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I posted up a while ago about the free 100mm f/9 refractor I got from my dad. I've had a few chances to use it and the image quality is really superb. The mounts sucks though. Very frustrating to use since the slow motion knobs are very jerky and the mount always drops a bit when you repoint it. What are some good options for some inexpensive mounts right now? I think an alt-AZ mount is probably fine since I don't really want to do any photography. I think it weights about 8 pounds, and I think I need to buy a dovetail adapter for the rings too.
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Jun 14, 2015 23:35
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So annoyed that it's cloudy tonight
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Jun 15, 2015 02:22
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I've been trying to get trails of the station. It doesn't help that A) I've had this camera for like two weeks and B) I don't have a real tripod so I'm screwing it to the top of my 114eq on its stock mounts. Missed the station last night but I'm confident in tonight's pass. I even got some neato photos of stars which is surprising because I live 15 minutes from NYC  It's an airplane
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Jun 15, 2015 02:33
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Alright, I love the XT8. It's my first non-goto scope but I was able to star hop a bit with some help from an app on my phone to help me find cool stuff to see. I found the ring nebula and stared at that for a good half hour in a bunch of different eyepiece. I'll try the 4SE one of these nights to see if I can even see it with that one. This poo poo is awesome.
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Jun 17, 2015 04:45
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GutBomb posted:Alright, I love the XT8. It's my first non-goto scope but I was able to star hop a bit with some help from an app on my phone to help me find cool stuff to see. I found the ring nebula and stared at that for a good half hour in a bunch of different eyepiece. I'll try the 4SE one of these nights to see if I can even see it with that one. Where do you live light pollution wise? I'm in a pretty populated suburb of Philadelphia and I've found it difficult to see a lot of the fainter objects. Planets and the moon are loving great though.
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Jun 17, 2015 14:02
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I live in the city of Framingham, Massachusetts. It's about halfway between Boston and Worcester. I live in the outskirts in an almost rural area but I don't think my skies would be considered dark. According to http://www.jshine.net/astronomy/dark_sky/ my house is in a red zone.
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Jun 17, 2015 14:53
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GutBomb posted:I live in the city of Framingham, Massachusetts. It's about halfway between Boston and Worcester. I live in the outskirts in an almost rural area but I don't think my skies would be considered dark. Thanks for that link. Mine is in a white zone. 
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Jun 17, 2015 16:45
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AFewBricksShy posted:Thanks for that link. Mine is in a white zone. I used to live in a white zone and couldn't see any deep sky stuff but I was using a much smaller scope at the time (4 inch).
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Jun 17, 2015 18:10
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GutBomb posted:Well, I bought it. It was an old couple moving out of their house and into a retirement community. They just needed the stuff gone. It came with a few books, some really nice Orion optiluxe eyepieces, the eyepiece it came with, some filters, and a laser collimator. $50. Unbelievable. Holy poo poo. good for you. What's the thoughts on a Celestron 8SE? quote:
 so we pay more for everything.I'm thinking of throwing out an offer of $750 and seeing if they bite.
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Jun 24, 2015 00:37
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Postin' from a tent stealin' a farmhouse's satellite Internet WiFi. We're on my partner's astronomy class' camping trip, and having a goto scope is so goddamn awesome for educational work. So much less time spent hunting for things and more of the kids looking stuff up after getting excited by the stuff they're looking at. I think I've seen more new stuff tonight than in any other single observing session. I'm especially pleased by the dew heaters I rigged up. It was thunderstorming all day, so when it cleared up at night there was still a ton of humidity and a thick layer of fog. All of the anti-dew measures worked flawlessly, and if they could handle tonight, they will be good for anything.
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Jun 28, 2015 09:29
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I have never used a goto scope and you are really giving me the itch even more. What is a good forum with an active community for astronomy? This thread is obviously not the most active.
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Jun 28, 2015 17:28
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Cloudynights.com
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Jun 28, 2015 17:43
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We definitely can't wait to take it out again under more ideal conditions, but even under a bright moon in thick fog we were able to get some decent observing in. I didn't want to get my books completely waterlogged from the humidity so we weren't able to get some structured observing in, but the tour function of the scope was a lifesaver in that regard. I also found out that I completely suck at pointing things with a magnified finderscope, so the first thing I need to get for it is a Telrad or some other form of reflex sight. Finding things manually is still a good bit of fun, and the motorized/tracking mount makes life so much easier for that as well. The goto is just really handy for when you're being eaten alive by mosquitoes, and you know there's a thunderstorm watch and you might have to tarp up the scope at a moment's notice. Speaking of books, the Illustrated Guide to Astronomical Wonders by O'Reilly publishing has always been in my gear bag since I got it almost ten years ago. The book is sorted by constellation, and every object has rankings for how easy it is to find, what kind of sky conditions you can get away with to find it, and how impressive each object looks. All of the pictures are taken with a plain 8" dob with no fancy astrophotography tricks, so the pictures guiding you are pretty close to what you'll find in the eyepiece. I give it to the kids in the astronomy club each year to make their observing lists for their outings, and it's completely dog-eared and covered with post-it notes and highlighting at this point.
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Jun 28, 2015 23:53
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AstroZamboni posted:Cloudynights.com Thanks man. Still trying to make a deal. Truth be told the price they are asking isn't bad but I'm hoping we can meet in the middle. Coxswain Balls posted:Speaking of books, the Illustrated Guide to Astronomical Wonders by O'Reilly publishing has always been in my gear bag since I got it almost ten years ago. The book is sorted by constellation, and every object has rankings for how easy it is to find, what kind of sky conditions you can get away with to find it, and how impressive each object looks. All of the pictures are taken with a plain 8" dob with no fancy astrophotography tricks, so the pictures guiding you are pretty close to what you'll find in the eyepiece. I give it to the kids in the astronomy club each year to make their observing lists for their outings, and it's completely dog-eared and covered with post-it notes and highlighting at this point.
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Jul 4, 2015 18:15
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slidebite posted:Any idea how it compares to "Left at Orion"? I've never read it, but looking at Amazon's preview it looks similar, if not as comprehensive. The O'Reilly guide seems to have a lot more info in its intro to astronomy section, which I like, but Left at Orion might be better if you don't want to be overwhelmed by all that info at once. I find the actual observing lists in the O'Reilly guide a lot better; each chapter is dedicated to a specific constellation, and starts with a table of objects and scores of how easy it is to find, how rad it'll look in the eyepiece, what type of object it is, and so on. The astrophotographs are really helpful, and it gives really nice instructions on how to find things by starhopping with both written directions and diagrams. They both seems to have decent previews on Amazon, so I suggest taking a look at them to see which one fits your observing style better. I just figure out which constellations are going to be at zenith on an observing night, and use those chapters to hunt for things.
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Jul 4, 2015 18:58
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So, before I make a deal I can't get out of, how does this sound for $850? Seller assures me all is fine, complete and like new with box. Includes full aperture solar filter, Canon adapters (not much use) and a 5x barlow. Ad is basically a copy & paste of the Celestron webpage except the extras. http://www.kijiji.ca/v-hobbies-craft/st-albert/celestron-8se-telescope/1084225591?enableSearchNavigationFlag=true
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Jul 4, 2015 20:41
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Are you thinking of doing astrophotography with it in the future? AstroZamboni said something about the single arm not being so hot for that. Also make sure you budget for additional accessories, since that seems pretty barebones other than the solar filter and the barlow.
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Jul 4, 2015 22:10
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Luckily the OTA of that is removable and can be put on a sturdier mount down the line for AP work. It already has a vixen-standard dovetail mounting rail on it.
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Jul 4, 2015 22:23
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I would like to get into ap in the future but realize that mount is less than ideal. I still have several eyepieces and filters from my dob so I should be OK there. I think it's a pretty good deal based on what I have seen for sale the past several months. E: could a person do short images with it as is or would that be a lost cause? Thinking planets.
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Jul 4, 2015 23:37
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If you use a basic planetary video camera and then do frame stacking in registax, it'll be possible. That way you're not doing a long single exposure, you're doing hundreds of tiny exposures and then discarding the lovely ones. Deep sky will need a better mount, but webcam style planetary imaging should be possible. That is a drat good price for that scope.
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Jul 5, 2015 00:53
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If you use image stabilization in PIPP or Blender (both are free) prior to image stacking then the mount really doesn't matter much for planetary astrophotography.
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Jul 5, 2015 00:59
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OK. Thanks guys. Made the deal for $850. I did some checking last night and it does seem to be a pretty good deal, especially if you compare the $$. It's about 6 hours away from me but ironically my folks live, literally, 6 blocks away from the seller so they are going to probably get murdered make the transaction and hold it for me until I go back up. I guess I am in the market for some doo-dads now like a dew shield (dew-dad?) and a camera. What kind of camera is recommended should I be looking for? Would a fairly basic 3 year old laptop be good enough?
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Jul 5, 2015 15:31
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The big quality-of-life accessories you'll need with an SCT seem to be related to dew control and power, which isn't too hard to do yourself if you're handy with basic electronics. You can make yourself a nice dew shield out of some reflectix insulation from Home Depot and some felt, and a simple dew controller out of LED dimmers from eBay. For the controller, you can go the extra mile and put the electronics in a project box to make it look nice and be easier to work with out in the field. The mobile power supply I built is posted earlier in the thread, which is really nice since you're no longer limited to observing in spots with mains power. Oh, a case with wheels is also an awesome accessory, especially with bigger, heavier SCTs. I got this 50 gallon Stanley chest when it was on sale last month for $100, and I think Americans can easily find them for $50. I can juuuuust fit an 11" scope in there with half an inch of room to spare on all sides. Right now I have it lined with scrap packing foam, but I'm working with a foam supplier to have it set up with something nicer. Even with the scrap foam I'm pretty happy with it, especially considering the only CPC1100 hardcase I can find is like $800. If your seller still has the original packaging, for the love of god don't throw out the packing foam, since that'll make your life so much easier when making your own case. I think the next accessory on the list is going to be a bahtinov mask. Just need to find a printer big enough to make a stencil, and to figure out what material to make it out of. Edit: Whoops, forgot the links http://www.blackwaterskies.co.uk/2013/05/a-cheap-multi-channel-dew-heater.html http://www.dewbuster.com/heaters-330ohm-resistors.html Coxswain Balls fucked around with this message at 16:39 on Jul 5, 2015 |
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Jul 5, 2015 16:36
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Thanks for the link about the dew controls. I can wrap my head around electronics, but not sure if I'm handy enough to build one though. I can certainly do home repairs and rebuild an engine, but something about building them is a little scary to me if it isn't plug and play. Is there any reasonable ready-made solutions? For field power, I have a small lead-acid car jump pack that I was thinking of just plugging a lighter adapter into. Reasonable? Or should I go the lithium route?
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Jul 5, 2015 17:21
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You sound a lot more handy than me, and I managed to pull it off. Off-the shelf dew controllers seem hilariously expensive for what you're actually getting. You can build a simple two channel dew controller for like $10 of parts, but you're going to be paying $100+ for the same thing off the shelf (1 2 3). I only had a bit of trouble with mine because I wanted to try making a more complex one with 8 outputs and 4 fused channels, and even then it was only difficult because I had to cram it in a relatively small project box. The exact same thing that I built would have been $250+ off the shelf, and I think it came to $20 of parts. For power, a car battery hooked up to a lighter port should work fine. There are benefits to using more specialized batteries, but for astronomy this is going to be something more like a deep-cycle AGM battery that can take repeated discharge-recharge cycles rather than a lithium power pack. I put a fuse block, LVD and fancy outdoor-rated bayonet connectors in mine, but that's by no means necessary. I'm going to be using this power supply for my FPV ground station as well as astronomy, so I figured I'd go all out. Mine is 72Ah, and was drained to about 60%-70% after two nights with my heaters at full blast. I made a list of the parts I used for the battery in this post, and I was able to get most of the stuff locally at Canadian Tire/Princess Auto. I can also make a list of the parts I ordered from Digikey for the dew strips/controller, if that also helps with the anxiety of rolling your own. Having to choose the parts was probably the most annoying part of the whole process, since I don't have much of an electrical background and wanted to make abso-friggen-lutely sure that I wouldn't fry something or start a fire (proper wire gauges for maximum possible current, properly rated connectors for the same, lots of fuses, etc.). I left all of my astronomy gear with the person whose farm we were at, but when I get it back I can take some pics of the insides to show you how simple it is with a copy of my Digikey invoice. For now, here's a few more links I found that were very helpful with making all of this stuff myself. Portable Power 101 - Part 1 (Very detailed, goes into how to figure out power demands, some info on solar charging) Portable Power 101 - Part 2 (Ditto) DIY Telescope battery (More simple) DIY dew controller pictures Making a cheap dew controller using a LED dimmer
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Jul 5, 2015 18:09
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Thanks for the in depth post. I assume a plain shield isn't adequate? http://www.celestron.com/browse-shop/astronomy/accessories/lens-shades/lens-shade-for-c6-and-c8-tubes
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Jul 6, 2015 07:20
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A dew shield on its own may be adequate. it just depends on the conditions and how long you plan to be out. A dew shield doesn't work by keeping moisture out, but rather by keeping heat in. You're just trying to keep your optics above the dewpoint so that the moisture in the air doesn't begin to condense on them. This wasn't much of a problem on your old newtonian dob because the optics were hidden deep in the OTA, which itself acted as a dew shield. With an SCT, the corrector plate is right up front, so no matter how you're oriented it's rapidly radiating heat off into space. A dew shield helps by slowing down this loss of heat into space, but once you get below the dewpoint, your night of observing is over. Dew heaters allow you to pump just enough heat into the system to prevent you from ever getting to that point, as long as you've got power. A dew shield is another thing you can build on your own to save a ton of money. All it is is a stiff piece of material with some felt and velcro, so you can easily avoid paying $50 for the one you linked. http://thatmarriedguy.com/diy-dew-shield/ Those are the directions I followed, but I used reflectix instead of a camping mat, so I didn't need the ring supports in the middle.
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Jul 6, 2015 14:43
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Pretty pictures... http://www.theguardian.com/science/gallery/2015/jul/09/insight-astronomy-photographer-of-the-year-2015-shortlist-in-pictures
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Jul 9, 2015 13:45
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Is a dew heater mostly only needed if a person is going to be out for several hours or can you get away with just a general "shield" like above if it's a fairly short time? Or, it depends?
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Jul 10, 2015 20:27
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Depends on the humidity, how long it's exposed and how much surface area your initial glass surface has.
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Jul 11, 2015 00:43
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I've always been interested in space but I only got interested in telescopes back in spring after a trip to Big Bear with the (now former) girlfriend. Seeing as I've lost access to the telescope (an Orion reflector of some sort) I figured that I should look into getting into the hobby properly myself. The trouble is that I kind of want to see and do everything - I enjoy looking at the moon and local planets but would also love to start delving into galaxies, globular clusters, and other such fun objects as well. I enjoy peering down through the scope myself and seeing things with my own eyes, but also find the idea of getting into astrophotography really really quite appealing. So, in short, I'm not entirely sure where to begin - my budget is probably in the $500-$700 range initially with more available over time. Ideally I'd like to get some sort of middle ground scope of good manufacture that I could use to eyeball the universe. If it allows for photography and/or tracking that'd be a great bonus (though sometimes I do like to chase things down myself so I'm not certain that I'd want it to be ONLY computerized/motorized). Size of the scope isn't a big issue as I've got a truck. I do apologize for the post being so scatterbrained but any help or suggestions would be hugely appreciated.
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Jul 11, 2015 01:09
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AstroZamboni posted:Depends on the humidity, how long it's exposed and how much surface area your initial glass surface has. Yep. I went ahead and built the heating system because it would suck to have a night of observing cut short with no recourse. One less thing to have to worry about.
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Jul 11, 2015 09:54
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So if the scope does dew up, of course your night is cut short but getting condensed water inside your scope sounds really bad. Does it just evaporate with no hard or do you get water marks on your mirrors? Either way I probably will build one. I found another linked (linked through one of your earlier posts) here: http://www.blackwaterskies.co.uk/2013/05/making-your-own-nichrome-dew-heater.html Seems pretty straight forward. One of the benefits of living in a quasi-arid area though. Humidity is usually never near 40%+ unless it's going to rain in the near future. Erev posted:So, in short, I'm not entirely sure where to begin - my budget is probably in the $500-$700 range initially with more available over time. Ideally I'd like to get some sort of middle ground scope of good manufacture that I could use to eyeball the universe. If it allows for photography and/or tracking that'd be a great bonus (though sometimes I do like to chase things down myself so I'm not certain that I'd want it to be ONLY computerized/motorized). Size of the scope isn't a big issue as I've got a truck. I do apologize for the post being so scatterbrained but any help or suggestions would be hugely appreciated. Look used. You never know what you can find. I see decent dobs posted locally in the $200-$400 range regularly.
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Jul 11, 2015 16:34
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slidebite posted:So if the scope does dew up, of course your night is cut short but getting condensed water inside your scope sounds really bad. Does it just evaporate with no hard or do you get water marks on your mirrors? It's not a problem if you let the dew evaporate in its own; the water is pure, after all. Just don't do something stupid and try to absorb the water or wipe your optics with a cloth. I did the resistor ladder method for making my heater strips, since there was less experimentation involved. It was probably a lot more work compared to the nichrome method, though.
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Jul 11, 2015 18:01
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Congrats on the new scope slidebite! I hope to see it at one of the star parties in Alberta. I just picked up a rental 8" Dob, and I'm looking forward to giving it a good workout.
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Jul 12, 2015 23:31
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I am just looking forward to getting the scope. It's sitting in my folks basement in St. Albert as we speak, so I just have to wait until I go up again... which may be who knows. There is supposedly an astronomy club in Lethbridge that I should probably check into.
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Jul 13, 2015 20:57
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slidebite posted:I am probably the least qualified of people here, but I'd say get a dob especially at first. If you're going to have a tough time getting a decent scope setup PLUS a mount that can track well enough for astrophotography in that budget. Thanks slidebite. Will do.
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Jul 13, 2015 23:35
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Two days till I leave for La Palma, I think I just about have everything working. I'm using Sequence Generator Pro for the camera control as it supports local offline plate solving and will automatically centre images and build mosaics. It's very nice as software for astrophotography goes, quite a lot of initial setup but very will automated once it gets going. I've not used it before but I've had a few nights of testing to get my head around it. I'm taking a bit of a risk and attempting to take a single large image of the Anatres region, I'm looking at a nine frame mosaic over 36 hours for it, fingers crossed everything works. We also, thanks to some contacts on the island, have tours arrangedfor the William Hershel, Isaac Newton and Gran Telescopio Canarias telescopes on our last day, so it should be an excellent trip!
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Jul 14, 2015 00:18
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First clear night in a while coming up where I don't have previous engagements.  Man, I'm excited. But it's been so long since I've done any astrophotography. I've gotta make the trip out to the dark skies. Rotten Cookies fucked around with this message at 14:13 on Jul 16, 2015 |
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Jul 16, 2015 14:10
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So I couldn't drive the hour and a half out to the dark skies, but I did go into my backyard. I also tried using a 500mm f/4.5 birding lens for shits and giggles. I got this. I was pointing at Alkaid in Ursa Major, I think. Sorry for the lovely, grainy mess, but I still like it. I don't know what I was thinking, but I never even TRIED for anything M81 group. Oh well. Next time maybe.
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Jul 17, 2015 12:33
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