter Jupiter Jupiter….’ 😁
Thank **** you have no chance of viewing Uranus as imagine the phone call from nursery.
🤣🤣 Uranus is out and visible tonight, a little higher and east of Jupiter, quite a bit dimmer. I need to practice on the big bright things for a while yet!
What make did you go for?
When yo9u see them for the first time with your o9wn eyes its really magical - you should be able to see saturn and the rings fairly easily
I use stellarium to find my way around the night sky
OP its a long and slippery slope, wait till you try astrophotography: you'll soon be looking at tracking drives, bodging a webcam onto the eyepiece mounts and downloading a copy of Registax to process the results....or just go modern and use a smartphone camera on a super long exposure setting with the telescope: https://www.astronomy.com/observing/capture-the-cosmos-with-your-smartphone/
I need it to be 'grab and go' so after some research I got a skywatcher st120. That's a short tube/fast f5 achromatic. Yes I could see colour aboration on thy moon with the 25mm ep but I don't think it'll upset me..... if it gets to the point where it does I'll upgrade to something better.
It's on an az3. Which am the reviews and forums agree is not man enough for a 102 let alone 120. But I got it used on ebay so if I get the bug upgrading won't feel too painful.
I'm in zone 3 South London so not dark skies and while I learn I'll just, as today, pop it out on the driveway as is no effort. Ignore the bright street light and houses across the street ruining the view....I am the limitation currently!
Plan is once a bit better to 'grab and go' to the bit of grassland/Park at the end of the street to escape the street lights and houses in line of sight at least. I'm also planning to upgrade the EPs and the diagonal very soon.
To be more serious I used to see folk out in the Galloway hills years ago when I was able to ride/night ride with their massive telescopes set up on the forestry roads on clear frosty winter nights, especially around the stroan loch area and up at clatteringshaws. It used to really piss them off when I turn up barrelling along the road with 2000 lumen of handlebar light/helmet light merrily bobbing away. Saw some very cool stuff up there ^ though, first time I realised that for a relatively inexpensive set up you could see entire galaxies.
I've loaded Stellaryium but tonight used star walk 2. I,say used.....I was fairly sure the big bright 'star' due south was Jupiter anyway. Think star walk ui could be better but we shall see. I've also downloaded star room and sky tonight to try.
Muddy, before the year is out I'll be 'tubing with Rory (astrobiscuit) 🤣
Well, I do definitely think Rory is inspirational and I'd love to produce stuff like he has (and he is zone 2 north London), however I've not the time. I might get an adapter for the smart phone though. Az mount so no tracking....... probably best with video and processing stills by cropping frames from that I'd guess.... that is a whole rabbit Warren that awaits! Ps, thanks for the link.
Soma, yes I'm hoping to get some DSO (deep space objects) galaxies and nebulae. I think there are a few that should be visible, although the best will need darker sky locations.
Soma, yes I’m hoping to get some DSO (deep space objects) galaxies and nebulae
Oooo, get you with your fancy astroterminology…….if you get the camera kit working then post up some pics
I follow dobberastro on Instagram from these parts. He's pretty good with a camera and scope.
Not that either will be really visible with that sort of setup, other than as bright dots, but it’s now been shown that the early photos of Uranus and Neptune are both practically the same shade of pale icy blue, not pale blue and a significantly darker blue - there was some error made in the image processing.
Even the experts cock it up!
Old photos:
New ones
I keep looking at the Celestron telescopes (father in law has one). It’ll happen one day…..
Its quite amazing what you can see with decent binoculars and a clear sky.
Do it. I think last night would have been pretty special if I knew what I was doing. Clear skies, not much moon so quite dark, Neptune and moon conjuction (Neptune virtually behind the moon) and, and. I need to practice to make the most of nights like that but at least it meant it was easy to see something and the 3.5yo didn't get bored, although he wasn't happy when I took a while to find and focus stuff.
From my little bit of research some of the cheap Celestron are not good, living on their name too much. But there are some good bits that aren't silly silly prices. Apparently stuff holds its value well so even if you try and decide its not for you then you can sell and get much of your investment back.
I clearly hardly know which end to point skywards but happy to share a few names of things to help someone start some of their own research if your considering giving it a try.
Right, Stellaryium needs checking to workout when to try and get another 30 mins practice tonight..... and off to astrobuysell to find some better eyepieces...... a 2" 90 degree diagonal, a decent wide field of view 25-30mm ish 2 inch eyepiece, a decent 10mm ish and a Barlow will set me back as much as the scope though 😵💫
Right, Saturn visible from dusk until it sets about 2000, I probably need to get out 1830 to 1900 to see it above the houses across the street so that's the aim for tonight. Jupiter and Uranus (s****) fall backs.
When you see them for the first time with your own eyes its really magical
This. At an Australian observatory once upon a time when everyone else on the tour had cleared off. Phenomenal and I remember it like it was yesterday.
I was going to make one of these a couple of years ago.
I then saw that my SLR is not compatible with the control software and lost interest.
I envisaged building it and then just sticking it on a shelf. Having the time to use it would definitely be an issue.
I got my wife a trip to Kielder Observatory (there's got to be a reason to visit Kielder somewhere, and this is it) for Christmas, along with a basic Skywatcher 60mm telescope. I've not really figured out the magnification yet. It's got 20mm and 10mm lenses and I have no idea what that translates to in terms of magnification - with the 20mm we can see Jupiter and it's moons but only as white dots. Detail on the Moon is great. Then with the 10mm I can't really get any focus on Jupiter - it'd be great to see bands but I think what we have is really something to see more stars in the constellations and not much else. I can see it being a slippery slope.
https://diyastronomy.wordpress.com/projecting-solar-image-using-a-telescope/
One of my favourite little memories of childhood was using a low power telescope to project the sun and it's sun spots onto a piece of paper. I suspect I read how to do it in one of those various little boys own type books of the 70's and 80's.
With your supervision of course, id really recommend that. I still find it fascinating now.
@munrobiker. Magnification = objective (tube) focal length/eyepiece focal length. So my 'fast tube ' is f5, focal length 600mm. With the 25mm eyepiece mag is 600/25=×24. Or 600/10=×60 with the 10mm.
Theoretical max mag (resolution really) is twice the aperture in mm, so I could go to 2x120=240. Which would need a 600/240=2.5mm ep
In practice..... above x200 would likely be pointless
Thanks!
Just to add a 60mm aperture has a theoretical max magnification (beyond which you get bigger image but no more detail as you've maxed the resolution) of x120. In practice you do well to get to 80% of that. I suspect your 10mm EP is still comfortably below that magnification. You may get enough magnification to see bands with a shorter ep but will find the image increasingly dim. The field of view or exit pupil from the ep, the size of the dot is light you are trying to line your eye up to, also gets increasingly smaller... I rapidly realised this is where a quality ep and practice using the scope will help and you can't just walk up to it and view something near its limits, you need to learn how to use it well.
I've a lot to learn about that!
I got Saturn! At x60 the rings were clearly visible, they were just visible at x24. I need to get some better eye pieces and a 90 degree diagonal though, it's bloody horrible down on your knees and peering up just to get Jupiter using a 45 degree, Jupiter wasn't even THAT high in the sky!
Very quick practice tonight between taking and fetching youngest daughter to clubs. Jupiter looked superb by eye but right beside the half moon tonight so I passed and spent 20 mins having another go at Saturn. Already low in the sky and heading for the haze of Croydon light pollution I must be getting better, or beginner's luck straight to it, up through the magnification, all the way to x185. The max I can do with my eyepieces and at 80% the theoretical max for the scope it's the practical max. Bloody shifting across the field of view at that mag! Tough to track even with a quality wide fov eye piece. 60 secs of fiddling and kept it in the fov and just got it focused for a few seconds before a car with its headlights came up tit Street and ruined it. Still happy, I'm improving, good view. A few more sessions I practicing on the driveway and i might have got the basics.