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I wanted to get my 7-year old daughter a telescope for christmas. I was thinking about a $50-ish refractor but ended up deciding against it after talking with a few people, because I guess you can't see crap with a telescope like that and it would be boring and just go into a closet? People here seem happy with theirs, but eh  I ended up rethinking the gift and decided on a 4.5" reflector instead, that will now be a gift to the whole family. I ended up ordering Celestron AstroMaster 114 with the equitorial mount and tracking motor. I hope it's not a mistake. Wish I'd have remembered this thread was here, or I'd have asked here first!I took an astronomy course as a kid and still have my old star charts, but I know little else. We tracked the ISS a few months ago which was awesome, and I can find a handful of constellations from memory, but I've never tried to find any galaxies. My area (Hampton Roads, VA) is light polluted all to hell, which hurts. I imagine the video with the telescope will talk about setting it up, but what's the best way to find planets and galaxies to look at? grover fucked around with this message at 23:16 on Dec 5, 2009 |
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Dec 5, 2009 23:13
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 01:36 |
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That's awesome! Should I be able to see colorful nebula in a 114mm reflector? We had our new telescope out the other night, but were having trouble aiming it, and though we saw many stars that weren't visible to the naked eye, couldn't see anything like google sky seems to suggest we should see.
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Dec 31, 2009 19:22
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INTJ Mastermind posted:Does anyone have experience with the Celestron AstroMaster 130 EQ? I'm leaning towards it over the Orion XT6 / XT8.  I got it through telescopes.com for IIRC $139 with the motor, but we haven't put the motor on yet.Unfortunately, I don't have a point of comparison to say whether it's good or bad, but no major complaints besides the spotting scope sucking.
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Jan 18, 2010 23:28
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Jekub posted:Some new stuff from me, though nothing amazing as I've been mostly getting to grips with my new mount over the last couple of months.
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May 21, 2010 22:11
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I happened by an old observatory the other day. Saw some awesome clocks and some old telescopes I guess I was expecting something a bit more grand; the austerity of the British Royal Observatory really astounded me. For instance, Sir Edmond Halley had this telescope mounted facing south to measure the height of stars above the horizon. Was his most sophisticated telescope. Was simple, but effective... however, it was another 28 years before they could afford to have a 2nd such telescope to allow them to view north, too.  Did I mention how awesome the Harrison clocks were? 
grover fucked around with this message at 00:02 on Sep 23, 2010 |
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Sep 23, 2010 00:00
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This is the last week to see a space shuttle in orbit 
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Jul 8, 2011 17:33
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Cassini took an awesome shot of a solar eclipse behind Saturn: NASA posted:In the shadow of Saturn, unexpected wonders appear. The robotic Cassini spacecraft now orbiting Saturn drifted in giant planet's shadow for about 12 hours in 2006 and looked back toward the eclipsed Sun. Cassini saw a view unlike any other. First, the night side of Saturn is seen to be partly lit by light reflected from its own majestic ring system. Next, the rings themselves appear dark when silhouetted against Saturn, but quite bright when viewed away from Saturn, slightly scattering sunlight, in this exaggerated color image. Saturn's rings light up so much that new rings were discovered, although they are hard to see in the image. Seen in spectacular detail, however, is Saturn's E ring, the ring created by the newly discovered ice-fountains of the moon Enceladus and the outermost ring visible above. Far in the distance, at the left, just above the bright main rings, is the almost ignorable pale blue dot of Earth.
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Sep 5, 2011 19:28
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 01:36 |
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Would they be eliminated if the mirror was mounted to a glass plate instead of on vanes?
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Jun 27, 2012 22:51
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