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darth cookie posted:For visual astronomy; yes. Also reflectors aren't subject to chromatic aberrations like refractors are (unless you spend big money on an apochromatic refractor).
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Feb 2, 2016 04:54
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Get a scope that accepts 2in eyepieces that has an adaptor to 1.25in. That way you have options. I personally like televue eyepieces but they aren't loving cheap. A couple of plossls would be a fine starting point. The backyard astronomers guide by Terence Dickinson is a fantastic book that covers the technical side of the hobby that I found hugely useful as a complete newbie. It covers visual astronomy and gives a rundown on how photo astronomy works, explains different kinds of telescopes and how they work. How to decide what to buy, how to navigate the sky, how to set up and troubleshoot a scope. Everything. Still the best and most complete astronomy book I own by a wide margin. Carth Dookie fucked around with this message at 05:02 on Feb 2, 2016 |
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Feb 2, 2016 04:58
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I was very excited to get out tonight on the first clear night since Friday. I had my list of objects to look for in both the binoculars and the scope, and big plans to try some piggybacked photos to find out how long I can shoot before I get trails. I was ready. Get set up, dial in polar alignment as best I could, start observing. Not 30 minutes later, everything I own is drenched in dew; eyepieces, objective, OTA tube, camera lenses, binoculars, and backpack. drat you Florida humidity! I have a feeling this is going to be a recurring theme for me. I just want to look at stars man!
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Feb 2, 2016 05:15
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darth cookie posted:Get a scope that accepts 2in eyepieces that has an adaptor to 1.25in. That way you have options.
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Feb 2, 2016 05:32
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Low-Pass Filter posted:I have a feeling this is going to be a recurring theme for me. I just want to look at stars man! Dew shields and special electric heaters. Welcome to the rabbit hole. cheese posted:Ya I bought Nightwatch by the same guy and while its great, I think I should have just gotten that book. Oh well! I bought night watch first too. It's a good basic primer, but the other one cranks it to 11.
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Feb 2, 2016 06:08
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cheese posted:I spent half an hour last night looking at the light polluted sky with a pair of bad binoculars and I think I'm addicted now. Someone help me before I spend all the money. You're doomed. Just make sure you go for quality and a steady mount.
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Feb 2, 2016 06:11
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I went out observing tonight on a whim to see some carbon stars and hit R Leporis and Y CVn (La Superba). Man, they are just spectacularly red. They're gorgeous! R Leporis, being only a couple degrees away from Rigel, is a good target this time of year- definitely worth checking out. I would have also tried S Camelopardalis but I couldn't seem to find it- telescope was fogging up too badly, probably.
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Feb 2, 2016 07:06
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cheese posted:Cool, that's the route I'll go then. Looking at accessory prices, I'm sure I'm going to end up with like 1k bucks worth of eyepieces anyway, so that probably makes getting second telescopes a lot more financially viable. I'll second the recommendation of an 8 inch dob. This past summer I bought: http://www.telescope.com/Gift-Center/Free-Poster-Kit/Orion-SkyQuest-XT8-Classic-Dobsonian-Telescope/c/7/sc/1705/p/102005.uts and it's pretty great. Grab a 2x Barlow or another eyepiece with more magnification(don't go crazy on super high magnification) and go out and try to find some stuff before spending a bunch on eyepieces then floundering around with which to use for viewing different things. I just started playing with my 2 inch eyepiece and it's a big difference in viewing. My only complaint is the red dot finder that came with mine is difficult to line up when objects are higher in the sky.
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Feb 2, 2016 07:58
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Luneshot posted:I went out observing tonight on a whim to see some carbon stars and hit R Leporis and Y CVn (La Superba). Man, they are just spectacularly red. They're gorgeous! R Leporis, being only a couple degrees away from Rigel, is a good target this time of year- definitely worth checking out. I would have also tried S Camelopardalis but I couldn't seem to find it- telescope was fogging up too badly, probably. R Leporis is one of my favorites. Members of my astronomy club refer to it as "the crimson pirate bunny star." I'd also like to lend my support to the 8" dob for the noob. It's easy to use for a beginner, but capable enough to be a lifetime scope.
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Feb 2, 2016 22:11
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Thanks for the advice goons. While refractors are really loving sexy, it just seems to make sense to go with a reflector for the first scope. I will be going to San Jose Astronomical Associations Pinnacles National Park Star Party this Saturday night and hope to get a chance to see through a variety of scopes. I'm also hearing people say "go as big as you can", and a lot of love for the Zhumell 10 and 12 inch models (the 12 inch one for 699 seems like a lot of telescope for the money) but I'm guessing I probably wont have the skill to really use the extra light absorbtion? Either way, the 8 inch for less than 400 looks good.
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Feb 3, 2016 02:20
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cheese posted:Thanks for the advice goons. While refractors are really loving sexy, it just seems to make sense to go with a reflector for the first scope. I will be going to San Jose Astronomical Associations Pinnacles National Park Star Party this Saturday night and hope to get a chance to see through a variety of scopes. I don't think the extra light from the 12 would require extra skill. It would just be bulky and unwieldy. That being said I think you'll really like the 8.
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Feb 3, 2016 02:29
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GutBomb posted:I don't think the extra light from the 12 would require extra skill. It would just be bulky and unwieldy. That being said I think you'll really like the 8.
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Feb 3, 2016 02:45
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cheese posted:Awesome! Still gonna wait to buy anything until after this weekend's star party, but I'm pumped. The bigger it is the easier it is to see things as it absorbs more light. However; the biggest killer in this hobby is setup time. The bigger it is, the more you have to talk yourself into lugging it around and setting up. That's why an 8 inch dob is recommended. It is about where the average person will reliably tolerate dealing with the set up, and has enough aperture that you can see a lot of stuff.
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Feb 3, 2016 03:19
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8 or 10 inches is the sweet spot in portability and light-gathering power. 12 inches get you more light, but is at the limit of being easily portable- my Z12 is about 60 lbs and the size of a house hot water heater. If it's too big to move easily, you'll find yourself not observing just because you don't want to put in the effort to haul the scope out- and at that point you've gone too big.
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Feb 3, 2016 03:33
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I have a 10 inch
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Feb 3, 2016 03:36
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How have people found webcam astronomy of solar system objects with 8 inch dobs? I've been thinking about upgrading to one recently, and even though I would primarily use it for non-photographic astronomy of random faint objects, I have enjoyed photographing planets and craters with my current cheap refractor and so it's something I would like to do on occasion with whatever telescope I upgrade to. To get an idea of what I mean here are some photos I took and I feel like I've hit the hard limit of what a 70mm refractor with cheap optics can do. I have a heavily modified webcam that can fit into any 1.25 eyepiece holder. 
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Feb 3, 2016 04:13
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We borrowed a 12" truss tube dob (skywatcher) for a night on La Palma and it was the most amazing night of visual observing I've ever had. Not sure I'd want to deal with one on a regular basis though, bit bulky. But up there for one night it was worth the trouble. I'm intending on picking up the dob cradle for my old 10" imaging reflector at some point, it's not being used for anything now and it's a nice scope.
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Feb 3, 2016 22:47
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If you're going 12" or more, a truss tube is basically an absolute must. My 12" is a solid steel tube (hence the quite literal comparison to a hot water heater) and it makes it extremely difficult to haul around, both in dimensions and weight. It's totally worth it to pay the extra for the bonus of portability. Observing with a 12" on La Palma sounds fantastic, though- I'd love to do that someday.
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Feb 3, 2016 23:22
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The significant other is balking at the size of the 8" dobsonian for our very small bay area 1 bedroom. Its bad enough that I take up half of one of our pitiful closets with my golf clubs  I may end up with a small refractor or schmidt-whatever because of size.
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Feb 5, 2016 01:25
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The correct answer is to dispose of the golf clubs before you morph into a beige cardigan wearing person with zip up boots.
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Feb 5, 2016 02:14
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What are my options for mounting a camera at prime focus on a cheap 6" reflector with a 1.25" focuser? My focuser assembly looks like this:   I've seen products for 2" focusers that remove the whole eyepiece holder assembly thing and has the t-ring of your camera mount directly to the draw tube, but afaik they won't fit my focuser, and I'm not sure how to search for the right thing that will fit into the draw tube. For reference, the inside diameter of the draw tube is 1-5/8" (approx). I'm open to other focusers if anyone had any recommendations for smaller reflectors; everything I've seen is for 8" or up. The other option is moving the objective mirror further up the tube, right? Can I do this and still focus the eyepieces for visual use? Anything else I'm missing? Mostly just looking to do lunar and possibly solar imaging.
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Feb 5, 2016 03:34
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Low-Pass Filter posted:What are my options for mounting a camera at prime focus on a cheap 6" reflector with a 1.25" focuser? My focuser assembly looks like this: I have a 1.25 adapter and t-ring for my dslr and it works well. You can find the adapter on amazon.
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Feb 5, 2016 05:27
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cheese posted:The significant other is balking at the size of the 8" dobsonian for our very small bay area 1 bedroom. Its bad enough that I take up half of one of our pitiful closets with my golf clubs If you size up to a 10", you can just store the golf clubs INSIDE the tube!
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Feb 5, 2016 13:48
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GutBomb posted:I have a 1.25 adapter and t-ring for my dslr and it works well. You can find the adapter on amazon. Yeah, I've seen this as the "normal" way, but because these reflectors are made for eyepieces with their own focal length, you simply can't bring a camera close enough to focus (at least, this is what I've gathered). I can use a Barlow to get it to work, but if there are options for bringing the camera sensor onto the prime focus, it would make the whole system better and more compact.
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Feb 5, 2016 13:50
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Low-Pass Filter posted:Yeah, I've seen this as the "normal" way, but because these reflectors are made for eyepieces with their own focal length, you simply can't bring a camera close enough to focus (at least, this is what I've gathered). I can use a Barlow to get it to work, but if there are options for bringing the camera sensor onto the prime focus, it would make the whole system better and more compact. Yeah I use a Barlow with mine. Forgot to mention that.
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Feb 5, 2016 15:27
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Back from Day one of Astrofest, where I successfully did not spend a fortune on new kit. I did pick up a dew controller as I don't like running my RC's secondary heater at full power strait off the 12v, and a dew band to go on the Tak FS-60 but that's it.. Highlight of the day was Matt Taylor's Rosetta talk, he's an excellent speaker and well worth seeing if you get the chance. John Spencer on New Horizons also very good.
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Feb 6, 2016 00:09
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Low-Pass Filter posted:If you size up to a 10", you can just store the golf clubs INSIDE the tube! Currently scouring cloudynights and craigslist for a good deal. Was like half an hour too late on a 8" Orion XT used for 200 bucks 
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Feb 6, 2016 00:40
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So spent the evening looking at Jupiter (I think) with my new telescope, which was a birthday present last week. I am hooked I think.
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Feb 6, 2016 22:48
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Emnity posted:So spent the evening looking at Jupiter (I think) with my new telescope, which was a birthday present last week. I am hooked I think. What makes you question if it might not be Jupiter? Here is a picture I took with my iPhone through the eyepiece of my nexstar 4se  It's a bit blown out but see those smaller dots in a line? Those are the moons. Here is an example of what it actually looked like to my eyes (this was done with the same scope but by taking a bunch of short exposure photos with my dslr and stacking them) 
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Feb 6, 2016 23:41
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Emnity posted:So spent the evening looking at Jupiter (I think) with my new telescope, which was a birthday present last week. I am hooked I think. If it was in the evening it almost certainly would have been Jupiter. I think the only other object that could be mistaken for Jupiter is Venus and that's out at dawn right now. GutBomb posted:What makes you question if it might not be Jupiter? Yeah, the 4 Galilean moons are normally visible even at really low magnification (I've seen then through binoculars before). When I take photos of Jupiter I have a look at this website so I can name all the moons in the photo http://www.shallowsky.com/jupiter/ Also, they actually move amazingly fast and if you take a bunch of photos over the course of 3 hours there is visible movement and you could probably even make a timelapse this way. The only way to make them visible on my camera is to overexpose the poo poo out of Jupiter though.
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Feb 7, 2016 02:59
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My only uncertaintly about it being jupiter comes from it being my first ever night of watching with a telescope, plus I have a south facing roof terrace with no sight of the pole star so I was more or less guessing from the star chart and my sextant. It was truly awesome, those pics have confirmed it for me though. My wife was also suitably impressed.
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Feb 7, 2016 10:24
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Went to San Jose Astronomy Assn.'s star party at Pinnacles National Park last night. Was loving awesome and there were probably 50+ people there. It was ridiculously dark (As it was getting dark, we thought Sirius was a plane at first - it was glowing so bright and you could barely look at it with binocs) and you could see so much cool stuff. Pleiades were visible clearly with the naked eye and Orion's Nebulae was pretty awesome even with my 10x50's. The scopes they had setup gave a really good overview of the different types. A 4" APO, a what I'm guessing was a 6" Achro, another huge reflector that I didn't identify (it seemed bigger than 6"), a C11 with fully computerize gadgets, a 10" truss dob and an XT8. It was great getting to see the same objects through different scopes - I was really impressed with how good the 4" refractor and 8" dob held up against the bigger scopes. It not only reinforced my suspicions that I have a new lifelong hobby but the fiance was really into it as well (she actually gasped a couple of times when we saw Andromeda and an amazing double star, wanna say Albiero? Big yellow and smaller cool blue). I'll probably keep my eye on craigslist and other used gear for a few weeks and see what I can snag.
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Feb 7, 2016 21:58
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If it wasn't Albireo, it could have been Gamma Andromedae (Almach). Big yellow star, smaller blue one.
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Feb 7, 2016 23:17
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Emnity posted:My only uncertaintly about it being jupiter comes from it being my first ever night of watching with a telescope, plus I have a south facing roof terrace with no sight of the pole star so I was more or less guessing from the star chart and my sextant. This isn't that big of a disadvantage. Those of us in the Southern Hemisphere have no useful equivalent to the North Star (though we can kinda use the Crux/Southern Cross constellation). If you become vaguely familiar with the current positions of the planets and their approximate rise and set times you can spot them without charts or anything. It helps that they're unusually bright. Also, stars will become a point of light at any magnification if they are completely in focus, whereas planets become obviously disk-like once you get over ~30x magnification. If you're looking for something very beginner friendly that is easy to find, have a look at the Orion Nebula. Literally just holding a crappy point and shoot digital camera up to the eyepiece yielded visible nebulosity for me, so it's definitely one of those objects that you can see just by looking in the eyepiece. 
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Feb 7, 2016 23:55
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Got my first real shot at M42 the other night. Lots of work to do with post processing still, but I'm glad to see what I can get with a piggybacked mirrorless camera and a fairly cheap mount. Piggybacked Canon EOS M 175mm, f6, 1600 ISO. 40 lights at 60 seconds, 15 darks, 25 bias. Stacked in Deep Sky Stacker, processed in Star Tools. This is all so very addicting!
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Feb 8, 2016 04:51
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Very nice! Very similar to an attempt I did recently - mine was at 200mm but I didn't expose as long.  Orion Nebula by James Curbo, on Flickr
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Feb 8, 2016 06:01
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Low-Pass Filter posted:Got my first real shot at M42 the other night. Lots of work to do with post processing still, but I'm glad to see what I can get with a piggybacked mirrorless camera and a fairly cheap mount. So when you say piggyback you mean it's not even going through the scope at all, right? It's just mounted to the scope tube not using the scope's optics? If so that's really impressive. i didn't know a shot was possible like that.
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Feb 8, 2016 18:20
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GutBomb posted:So when you say piggyback you mean it's not even going through the scope at all, right? It's just mounted to the scope tube not using the scope's optics? If so that's really impressive. i didn't know a shot was possible like that. Thats correct; i'm just using a consumer grade 55-250mm telephoto lens. Here's a photo of my setup:  The mount is an Orion EQ-3 with a motor on the RA and that's it. I can get about 60" at 175mm before trailing starts. Honestly, the hardest part is focusing the dang lens, it doesn't have nearly enough granularity to adjust easily. Thats why I backed off the focal length and stopped it down a touch. Planning on printing something that I can slide over the lens to help me focus more cleanly.
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Feb 8, 2016 19:04
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Low-Pass Filter posted:Honestly, the hardest part is focusing the dang lens, it doesn't have nearly enough granularity to adjust easily. If you are not doing so already then I highly recommend using the Canon software, which provides a live view to a laptop along with a bahtinov mask. You can use the software to adjust your focus in very fine steps and the bahtinov mask will easily show you when you are at focus. It also provides the ability to zoom in on a portion of the image which helps you view your focus star a bit better if needs be. That Canon provide such good software control of there cameras via a USB cable without additional purchase is one of the primary reasons they have become quite so popular as astrophotography cameras. And if you want to take a step up then programs like BackyardEOS offer much greater functionality.
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Feb 9, 2016 13:23
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Jekub posted:BackyardEOS My camera (EOS M) isn't supported!  I'm running Magic Lantern for its bulb mode and intervalometer. Now that you mention it though, I'm fairly certain ML has scripting ability to control the AF, so I could spin up a focus aiding script if I got a batinov mask. Probably less cludgy than a 3D printed focus ring.
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Feb 9, 2016 15:07
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