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I bought a new mount, ZWO AM5 So far so good, light weight, good guiding, easy to use First night out with it on Sunday, did a shot of the rho ophiuchi region  
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Apr 3, 2023 13:35
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I’m so envious. Questions for you (and anyone else in the thread with experience): how long have you been in the hobby? Did you come at it from a particular direction (prior experience with astronomy, photography, etc)? Has it been mostly a solo-adventure or have you had mentors/clubs?
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Apr 3, 2023 13:49
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Jewmanji posted:I’m so envious. Questions for you (and anyone else in the thread with experience): how long have you been in the hobby? Did you come at it from a particular direction (prior experience with astronomy, photography, etc)? Has it been mostly a solo-adventure or have you had mentors/clubs? I had some previous photography experience, but always had an interest in space stuff. I had a telescope for a while but didn't use it too much, mainly just pics of the moon with a DSLR. Got more into it about a year ago, all totally solo, mostly reading forums. Starting out it's hard to sort out good relevant info from the bad stuff. Some astro forums get into technical explanations really quickly and can be quite set in their ways about how things should be done. Starting
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Apr 3, 2023 14:46
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Jewmanji posted:I’m so envious. Questions for you (and anyone else in the thread with experience): how long have you been in the hobby? Did you come at it from a particular direction (prior experience with astronomy, photography, etc)? Has it been mostly a solo-adventure or have you had mentors/clubs? I literally got into it just before Covid struck. I had little experience with photography or astronomy. I'll echo Raikyn about the technical explanations and set in the ways. Like, what's a good mount? And that turns into a 20 page rant between 30 greybeards about why the screw slack adjuster on the Losmandy rotary axis is inferior to clutched mechanism on the EQ6. There are some very passionate people, but so much is changing so fast that a lot of the forums are best ignored. I enjoyed the challenge of learning it all and taking good photos. I've learned enough to take photos, but not enough to be consistently good. I'm not sure everyone is happy that the hobby is easier to get into. At one time some of these people must've looked like wizards, and now some goon with a 3d printed mount and a cellphone can take betters shots than they could 20 years ago.
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Apr 3, 2023 15:40
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Landscape photography was my gateway about 7 years ago. Eventually one is gonna hit a point where they want to incorporate the milky way or an aurora or an eclipse into a scene and from there it's game over, you're trapped in the rabbit hole. It was capturing meteor showers that triggered getting my first equatorial mount (because aligning all the frames after the fact sucks). My gear is all still super basic but I do have a shopping list as I get funds. It's also soothing to be able to precisely know where something in the sky is going to be and align it with some terrestrial feature without ever visiting the area. Means I can pull up and get the frame without hunting around (a regular problem when taking photos in the day). The national parks that google has high resolution terrain for make this quite fun.. am hoping to be in monument valley for the annular eclipse this October.
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Apr 3, 2023 15:52
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are there any fairly comprehensive guides on how to do astrophotography?
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Apr 3, 2023 15:53
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Achmed Jones posted:are there any fairly comprehensive guides on how to do astrophotography? depends, how many tables of camera specs do you consider comprehensive? Because this guy maintains a truly absurd amount of data here: https://clarkvision.com/
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Apr 3, 2023 15:58
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My big dream is to make a barn door mount for my phone so I can use it to take pictures.
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Apr 3, 2023 16:11
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Jewmanji posted:I’m so envious. Questions for you (and anyone else in the thread with experience): how long have you been in the hobby? Did you come at it from a particular direction (prior experience with astronomy, photography, etc)? Has it been mostly a solo-adventure or have you had mentors/clubs? I got into astronomy when I was 10 years old. That was in 1993. A friend of the family who was a professor at University of Arizona arranged for me and my folks to spend the whole night in the campus observatory, viewing with a 21" Cassegrain. I was completely hooked. I've been a primarily visual observer ever since. Mostly solo endeavor but occasionally get involved in clubs.
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Apr 3, 2023 18:34
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xzzy posted:depends, how many tables of camera specs do you consider comprehensive? zero! i just want a "this is what you need, this is how you put things together, and this is how you do the software thing to make the pretty pictures" guide. for all the reading i did before buying my telescope and a dslr, i didn't find anything saying "oh by the way, you 100% absolutely can't do prime photography with this telescope." and it kind of stings that there's eighty million reviews out there, but nothing thought to mention that i wouldn't be able to take pictures through the danged thing without eyepiece projection, you know? i still have no idea what i should've bought, and it's still not at all clear to me what the best I can do is, whether I could buy an aftermarket equatorial mount if I wanted to, and in general what the space of options is unless I just want to waste $100 at a time on "oh, that didn't work" over and over all that said, the site you linked seems like exactly what I need. I'm looking at his first couple of beginner articles and I think they'll be precisely what I was after. Thank you! e: oh, I have a real question! There's a street light across from my house. Without it, it'd be pretty dark but with it, it's not so great. Is there some way I can figure out what the wavelength is and then get a filter for my camera (or telescope, or whatever) that would eliminate that light? I know I could buy a filter, but I've absolutely no idea which filter I should buy Achmed Jones fucked around with this message at 20:28 on Apr 3, 2023 |
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Apr 3, 2023 20:15
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Achmed Jones posted:zero! i just want a "this is what you need, this is how you put things together, and this is how you do the software thing to make the pretty pictures" guide. for all the reading i did before buying my telescope and a dslr, i didn't find anything saying "oh by the way, you 100% absolutely can't do prime photography with this telescope." and it kind of stings that there's eighty million reviews out there, but nothing thought to mention that i wouldn't be able to take pictures through the danged thing without eyepiece projection, you know? i still have no idea what i should've bought, and it's still not at all clear to me what the best I can do is, whether I could buy an aftermarket equatorial mount if I wanted to, and in general what the space of options is unless I just want to waste $100 at a time on "oh, that didn't work" over and over You could try this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuMZG-SyDCU As for the streetlight, is it blindingly white? If so, it's LED and you're screwed. Otherwise it's either sodium or magnesium. Jewmanji fucked around with this message at 21:22 on Apr 3, 2023 |
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Apr 3, 2023 20:40
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i think it's sodium or magnesium - it's more of a yellow deal. i'll try to remember to take a picture of it tonight thanks for the link - I'll give it a watch!
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Apr 3, 2023 21:02
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Does the thread have a suggestion for an all-rounder color ZWO camera that is (a) available on Amazon US and (b) under $1k ? I see the 533 and 183 are similar price, but don't know much about them otherwise. I'd been avoiding dedicated cameras, and for now still will avoid the mono+filter route, but I have a $1k amazon credit I'd like to use, then quit buying from them for a while. So rather 1 larger purchase than death by a thousand cuts.
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Apr 9, 2023 22:16
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pumped up for school posted:Does the thread have a suggestion for an all-rounder color ZWO camera that is (a) available on Amazon US and (b) under $1k ? I have the 533, I'm quite pleased with it. I find it to be mostly painless to setup anywhere. Initially there was some issues but driver updates took care of them all.
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Apr 10, 2023 01:14
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pumped up for school posted:Does the thread have a suggestion for an all-rounder color ZWO camera that is (a) available on Amazon US and (b) under $1k ? The 533 is a much newer sensor with lots of improvements, including almost no amp glow. The 183 has more and smaller pixels, which is better for some focal lengths, but aside from a need for that, I can't imagine not going with the 533. ASI183MC  ASI533MC  Also its unfortunate that you have to buy from Amazon, both cameras sell for $799 straight from ZWO https://astronomy-imaging-camera.com/product-category/dso-cameras/
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Apr 10, 2023 01:25
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duodenum posted:
I don't HAVE to buy from amzn, I'm just trying to burn some credit and it was a bigger-ticket item I saw I could buy there. I'll sleep on it. At least the 533 is shipped and sold by Agena, I do like them. Thank you both!
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Apr 10, 2023 02:11
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I'm thinking of upgrading to a newtonian, this guy : It looks to be in a sweet spot of what my mount can handle. (Scope is 17 lbs, EQ6 can handle 44 lbs) Beyond a coma corrector, anything else I should be looking at? I've got collimation equipment from the Dob so I should be good there. I really like the looks of the Mak-Newt, but not sure I can justify it.
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Apr 10, 2023 14:16
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 First night out since last October. This is 30 minutes on M3, then my next target hit meridian and for some reason my ASCOM meridian settings were off and it just locked it up. So this was all I had from last night. 30 subs, 60s. With any luck I should have two nights with clear skies. I ordered up a Telegizmos 365 and hope to leave it up for awhile.
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Apr 12, 2023 23:10
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I'm heading to my first dark sky site next month (Katahdin Woods, Maine). I'm very excited. In preparation, I'm looking to buy my first large FOV eyepiece, but I'm struggling to understand what the rate limiting factor is when I'm shopping around. I have a Celestron 1250mm / 6" SCT. Currently the highest TFOV I can achieve with my 32mm Tele Vue Plossl (50 degree AFOV) (https://www.televue.com/engine/TV3b_page.asp?id=51&Tab=EP_EPL-32.0) is 1.28. The TFOV for 1.25" eyepieces seems to cap out at 100 degrees (like a 10mm Tele Vue Ethos, for example). That still only gets me a .8 TFOV. Is the numerator that is represented by my scope's focal length the issue here? I was hoping I could hit 1.6 degrees TFOV, or thereabouts, but it doesn't seem possible? So my only option is to lower the denominator and go for a low mag eyepiece? It seems like with my specs, it's possible to get a nice wide-angle FOV for DSOs, but a wide-angle FOV for planetary viewing just isn't really suited for this? Or is the answer to just couple a higher-mag wide-angle FOV eyepiece with a focal reducer (which I don't yet own)...?
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Apr 23, 2023 20:58
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Instead of getting a focal reducer, get a 2" visual back and diagonal, and get a 40mm Panoptic. 1.8° true field on a C6. Large true field is meaningless on planetary viewing because you want to be zoomed in tight to see fine detail. Magnification and true field of view are inversely proportional. You want a wide true field for deep sky viewing.
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Apr 23, 2023 23:51
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Thanks. I was seeing random posts here and there about planetary viewing that made it seem like it might allow for high magnification, but mitigate the low FOV somewhat (despite the apparent contradiction). Helps to know that I can stick to the low magnification end of things. I certainly can't afford that eyepiece, but I'll try to find something within my budget.
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Apr 24, 2023 01:38
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Jewmanji posted:Thanks. I was seeing random posts here and there about planetary viewing that made it seem like it might allow for high magnification, but mitigate the low FOV somewhat (despite the apparent contradiction). Helps to know that I can stick to the low magnification end of things. I certainly can't afford that eyepiece, but I'll try to find something within my budget. I have an Explore Scientific 68deg 34mm and it is very comfortable (with glasses) and wide, though I've not compared it to a Panoptic or tried to use it in a fast scope. It's about $250 and its 40mm brother is just a little more. It's a good alternative, and it gets 85% of the way to a Tele Vue at about half the price. poo poo, even closer if you're a casual visual observer using an SCT. You can get a 2" visual back and a 2" diagonal separately, or you can get a 2" SCT diagonal (that threads straight onto the scope) for a bit cheaper. You'd be wide(r) field observing for about $400 with the ES 68 40 and the GSO 2" SCT diagonal. edit: oh, and the thing about planetary viewing and FOV is that you don't *need* a 70 degree SWA or 82 degree UWA eyepiece to appreciate viewing planets at high magnification. If you're going to have that planet centered in your view, a devastatingly sharp TV Plossl will do the trick at 52 degrees or whatever, as long as you can track it smoothly. duodenum fucked around with this message at 02:24 on Apr 24, 2023 |
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Apr 24, 2023 02:12
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Did a bit of a wider angle shot of part of the milky way. Nice to have the milky way season start up again. Showing the southern cross over to carina I really need to get some dew control going, this shot was straight up so the lens hood offered no protection 
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Apr 24, 2023 16:03
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For the second time in as many months, last night there were auroral displays over Colorado that were obscured by clouds. gently caress my entire life.
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Apr 24, 2023 18:52
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The path of totality of the 2024 solar eclipse passes over Cleveland and Erie, Pennsylvania, both of which are two hours from Pittsburgh. I have no doubt that it will be cloudy in April. I'm seriously considering going to Texas to see it.
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Apr 24, 2023 19:28
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AstroZamboni posted:For the second time in as many months, last night there were auroral displays over Colorado that were obscured by clouds. gently caress my entire life. There seems to have been a severe geomagnetic storm going on Lots of good pics from it though. https://twitter.com/Astro_Cady/status/1650538094548877314
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Apr 24, 2023 19:46
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Star Man posted:The path of totality of the 2024 solar eclipse passes over Cleveland and Erie, Pennsylvania, both of which are two hours from Pittsburgh. I have no doubt that it will be cloudy in April. I'm seriously considering going to Texas to see it. Texas has the best percentage of clear skies in the US at that time of year (and it's still not great, like 30% or 40%? It's been a while since I checked), and the percentages get worse and worse as it tracks towards the northeast. Unfortunately finding public lands in Texas is hard. The path misses big bend for example which is probably the biggest public area in the state.. the rest is all ranches. There are a handful of small state parks that are in the right spot but I guarantee they are gonna be PACKED. The alternative is to go down into Mexico (and the skies get better) but there's problems with that too. edit - http://xjubier.free.fr/en/site_pages/solar_eclipses/TSE_2024_GoogleMapFull.html - just look at that, the options are terrible xzzy fucked around with this message at 19:53 on Apr 24, 2023 |
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Apr 24, 2023 19:50
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Star Man posted:The path of totality of the 2024 solar eclipse passes over Cleveland and Erie, Pennsylvania, both of which are two hours from Pittsburgh. I have no doubt that it will be cloudy in April. I'm seriously considering going to Texas to see it. We were lucky enough to be in the path of totality for the 2017 eclipse, and it was hands down the coolest natural experience of my life. I think it would be worth the trip to Texas, but you're probably too late to find decent accommodations super close to totality. In Nebraska at least, in 2017, every hotel room in all the tiny towns were reserved at least a year ahead of time. Saw so many people sleeping in their vehicles wherever they could. Enos Cabell fucked around with this message at 20:15 on Apr 24, 2023 |
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Apr 24, 2023 20:12
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AstroZamboni posted:For the second time in as many months, last night there were auroral displays over Colorado that were obscured by clouds. gently caress my entire life. Nearly total overcast here in Minnesota, too. I'm glad I caught the event a month ago!
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Apr 24, 2023 20:32
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Enos Cabell posted:We were lucky enough to be in the path of totality for the 2017 eclipse, and it was hands down the coolest natural experience of my life. I think it would be worth the trip to Texas, but you're probably too late to find decent accommodations super close to totality. In Nebraska at least, in 2017, every hotel room in all the tiny towns were reserved at least a year ahead of time. Saw so many people sleeping in their vehicles wherever they could. The path of totality went over my hometown in Wyoming. I want to see another one something fierce. Mexico may be the better place to go. I've only been there once in 2000 for a day in Nogales. Good thing I have a passport.
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Apr 24, 2023 21:21
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Star Man posted:The path of totality went over my hometown in Wyoming. I want to see another one something fierce. Mexico may be the better place to go. I've only been there once in 2000 for a day in Nogales. Good thing I have a passport. Unfortunately all the locations in Mexico have scary warnings from the US government about crime and gang activity. If you stay in curated tourist areas it'll probably be fine but there are some nasty spots to be aware of.
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Apr 24, 2023 21:26
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I have a feeling I'm going to be pushing up to Erie and hoping for the best. I have about a year before the eclipse, but like negative two years to figure out where to see it and be able to stay.
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Apr 24, 2023 21:33
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Will probably forever be the coolest photos I take.
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Apr 24, 2023 21:42
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 https://eclipsophile.com/2024tse/ That site has an extensive writeup of the average climatology for early April along the track. I happen to have family in Cleveland and the skies close to the lake are slightly clearer than inland, so I'm probably going to take my chances with the weather and stay with them, which makes the transportation and lodging concerns much easier to deal with.
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Apr 24, 2023 23:07
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I'm thinking the national forests in Arkansas or southern Illinois. This track isn't nearly as good for landscape scenery as the 2017 one (unless you roll the dice and do the mountains of Maine) but I'd at least like a shot at not being in a massive crowd. I'm currently eyeing Tall Peak Fire Tower because it's a small hike to get there which maybe means less of a throng. And if the weather is a bust there's some trails nearby to explore. Side note: don't forget there's an annular eclipse in October too. Get that ring of fire! It passes through some excellent remote sites in the southwest US. Also side complaint: how the hell does a state as big as Texas have so little public land? What a hellscape.
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Apr 25, 2023 02:11
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duodenum posted:I have an Explore Scientific 68deg 34mm and it is very comfortable (with glasses) and wide, though I've not compared it to a Panoptic or tried to use it in a fast scope. It's about $250 and its 40mm brother is just a little more. It's a good alternative, and it gets 85% of the way to a Tele Vue at about half the price. poo poo, even closer if you're a casual visual observer using an SCT. Thanks again for the advice. I bought the star diagonal and eyepiece at your recommendation. Unfortunately the Star diagonal is too big for my 6” SCT, it interferes with the focuser and the mount. Dang it 
Jewmanji fucked around with this message at 01:09 on Apr 27, 2023 |
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Apr 27, 2023 00:02
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Jewmanji posted:Thanks again for the advice. I bought the star diagonal and eyepiece at your recommendation. Unfortunately the Star diagonal is too big for my 6” SCT, it interferes with the focuser and the mount. Dang it On your 6SE you would have better served with the focal reducer rather than a 2" diagonal. The baffle opening in the 6SE is only 27mm. The maximum field stop in a 1.25" eyepiece is 27mm. The reason why 2" eyepieces exist is in order to have wider AFOV at mid to low powers you need a field stop greater than 27mm. A 2" eyepiece with a field stop greater than 27mm is just going to produce vignetting and you won't get the full field of view. It might not be too noticeable if an eyepiece's field stop is just a little more than 27mm, but if you were to use a wide field low power eyepiece with a 46mm field stop you'll notice. You're going to be missing a good chunk of your outer viewing area. On SCTs a 2" diagonal is really only worthwhile on the 8" sizes and greater. Even on the 8SE the baffle opening is only 37 or 38mm. As for a 1.25" eyepiece with the widest view and greatest magnification w/o a focal reducer would be either the Explore Scientific 24mm 68 AFOV or the Tele Vue 24mm Panoptic. The former is on sale right now.
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Apr 27, 2023 13:57
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Liquid Chicken posted:On your 6SE you would have better served with the focal reducer rather than a 2" diagonal. The baffle opening in the 6SE is only 27mm. The maximum field stop in a 1.25" eyepiece is 27mm. The reason why 2" eyepieces exist is in order to have wider AFOV at mid to low powers you need a field stop greater than 27mm. A 2" eyepiece with a field stop greater than 27mm is just going to produce vignetting and you won't get the full field of view. It might not be too noticeable if an eyepiece's field stop is just a little more than 27mm, but if you were to use a wide field low power eyepiece with a 46mm field stop you'll notice. You're going to be missing a good chunk of your outer viewing area. On SCTs a 2" diagonal is really only worthwhile on the 8" sizes and greater. Even on the 8SE the baffle opening is only 37 or 38mm. Thanks. I already have a 32mm Tele Vue with a 50 AFOV which yields a 1.28 TFOV versus the above, which would yield 1.30, so that's not a difference worth investing in. I'm getting a bit of conflicting advice as to whether I should a focal reducer or the 2" diagonal, but perhaps AstroZamboni's advice was independent of my particular stats (also I misspoke earlier, my Celestron 5SE has a 5" aperture, not 6" the OTA itself is 6" AstroZamboni posted:Instead of getting a focal reducer, get a 2" visual back and diagonal, and get a 40mm Panoptic. 1.8° true field on a C6. Jewmanji fucked around with this message at 14:36 on Apr 27, 2023 |
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Apr 27, 2023 14:33
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Jewmanji posted:Thanks. I already have a 32mm Tele Vue with a 50 AFOV which yields a 1.28 TFOV versus the above, which would yield 1.30, so that's not a difference worth investing in. The 32mm plossl vs a 24mm 68 AFOV is more dependent on which magnification / exit pupil you want. The 32mm will give you a larger exit pupil, but the 24mm has greater magnification. Depends on what trade off you want. So if you have a 5SE your baffle opening size is only 25mm. A 41mm Panoptic's field stop is 46mm. You can see the problem. You're better off with the focal reducer. 2" diagonal isn't going to do much for you.
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Apr 27, 2023 15:01
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this seems like a good thread to post these: https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/tales-of-the-space-age-21340 https://youtu.be/bQDekKnkTdI
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Apr 27, 2023 17:00
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