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Funkysauce posted:A few Q's if anyone can help. First here's the gear: Not really aside from eyepieces and the telescope, but I do recommend a guidebook of some sort so you can locate objects to look at. Funkysauce posted:2) Are hi-mag UWA eyepieces any good for viewing nebulae or galaxies? Funkysauce posted:3) Are light pollution-reducers worth anything?
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Sep 29, 2009 00:53
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Loztblaz posted:They're good because of their higher FOV, but they're pretty expensive. If you wanted to start off cheaper, you can get some cheaper plossls for 10-20 bucks (hell, I can even sell you a couple for way cheap if you want). If you want to spend more, Baader Hyperion eyepieces are amazing for the price. I have a bunch of SP eyepieces ranging from 26mm to 5.5mm I think I should be ok there. Also, believe it or not, I use stellarium to locate what I'm looking at. Pretty good with it too!
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Sep 29, 2009 18:46
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Funkysauce posted:I have a bunch of SP eyepieces ranging from 26mm to 5.5mm I think I should be ok there. Also, believe it or not, I use stellarium to locate what I'm looking at. Pretty good with it too! Oh ok, for some reason I was reading your post as someone starting up the hobby from scratch. You seem pretty set then, go look at some space! Loztblaz fucked around with this message at 20:42 on Sep 29, 2009 |
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Sep 29, 2009 20:22
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Welp, I just bought a 5.5" Bausch & Lomb reflector from someone on craigslist for $25. Came with the powered equatorial mount and everything. Now I just have to wait for the sky to clear up so I can point it at something other than clouds. edit: Finally found a ruler to measure it and it's actually a 5.5" aperture. And 32" long. No wonder I thought it seemed big. Elder Postsman fucked around with this message at 04:26 on Oct 4, 2009 |
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Oct 3, 2009 22:23
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The LCROSS lunar impact is scheduled for Oct 9 at 4:30AM PDT. People in the eastern time zone will most likely not be able to see it live due to the rear end in a top hat sun getting in the way. You'll need a decent sized scope (8" bare minimum, 10+ recommended) to see it, or you can go to a public event and they'll have scopes set up. http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LCROSS/impact/index.html You'll also probably be able to view a live stream of it online, but I don't know of one yet. Loztblaz fucked around with this message at 02:27 on Oct 4, 2009 |
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Oct 4, 2009 02:19
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Just took my telescope out for the first time, just to look at the moon, and holy crap, I was just blown away by what I could see. I just have the one 2.5mm eyepiece and the moon is basically bigger than the field of view, but I could see the craters and shadows from the craters and the mountains around the edges and everything. I just wish the mount was a little more stable - it was really shaking around a lot. Or is that normal-ish for higher zoom levels?
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Oct 5, 2009 03:00
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dur posted:I just wish the mount was a little more stable - it was really shaking around a lot. Or is that normal-ish for higher zoom levels? Lower end equatorial mounted reflectors generally skimp on the mount, so that's probably your issue. I don't own an equatorial mount, so I don't know if there is anything you can do to reduce the shakiness. Try to avoid touching the scope while using it, and keep it out of the wind as much as you can. Normally wind and touching it for focusing/moving don't cause problems, but you may need to be more careful.
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Oct 5, 2009 04:40
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dur posted:I just wish the mount was a little more stable - it was really shaking around a lot. Or is that normal-ish for higher zoom levels? Higher magnifications will suffer from vibration more than lower. What mount is it? It's pretty standard for mounts to come with basic split leg aluminium tripods, which are horrible and flex all over the place. However there are a few things you can do to improve them. 1) Fill the legs with filler, foam or sand, or even lead shot if you have a cheap source. 2) Hang a weight underneath from the centre can help. 3) Anti vibration footpads, these can help damp down movement. 4) Make sure all the bolts that hold it together are tight. It's often over looked but improving your mount can have real benefits on your viewing, make it rigid and heavy and things will improve.
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Oct 5, 2009 09:33
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Hey astrogoons, I have a dumb question. To calibrate my robotic mount, I'm supposed to point it north and then run it through its calibration routine. Celestial north from my location is about 19 degrees to the west of magnetic north. So, to set it up, I'd just find magnetic north with my compass and then turn the scope left until the compass reads 19 degrees to the east, right?
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Oct 5, 2009 18:43
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Jekub posted:Higher magnifications will suffer from vibration more than lower.  Click here for the full 800x600 image.  Click here for the full 800x600 image. I'll try some of the things you suggested and see if they help. Thanks!
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Oct 6, 2009 00:48
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If it's Japanese made then it's probably an old Vixen model, but I've not had any luck tracking down exactly which one it is. As you have an accessory tray, try sticking a weight on that to make it a little more solid, wood is better than aluminium but try to reduce any flex by tightening it up where possible. Comaerror I assume that is for a fork mount? I never used one if so, but that sounds right. You could try setting the mount to it's central position, then adjusting the mount till polaris is centered in the finder scope (northern hemisphere), that should be close enough for visual use. I'm sure there will be plenty of good advice online if your manual isn't clear, let us know when scope and mount it is.
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Oct 6, 2009 11:10
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Jekub posted:I'm sure there will be plenty of good advice online if your manual isn't clear, let us know when scope and mount it is. It's a Meade DS-2130LNT with the motorized mount that it came with. The manual just said to make sure it's pointed north before running the computer through its calibration routine. Your advice about finding polaris sounds like it's probably the easiest way to go about it without monkeying around with a compass. I feel kind of silly for not thinking of that.  On another note, it's been overcast for days, but it's crystal clear out this morning, so hopefully the weather stays nice so I can look at some stuff tonight (probably mostly just the moon).
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Oct 6, 2009 16:08
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There are always fun things to find on the moon, take a moon atlas with you if you have such a thing, if not take a laptop with Virtual Moon Atlas on it ( http://www.ap-i.net/avl/en/start ). There are plenty of interesting features to hunt for, or you can try and identify the locations of the Apollo landings. I found this image for another discussion, figured people in here would be interested to, it puts the Moon and Andromeda in the same frame at same scale. Giving you a good idea of just how large the Andromeda galaxy is relative to the night sky. http://www.noao.edu/image_gallery/html/im0606.html Jekub fucked around with this message at 17:44 on Oct 6, 2009 |
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Oct 6, 2009 17:07
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Jekub posted:I found this image for another discussion, figured people in here would be interested to, it puts the Moon and Andromeda in the same frame at same scale. Giving you a good idea of just how large the Andromeda galaxy is relative to the night sky. Holy crap! That's huge! I'll definitely try to spot that if the light pollution from the moon isn't too bad.
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Oct 6, 2009 18:08
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Visually the central core should be easy to find, as well as the slightly fainter core of M110 next to it, don't expect to see dust lanes and outer detail though. Look for a big fuzzy blob, obviously it'll be better when the moon isn't getting in the way!
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Oct 6, 2009 19:28
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That's alright. The moon is still pretty drat awesome to look at in detail. Also, since solar activity seems to be pretty minimal maybe that drat aurora borealis will leave me alone this winter.
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Oct 6, 2009 20:15
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Jekub posted:I found this image for another discussion, figured people in here would be interested to, it puts the Moon and Andromeda in the same frame at same scale. Giving you a good idea of just how large the Andromeda galaxy is relative to the night sky. Heres a fun fact: If we were on the moon the earth would have the same angular size as Andromeda it looks like. Seeing as how Andromeda looks 4 times as big as the moon and the moon is 1/4 the diameter of earth.
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Oct 9, 2009 10:28
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Well, finally had the first clear night in 2 weeks. Got out my shiney new telescope and saw a few galaxies and nebula. Unfortunately, the light from the houses in the neighborhood and the passing cars kept screwing up my view. I could probably get a better view of those galaxies if I had a camera that'd do long exposure though. M31 looked pretty awesome without one though. 
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Oct 13, 2009 07:02
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Nice clear sky here as well, though I didn't get much observing done as I was mostly testing out different free autoguiding applications to find one which is a good match to my setup. It looks like the nice German freeware application 'GuideMaster' provided the best results and most reliable tracking for longer exposures, even managing to guide out my slightly misaligned declination axis. Though it did report a declination backlash of around 5400ms! So I'm going to have to adjust the worm mesh on that axis to reduce that a bit. Budding astrophotographers beware, any chances of doing any actual observing rapidly vanish the minute you are trying to balance two telescopes, two cameras, piles of cable and a whole host of weird and wonderful malfunctions and errors.
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Oct 13, 2009 11:56
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Aligning the autostar system is also pretty easy after the first time. It slewed over to align on Capella and I'm like, "Okay, it must be that bright star right there, I'll see if I can find it in the scope with a 25mm lens." So I slew around on slow-mode a bit looking for it. There were so many stars that I wasn't sure which one it was, then into view comes, "BLARGH!?! I'm a motherfuckin' star, bitch!" Must of been the right one.  edit: oh hey, it's actually 4 stars in 2 binary pairs. 
cerror fucked around with this message at 16:46 on Oct 13, 2009 |
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Oct 13, 2009 16:23
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This thread got me interested in buying a telescope for myself for Christmas and after reading around I stumbled on this: Rokinon 500mm x 70mm Refractor Telescope It says it is marked down from $400 US to $152 but I haven't been able to find any other retailers to compare prices with. It seems to be a pretty solid telescope from the reviews, but I am nowhere near experienced enough to determine if this is worth it. Any suggestions? Here are the specs: # EQ2 mount makes for a convenient set-up # Aluminum tripod is lightweight and portable # Optical design: achromatic refractor # Lens diameter: 70mm # Focal length: 500mm # F/ratio: F/7 # Highest power: 140x # Resolving power: 1.65 # Finderscope: red dot finder # Focuser diameter: 1.25 # Diagonal: 45 erect image # Eyepieces: 1.25 super 25 and 10 # Mount type: alt-azimuth # Accessory tray: wall-to-wall # Includes: aluminum tripod, 1.25-inch super 25 and super 10 eyepieces, red dot finder finderscope, 45 degree erecting image 1.25, and two tube rings
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Oct 13, 2009 20:19
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Bazanga posted:This thread got me interested in buying a telescope for myself for Christmas and after reading around I stumbled on this: Rokinon 500mm x 70mm Refractor Telescope It really depends on if you want a scope now or not. If you don't mind waiting, you can probably find a 6" reflector on a dobsonian mount for around that price on craigslist. Cheaper refeactors are extremely hit and miss, and I'd be cautious of buying one from a dealer that I'm unfamiliar with. On the good side, that telescope lists realistic magnifications and uses 1.25" eyepieces instead of .925". Many cheaper telescopes say poo poo like "600x!" and it's totally unusable at that magnification. Basically you could do better for the price, but it doesn't look as bad as most. If you're only interested in the moon, planets, and a few select deep sky objects, you should be fine. edit: Upon reading Jekub's post, you'd be better off with a well known brand. For some reason I was thinking that their beginner lines started at around $199, but I was wrong, those skywatchers are pretty decent for the price. Orion also has scopes starting at 100 (well, 50, but that's a pretty small reflector). Loztblaz fucked around with this message at 20:24 on Oct 14, 2009 |
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Oct 14, 2009 00:44
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I can't say I've ever heard of Rokinon, and a quick google search has not enlightened me at all. A couple of things that would make me wary of this scope for consideration : *I can't locate an actual astronomy supplier which sells them. *Original price of $400 for a 70mm acromat? New acromats of similer size start at the price normally. *EQ2 mount and alt-az? That's interesting... Take a look at the Skywatcher Great Start range here : http://www.skywatcherusa.com/products/telescopes/entry-level-telescopes/ Similar sized acromats from a well known manufacturer? You can even get the larger aperture 80mm version for the price of the Rokinon plus the choice of equatorial or alt-az mount. Have a hunt around, all the big manufacturers have similar scopes in that price range, Orion, Meade, Celestron all have starter scope ranges. There are a lot of advantages to buying kit from a well supported make, from a reputable specialist. And as Loztblaz says, hunt around used and you could probably do even better. edit, edit and another edit - heres a good read for the beginner http://www.universetoday.com/guide-to-space/telescopes/telescopes-for-beginners/ Jekub fucked around with this message at 17:40 on Oct 14, 2009 |
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Oct 14, 2009 09:33
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Speaking of buying scopes, I landed a great deal on a Nexstar 8 with solar filter and hard case. Now I just need the clouds to clear up and I can enjoy tracking and goto. It's about 8 years old, but in absolutely perfect condition. I may replace the dovetail and mount with something else if viewing at zenith is too awkward due to the mount design.
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Oct 14, 2009 20:29
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My Meade Deep Sky Imager Pro II just arrived! Now I just have to wait for the clouds to go away.
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Oct 15, 2009 02:56
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There are almost zero listings in craigslist for telescopes. I found one, a Bushnell, local to me for $40: http://www.opticsplanet.net/bushnell-voyager-sky-tour-700-60-refractor-telescope-789960.html This will be my first telescope and I'm not looking to drop a lot of cash at first because I'm not sure if I'll enjoy the hobby. I'm also too impatient to wait for a Galileo to ship. Should I pass or do they make a decent telescope?
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Oct 17, 2009 04:41
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Hughmoris posted:There are almost zero listings in craigslist for telescopes. I found one, a Bushnell, local to me for $40: I'd pass, but if you're wanting to spend around 50 bucks you probably won't find much else unless you buy a Celestron Firstscope. This isn't electronic or anything, but it's a decent little scope that will give you much better quality views than a Bushnell. Bushnell/Tasco/Jason are all extremely common on the market for a reason, they're not very good and a lot of people will use them once and quit. If you want to see if you like the hobby, try attending a star party before buying a telescope. Amateurs are always happy to show people what they're looking at, just remember to not use a white flashlight or any white light at all. If you don't have a red flashlight, you can make one with red paper or red cellophane. Check http://www.astroleague.org/societies/list for a list of societies and star parties.
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Oct 17, 2009 05:45
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This is sort of astronomy related, but where would I look to find out where earth and mars (or any of the planets) are in relation to each other at any time in the past or future? edit: crap I JUST found it in your links. That was the hard part of the question, I bet I can find this other half a lot easier now that I have this tool. How do you know what season it is on another planet, like mars? edit: sure enough, here is a BITCHING program about mars. Astronomers are so fukken awesome. Vaporware fucked around with this message at 22:08 on Oct 19, 2009 |
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Oct 19, 2009 22:02
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Well a friend and I took out my cheap-rear end Craigslist starter telescope for the first time a few nights back (well, the first time that the clouds didn't immediately roll in the second you look in the eyepiece,) and we had a lot of fun just looking around at anything we could identify, stars, planets, whatever. A question, though. The lens always starts to fog up, which of course makes it hard to see anything accurately, without a big fuzzy halo around it. It's at the time of year now when it gets right around freezing at night here, and I live in a pretty humid place so I figured the fog was just condensation forming when I bring the telescope outside from inside, but it doesn't seem to go away. Is there anything I can do to stop the lens from fogging up? Should I keep the telescope outside to minimize the temperature differential? If I do, are winter temperatures going to do any harm? Can I just periodically wipe down the lens with glass cleaner or something, or should I never touch it with anything ever? Right now I'm basically just dealing with it, which really limits the detail I can see. It's just a cheap-rear end Bushnell that I bought because it was local so I wouldn't have to pay triple the price in shipping from the states, so if I'm stuck with a foggy lens then oh well, but if I can fix it I'd like to know how.
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Oct 27, 2009 00:53
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Crouton posted:Well a friend and I took out my cheap-rear end Craigslist starter telescope for the first time a few nights back (well, the first time that the clouds didn't immediately roll in the second you look in the eyepiece,) and we had a lot of fun just looking around at anything we could identify, stars, planets, whatever. Keeping it at a similar temperature will cut down on dew, but it won't stop it totally. You can also make a dew shield out of cardboard and tape, just wrap it around the end of the lens and extend twice as far as the telescope aperture is wide. Both of these together will cut down on dew quite a bit. You should avoid touching or cleaning lenses unless it's a severe smudge, so wiping off dew isn't the best idea. That said, if you're looking through a cheaper scope and really want to do some viewing, it's not the end of the world. Here's a DIYish guide covering dew prevention with telescopes, you can even use a hair dryer if you don't mind the noise: http://astro.neutral.org/eq/dew.html
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Oct 27, 2009 07:50
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Loztblaz posted:Keeping it at a similar temperature will cut down on dew, but it won't stop it totally. You can also make a dew shield out of cardboard and tape, just wrap it around the end of the lens and extend twice as far as the telescope aperture is wide. Both of these together will cut down on dew quite a bit. Thanks, I'll try keeping it outside and using the cardboard method next time and see how much it helps. Of course the next clear night is probably a month away since fall around Vancouver is pretty much constant rain.
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Oct 27, 2009 09:38
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I have been taking pictures of the moon with my d60 and 200mm zoom. I have had some decent success doing this, but in turn have sparked an interest in astronomy.  Click here for the full 1292x872 image. I have been looking on telescopes.com at a Meade etx 80 package: http://www.telescopes.com/telescopes/refracting-telescopes/meadeetx80attcastrotelescopewithautostar1.cfm It is only 300 bucks, has good reviews and with a few more dollars I can hook my D60 up to it and control with my laptop. Would this be a wise purchase? I like the portability of it since I am just a few miles from AEP Recreation lands here in Ohio. I really don't want to spend much more than 300 as I am just starting out. I would like to take some deep space pics as well as the obligatory moon, saturn and Jupiter shots. Any comments, experiences, purchase suggestions are welcome.
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Nov 4, 2009 19:42
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I really have limited knowledge of astrophotography, but here's a link to a well kept ETX site that includes a section on photography: http://www.weasner.com/etx/menu.html The ETX line is pretty good quality from what I've seen, and if portability is a concern, it's going to be tough to beat. The only question is the tracking. For deep space objects, you're going to need much longer exposure time than you would on solar system objects, and if the mount is unable to track for long periods of time, you may be forced to take short exposures and stack them in a program.
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Nov 4, 2009 20:47
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Loztblaz posted:I really have limited knowledge of astrophotography, but here's a link to a well kept ETX site that includes a section on photography: http://www.weasner.com/etx/menu.html Hmm never really considered that. Can I get something with good tracking in my price range? I am not opposed to stacking images, but would be nice if I didn't have to. I also was assuming anything with autostar could track to infinity and beyond. I am going to read through that etx site and get myself more informed. Thanks
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Nov 4, 2009 21:18
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Choicecut posted:I am not opposed to stacking images, but would be nice if I didn't have to. I also was assuming anything with autostar could track to infinity and beyond. If you want to do any deep space astrophotography with a digital camera stacking is always going to be required, it's the only way to effectively deal with the signal to noise ratio. Plus you need to take dark and light frames to properly calibrate your images and they all need to be stacked as well. So stacking, get used to it, but don't worry it's really easy, just use Deep Sky Stacker which is free to start with. I know nothing about using an etx for deep space astrophotography, but I imagine you are going to need some kind of wedge to convert that fork mount to an EQ mount or your tracking won't be good enough. Either way, think of it as a challenge whilst you learn the basics and work out if this is something you would like to pursue in more depth. Planetary photography will be great to start off with (you'll need to stack image for that as well, though you actually stack video frames).
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Nov 6, 2009 13:48
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Jekub posted:If you want to do any deep space astrophotography with a digital camera stacking is always going to be required, it's the only way to effectively deal with the signal to noise ratio. Plus you need to take dark and light frames to properly calibrate your images and they all need to be stacked as well. So stacking, get used to it, but don't worry it's really easy, just use Deep Sky Stacker which is free to start with. Thanks for the info Jekub. My wife and I have been discussing our purchase of a telescope and are now leaning toward an Orion XT8 Classic. It looks like it will give us a lot of bang for not a lot of money. Plus we are thinking that without tracking we will be forced to actually "learn" the sky. If we really enjoy ourselves we can pick up a really nice scope with good mount in our future and do the astrophotogrophy thing.
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Nov 6, 2009 19:21
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That sounds like the best plan, astrophotography is defined by frustration and expense, and it's best to take smaller steps first. Work out if you like the hobby first, and if you decide to take it further, well you can pick up an equatorial mount and some tube rings and just remount your existing scope. Also remember, with a webcam (or similar purpose designed astro video camera) a dob can be used for planetary photography and is ideal for imaging the ISS.
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Nov 7, 2009 13:28
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I think I saw andromeda in my galileoscope last night. Hard to find, and it was just a gray-ish mass. Need more power I guess. Also while gawking at pleiades a meteor flew across my field of view. 
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Nov 12, 2009 21:52
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blugu64 posted:I think I saw andromeda in my galileoscope last night. Hard to find, and it was just a gray-ish mass. Need more power I guess. Also while gawking at pleiades a meteor flew across my field of view. Excuse my lack of knowledge if I'm wrong but I think you just need a bigger telescope but not more power. The bigger the telescope, the more light it gathers and focuses. And it never looks like it does in the pictures because those are long exposure pictures.
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Nov 12, 2009 22:06
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Pretty much, larger aperture equals more light gathering, which allows for higher resolution and therefore greater detail in the image presented to the viewer. It is also worth nothing that higher quality optics will also help, by providing greater light transmission, better correction and higher contrast. The difference between my Meade 5000 series eyepieces and a friends Televue radians is clearly noticeable when used in the same telescope.
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Nov 13, 2009 11:25
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