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krogerfoot
·Nice! How dark are the skies up there? I'm in a major city, so all I can really see with an 8" dob are planets.
If anyone has any tips for the neophyte telescope user, I have nowhere to go but up from here.
Any of You Speedy Freaks into Telescopes or Astronomy?
If anyone has any tips for the neophyte telescope user, I have nowhere to go but up from here.
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Watch my Whisky
·No. Space sucks.
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Dsloan
·Nights get pretty starry out here, enough so that my kids remark on it.
If anyone has any tips for the neophyte telescope user, I have nowhere to go but up from here.
I recommend the book "Turn Left At Orion" if you want to learn the basics of star hopping.
If this turns into a bigger hobby for you: a dobsonian will give you the biggest bang for your buck. And, invest in some decent eyepieces. They start to get decent around $100-$200 per eyepiece.
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krogerfoot
·I recommend the book "Turn Left At Orion" if you want to learn the basics of star hopping.
If this turns into a bigger hobby for you: a dobsonian will give you the biggest bang for your buck. And, invest in some decent eyepieces. They start to get decent around $100-$200 per eyepiece.
I seem to have a 114mm dealio and I’m tickled that it appears to be complete and working, though I quickly managed to snap off both fine-tuning cranks. Whoever owned it before me took care of it; it apparently cost about US$1000 new. It was so cold when I first tried it out that I gave up after getting the moon in focus with the 20mm. I’m starting to get the finder scope calibrated properly (I think) to help draw a bead on Jupiter, which is so bright you can practically read the newspaper by it up here.
We live in Tokyo so this environment is a rare opportunity for us. I appreciate your advice and hope I can take advantage of it.
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Dsloan
·114mm can be fun if you have dark skies. Seeing Jupiter and Saturn for the first time is really cool. If you are limited on time, I think just play around and have fun with it.
If you have more time, I'd suggest getting something like this to collimate it properly.
And I find that this is a much easier finder scope to work with.
If you have more time, I'd suggest getting something like this to collimate it properly.
And I find that this is a much easier finder scope to work with.
Edited:
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Dsloan
·No. Space sucks.
But without space exploration, what would Omega do for marketing?
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SpeedyPhill
·"Gemini" twins Castor & Pollux with red dot planet Mars... "Orion" the Hunter with lower left "Sirius" the dog and at the top planet Jupiter.
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mayankyadav
·I recently started an interest in looking up in sky and have seen a handful of the objects after I became a member of the local amateur astronomers group. More about them at www.tcaa.club
They have two observatories here which have some of the best telescopes money can buy and which can actually make some of the best universities of the country jealous 😀 so it doesn’t really make any sense for me to buy something for me which wont be any good infront of what I have access to right now. However I do have an old beat up but nice Coulter Odyssey Dobsonian telescope given to me by a friend.
Infact I am coming back after spending an hour at the club’s observatory. Learnt to operate a 14 inch goto telescope. Still mesmerized by M13
Attaching the picture of the telescope ( this is just one of many) I learnt to operate tonight ( taken from the club’s Facebook page)
They have two observatories here which have some of the best telescopes money can buy and which can actually make some of the best universities of the country jealous 😀 so it doesn’t really make any sense for me to buy something for me which wont be any good infront of what I have access to right now. However I do have an old beat up but nice Coulter Odyssey Dobsonian telescope given to me by a friend.
Infact I am coming back after spending an hour at the club’s observatory. Learnt to operate a 14 inch goto telescope. Still mesmerized by M13
Attaching the picture of the telescope ( this is just one of many) I learnt to operate tonight ( taken from the club’s Facebook page)
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PatinaPete
·The astronomy bug bit me in college back in the early 80s. It was nice because we had some dobs and reflectors that we could use for observation, and I took 2 courses. I put it away until the late 90s when I got my first scope on a whim. Soon after I started my first astrophotography work. It was very primitive, at first modified webcams shooting the moon through a Konus reflector then upgrading to an SBIG ST237 through a Willam Optics FL110 * I think, this is 27 years ago. I did a LOT of a black and white, shooting galaxies and star clusters from my back yard in Miami. Surprisingly good results as my eastern view was clear and I was looking over the steady waters over the atlantic.
Eventually I upgraded again to a Takahashi (whatever the popular one was circa 2000) and an SBIG ST5 with color wheel. I still have that in a storage room somewhere. That's when I really got going and had 2-3 nights a week usually devoted to the back yard. Learned adobe photoshop for real, got into FITS processing, and figured out short duration, high stacking operations. Even had some automations going and would run 4 hour scripts while I napped with one eye open.
I injured my neck a couple years on, and lost my ability to align my mount with any precision. It became extremely painful to observe, and coupled with an eye injury received during sunspot observing, I was at the end of my astronomy hobby. All in all it was a terrific hobby, I regret none of that time spent. I was able to sell all the equipment I put up for sale at a good price.
Here's 2 shots from the early 00's, barbaric by today's easily purchasable technology, but back then this was easily $12K worth of equipment.
M27 / M57
Eventually I upgraded again to a Takahashi (whatever the popular one was circa 2000) and an SBIG ST5 with color wheel. I still have that in a storage room somewhere. That's when I really got going and had 2-3 nights a week usually devoted to the back yard. Learned adobe photoshop for real, got into FITS processing, and figured out short duration, high stacking operations. Even had some automations going and would run 4 hour scripts while I napped with one eye open.
I injured my neck a couple years on, and lost my ability to align my mount with any precision. It became extremely painful to observe, and coupled with an eye injury received during sunspot observing, I was at the end of my astronomy hobby. All in all it was a terrific hobby, I regret none of that time spent. I was able to sell all the equipment I put up for sale at a good price.
Here's 2 shots from the early 00's, barbaric by today's easily purchasable technology, but back then this was easily $12K worth of equipment.
M27 / M57
