Practicing with my telescope

[fumei]

Originally Posted by TBman

Nice shot.

I used to drool over the telescopes advertised in Sky and Telescope years ago. Some of the scopes built by other readers were amazing too.

I had a 60mm refractor but I was still able to see the rings of Saturn. I had to go to an industrial park at 2 in the morning to get good seeing. I had company too it turned out. A police officer stopped to see what the heck I was doing there at 2 am. Once he saw my telescope, binoculars and books he understood right away.

I read years ago that if you use a red light to read by it won't kill your night vision. Have you tried that?

Yes, a red light is essential when looking at stuff (star charts mostly for those of us ancients, as it was pre-computer). You will get your butt whuopped at a star party if you use white light. It is not so critical for those ONLY doing imaging. That is, they never actually look through the telescope. Still, all of the imagers I know use red light. Because you do have to look through optical stuff at times. And using one does keep your night vision, and does keep any others happy. BTW, it appears that the ancient use of red light may be slightly off. It seems that AMBER light is actually better. For those who like technical original data sources...

http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/c...IF&classic=YES

I too had an interaction with a police officer once. I was on the California coast to photograph the Venus transit of the Sun. It would be the only one I see in my lifetime. Venus is the big round dot, and the others are sunspots.



I was doing a pre-event check of location and gear about three days before the transit. I was set up in the parking lot of a wee park - really just a trailhead for the trails along the cliffs above the ocean. I was doing fine adjustments when I saw a CHP patrol car zooming up the long driveway to the parking lot. Oh-oh.

I made sure to stand away from the gear with my hands clearly in view and away from my body. He actually got out with his hand on his holster. It took a few minutes to explain, being cheerful and open. And inviting him back three days later to come and see. I did not realize I was not very far from an air force base. And the gear did, sort of, look like a mortar, sort of. So I get his interest.

He did come back three days later.

I really have to say that I am very impressed with the photos you are taking. WAY better than I have ever done. I would have loved to have got a Jupiter shot like that. I am a bit jealous. Please keep posting!!

[Kerbie]

robj... the shot of Jupiter and the two moons is incredible! Awesome.

[Dru Edwards]

Wow, what a fantastic shot. Great story with the officer, especially with him dropping by again. Guessing he had taken your license plate number and if you didn't show up 3 days later you would have been visited at home.

Originally Posted by fumei

Yes, a red light is essential when looking at stuff (star charts mostly for those of us ancients, as it was pre-computer). You will get your butt whuopped at a star party if you use white light. It is not so critical for those ONLY doing imaging. That is, they never actually look through the telescope. Still, all of the imagers I know use red light. Because you do have to look through optical stuff at times. And using one does keep your night vision, and does keep any others happy. BTW, it appears that the ancient use of red light may be slightly off. It seems that AMBER light is actually better. For those who like technical original data sources...

http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/c...IF&classic=YES

I too had an interaction with a police officer once. I was on the California coast to photograph the Venus transit of the Sun. It would be the only one I see in my lifetime. Venus is the big round dot, and the others are sunspots.



I was doing a pre-event check of location and gear about three days before the transit. I was set up in the parking lot of a wee park - really just a trailhead for the trails along the cliffs above the ocean. I was doing fine adjustments when I saw a CHP patrol car zooming up the long driveway to the parking lot. Oh-oh.

I made sure to stand away from the gear with my hands clearly in view and away from my body. He actually got out with his hand on his holster. It took a few minutes to explain, being cheerful and open. And inviting him back three days later to come and see. I did not realize I was not very far from an air force base. And the gear did, sort of, look like a mortar, sort of. So I get his interest.

He did come back three days later.

I really have to say that I am very impressed with the photos you are taking. WAY better than I have ever done. I would have loved to have got a Jupiter shot like that. I am a bit jealous. Please keep posting!!

[robj144]

Originally Posted by fumei

That is fabulous; really really good. Is that a third moon to the lower left? Do you have an exact time the shot was taken (give or take an hour or so)? It would be fairly easy to identify if it is a third moon. It certainly looks like it could be as it is in the same plane as the other two. AND that it is bright enough to actually register some pixels.

Here is a link to a Jupiter Moon locator:

https://skyandtelescope.org/wp-conte...s/jupiter.html

Thanks a lot. Yeah, I think it is another moon. I can track down when it was shot, but I have to look at the file not on this computer.

I want to magnify more, but with a 6 inch, I don't think I can get that much closer without losing detail. I think that's probably around the best magnification. Although, I think that's 150x, so I can go a little further.

It's been cloudy here so I haven't been able to experiment more recently. It'll probably be bad for the next few days as well.

[robj144]

Originally Posted by fumei

Yes, a red light is essential when looking at stuff (star charts mostly for those of us ancients, as it was pre-computer). You will get your butt whuopped at a star party if you use white light. It is not so critical for those ONLY doing imaging. That is, they never actually look through the telescope. Still, all of the imagers I know use red light. Because you do have to look through optical stuff at times. And using one does keep your night vision, and does keep any others happy. BTW, it appears that the ancient use of red light may be slightly off. It seems that AMBER light is actually better. For those who like technical original data sources...

http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/c...IF&classic=YES

I too had an interaction with a police officer once. I was on the California coast to photograph the Venus transit of the Sun. It would be the only one I see in my lifetime. Venus is the big round dot, and the others are sunspots.



I was doing a pre-event check of location and gear about three days before the transit. I was set up in the parking lot of a wee park - really just a trailhead for the trails along the cliffs above the ocean. I was doing fine adjustments when I saw a CHP patrol car zooming up the long driveway to the parking lot. Oh-oh.

I made sure to stand away from the gear with my hands clearly in view and away from my body. He actually got out with his hand on his holster. It took a few minutes to explain, being cheerful and open. And inviting him back three days later to come and see. I did not realize I was not very far from an air force base. And the gear did, sort of, look like a mortar, sort of. So I get his interest.

He did come back three days later.

I really have to say that I am very impressed with the photos you are taking. WAY better than I have ever done. I would have loved to have got a Jupiter shot like that. I am a bit jealous. Please keep posting!!

Awesome shot! Eventually I'll do solar, but that'll be later.

[robj144]

Originally Posted by Dru Edwards

Another fantastic pic, Rob! I'm so impressed. I had to clean off the lint from my screen to see the moons, lol.

You mentioned you have a 6" Celestron. What's the exact model?

Thanks Dru! It's 6SE. Not that expensive at all.

[Dru Edwards]

Originally Posted by robj144

Thanks Dru! It's 6SE. Not that expensive at all.

Costco Canada has it for $1049 CAD. Did it come with the base/tripod? It mentions a database of stars/planets/etc. You can just hit some buttons and it'll find the object for you?

[robj144]

Originally Posted by Dru Edwards

Costco Canada has it for $1049 CAD. Did it come with the base/tripod? It mentions a database of stars/planets/etc. You can just hit some buttons and it'll find the object for you?

I got mine on sale in the US, but I think that's the usual price. Yeah, it can track automatically, but you first need to point it at 3 stars in three different regions of the sky. It was full moon when I got it and other stars were hard to see, so I didn't try that. Plan on doing that next, but it'll be bad weather here or a while again.