Any amateur astronomers here?

Just curious if there are any amateur astronomers here? I have an 8" reflector but haven't used it in a few years. I need to adjust the secondary "spider vane" mirror before using it again.

I was sitting outside looking at the stars and got out an old book "Friendly Guide To The Universe" to read. It's a real hassle using a telescope where I live due to ambient light, clouds and trees and due to the weight and time involved in setting up the telescope each time. Still, when I used to use it occasionally it was interesting.

It made reading the above mentioned book more interesting as well. I remember locating and viewing the Ring Nebula. Today reading the book I see that it is approximately 2,300 light-years from Earth. For comparison Saturn is less than 1 light hour from Earth.

Anyone actively pursuing amateur astronomy at the moment?

I do plenty of naked-eye astronomy almost every night; if you happen to have a smart phone or tablet PC, I'd highly recommend an astronomy app with sighting ability, so you can just point your device at some portion of the sky and have it tell you exactly what you're looking at. This is an exponentially faster and more efficient way to figure out what you're looking at than any book. Some of these programs can also tell you what satellite you're seeing if you catch one.

I don't have a smart phone but I do have a skywatching programing on my PC. I wasn't using the book for object finding. I was just sitting outside at night with my headlamp basically just reading the book.

Just another naked eye astronomer here. Used to have a cheap refractor, but no longer. I've always paid some attention to the night sky. In grade school I always wanted to be a real astronomer. Finally saw the ISS a couple times a few weeks ago.

Geoff

gcbryan said:

Just curious if there are any amateur astronomers here? I have an 8" reflector but haven't used it in a few years. I need to adjust the secondary "spider vane" mirror before using it again.

I was sitting outside looking at the stars and got out an old book "Friendly Guide To The Universe" to read. It's a real hassle using a telescope where I live due to ambient light, clouds and trees and due to the weight and time involved in setting up the telescope each time. Still, when I used to use it occasionally it was interesting.

It made reading the above mentioned book more interesting as well. I remember locating and viewing the Ring Nebula. Today reading the book I see that it is approximately 2,300 light-years from Earth. For comparison Saturn is less than 1 light hour from Earth.

Anyone actively pursuing amateur astronomy at the moment?

Click to expand...

If your 8" reflector is too heavy and difficult to setup, you can try a Maksutov-Cassegrain or Schmidt-Cassegrain scope from Meade. Most of their models have auto alignment and a GOTO controller, just key in the object name and you are good to go.

Oh! Don't discount out a good pair of binoculars...

When I was in HS I spent hundreds of hours with my 8" reflector and knew how to naked eye most of the bigger / brighter deep sky objects and locate them. I vividly recall watching Io's shadow traverse Jupiter's surface one night and how excited the neighbor's were to watch it.

I lost interest because you can only zoom in on so many moon fuzzy moon craters, and even Saturn gets old after awhile. Deep sky objects are more interesting, IMHO, and as per above a pair of 80mm binoculars will smoke a 14" Schmidt-Cass at a fraction the price.

Currently looking for a inexpensive tracking platform for my dSLR for some deep sky work.

blasterman said:

When I was in HS I spent hundreds of hours with my 8" reflector and knew how to naked eye most of the bigger / brighter deep sky objects and locate them. I vividly recall watching Io's shadow traverse Jupiter's surface one night and how excited the neighbor's were to watch it.

I lost interest because you can only zoom in on so many moon fuzzy moon craters, and even Saturn gets old after awhile. Deep sky objects are more interesting, IMHO, and as per above a pair of 80mm binoculars will smoke a 14" Schmidt-Cass at a fraction the price.

Currently looking for a inexpensive tracking platform for my dSLR for some deep sky work.

Click to expand...

Good idea. I have a pair of binoculars as well as a nice spotter scope on one of the telescopes that comes off easily.

I had quite an interest some years ago but that faded quickly because of the actions of both my neighbors. Both my neighbors have extremely bright dusk till dawn lights installed, the closest neighbor has two, one of which shines directly into my home. I've thought about legal action but I'm one of those guys who isn't a pushover, but at the same time I will go at any lengths to avoid any kind of trouble. I have asked very politely on certain nights if I could have one of them shut off for a few moments while I tested my new Minox 8X44 BD BP binoculars. No, it doesn't have a switch I was told. Mmm, yet anytime a vacation is taken the lights are magically shut off everynight. There are various spots outside the city that one can go to but I really don't have the time to go driving to a dark spot everytime I feel the urge to have a quick look.

That is a problem. I don't want to go driving anywhere either. I can generally get to a spot in my backyard where there are no direct lights but I live in a city and there is light pollution everywhere of course.

I also live in a cloudy city. Still I tried out some cheap (and therefore smaller) binoculars the other night and it was fun. When the clouds move away I can pull them out and when they come back I don't have to spend all that time packing up my telescope.

As someone mentioned after you see Saturn, Jupiter, and some nebula a telescope doesn't do more for you in many ways than binoculars. With light pollution there are times when there aren't that many stars visible but with binoculars that does change.

Also with binoculars you can look at the polar stars without breaking your back or neck if you just lay down on a lounge chair.

i only do some star gazing using ordinary binoculars...but i've been contemplating buying a telescope for some time without really having the funds because i still have to pay for school..anyhow..astronomy can be pretty cool & rewarding if u have the right knowledge and patience...then there's the equipment envy for some(just like flashlights go) that will simply destroy your back account unless u have a really deep pocket..so yeah. just get out there in some dark area without much light pollution(red flashlight?) and bring a good celestial map and well..observe!

Here's an interesting irony between the two interest i.e. astronomy vs flashlights. One go out to seek darkness to observe heaven while the other go out to seek darkness and light it up!

With a small Maksutov-Cassegrain (e.g. ETX series from Meade), you can actually set it up on your patio table in your backyard. But if you live in a light polluted place then you are out of luck.

For casual observation, binoculars are fine but for more serious stuff, nothing beats a good scope.

Lounge chair? You need one of these:

I love astronomy, I was into it heavily back in '01. I used binoculars alot and bought a 6" dobsonian reflector. I found 80 something of the messier objects. I read and read and read and of course observed. Although I forgotten some specifics I can still recognize and spot most of the objects. I enjoyed star hopping to find hard to see objects, I have always thought the go-to scopes took something essential out of the mix. I still love to look up....

I learned a little bit today and it's only loosely related to astronomy I was on my deck in the sun reading an astronomy book. I had some binoculars nearby. I noticed a bird at the top of a tree in the distance and stopped reading every now and then and looked at it with the binoculars.

Later I began wondering exactly how they can stay up there in the wind without ever falling and then wondering how they could do that and sleep.

In the days before the internet that's where it would end as I wouldn't care enough to pursue it further I'm also a rock climber so I was thinking about their strength to weight ratio, low center of gravity, balance, etc.

It turns out the answer is that they have a tendon in their foot that automatically locks when they are resting on their feet including when they are sleeping. When they stand up to fly off it automatically releases.

That's my lesson (learned) for today

It's also indirectly the answer to a lot of those human/animal questions we can come up with. We usually wonder how animals do something such as seals staying under water for so long or marine birds staying under water for so long (I'm a diver as well)
The answer is always that they aren't doing something the way we would have to do it. Their bodies have different adaptations to allow them to do those things but in a different way than we would have to do them.

Anyway, I learned something new today

Don't forget your fun astronomy facts; like the fact that all the stars in the night sky are at wildly different distances, so if you were to move your position in space a few light years in any direction, it would completely mangle all the constellations as we've known them on Earth (and good luck having to rewrite all of astrology.) Since all the stars are moving one direction or another, this also includes your position in time.

Yeah, that's the whole concept of relative brightness vs absolute brightness. Some of the brightest stars as we view them are average stars that just happen to be close to us.

I read about one interesting space object today. It's distinction is that it's moving at 25% of the speed of light. A speed that is unheard of with any other known object in the universe (other than light of course)

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I noticed tonight that although binoculars are more convenient and work out pretty well for looking at stars/constellations but for looking at the Moon and planets it's less than ideal since you can never hold them steady.

Magnification isn't an issue with stars even though there is still some noticeable motion involved with the binoculars but with the Moon and planets it becomes annoying fast.

If you can sit in a comfortable chair or some position where you can steady the binoculars a bit it's not too bad but living in the city I have to move from (awkward) spot to spot to avoid lights, trees and sometimes I'm just standing.

I still like the binocular solution but it's much better for star watching than for planet watching. I was looking at Jupiter tonight but I couldn't make out any of the moons which I'm sure was because of (my) movement.

Yes I'm an amateur astronomer. This is one of my cyclic interests, peaking every few years, then falling off again for a while, however it always comes back.

I have done a lot of reading on the biology of the eye and about retaining dark adapted vision and have many ultra low light capable torches. The Photon Freedom Micro, Nitecore IFD2, Quark AA (though this is a bit bright), PAL light with glow mode, and a Skywatcher Dual beam astronomy torch.

I don't see a confilct between torches and astronomy, it is just another specialist application for torches, it just happens to want ultra-dim torches

Mostly since I don't see dark skies as much as I once did, I'm more amateur than I used to be. At one point I could name a lot of the brighter stars and identify the visible planets by their appearance using the naked eye, and I always knew when something like an eclipse (partial, lunar) was going to happen. Now I've lost most of that and darn it having realised that I'm gonna get it back! All except for the dark skies, that ain't gonna get better.

A whole new section of sky opened up to me last night, since the street light in front of the house has quit working. It makes playing with flashlights better, too. Hope the town takes their time fixing it.

Geoff