New telescope

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pab
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Re: New telescope

Post by pab »

Knappo (and anyone else in SA, especially in our area), if you're interested, the Astronomical Society of SA has a Friday night once a month where they setup telescopes at the Heights school for people to see. Costs $8 for adults and a couple of dollars for kids, I took my kids along last month (was a clear night, but bloody cold!), they setup around 10 or so member owned telescopes aimed at different things for you to wander around and look through, then in groups you go into the dome and they show you a few things in the larger scope. We saw Jupiter (as well as 4 of it's moons), Saturn, closeups of the moon, as well as a number of star clusters (which I immediately forgot the names of). My nephew is one of the students who lead the viewing sessions.

If you decide to go, get there early, the viewing sessions in the dome are ordered on when you pay for tickets, so the earlier you get there the earlier you get in. They list the dates on their website, and they make last minute calls on whether the events go ahead (based on cloud cover) on their facebook account.
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Re: New telescope

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That would be good to go to.

I did base my choice of scope based upon an astronomical society's photo exhibit here in town about 5 years ago. Their photos were tagged with what scope they used and they had the scopes on display. Couldn't use them so I based it upon what photo's I liked best.
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Re: New telescope

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pab wrote:Knappo (and anyone else in SA, especially in our area), if you're interested, the Astronomical Society of SA has a Friday night once a month where they setup telescopes at the Heights school for people to see. Costs $8 for adults and a couple of dollars for kids, I took my kids along last month (was a clear night, but bloody cold!), they setup around 10 or so member owned telescopes aimed at different things for you to wander around and look through, then in groups you go into the dome and they show you a few things in the larger scope. We saw Jupiter (as well as 4 of it's moons), Saturn, closeups of the moon, as well as a number of star clusters (which I immediately forgot the names of). My nephew is one of the students who lead the viewing sessions.

If you decide to go, get there early, the viewing sessions in the dome are ordered on when you pay for tickets, so the earlier you get there the earlier you get in. They list the dates on their website, and they make last minute calls on whether the events go ahead (based on cloud cover) on their facebook account.

Awesome, I reckon I have to do this.

My twins constantly sing the planets names in order like they are reciting the alphabet.
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Re: New telescope

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So I have the gear to take photos and tried Jupiter tonight and didn't have much luck. I got it in the live view of my camera looking through a 15 mm wide angle eye piece and I just watched it march out of view fast. I could focus and see it well but the pic was very dark. The tripod that I have is not made for tracking stuff so any movement and it all shook like crazy. It took over 1/2 an hour just to see Jupiter in live view, so much fucking around. But I should have luck with anything other than planets. They just move too fast for my tripod to get pics.
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Re: New telescope

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Saturn looks nice. I was catching it through cloud breaks and the 15 mm wide is becoming my favourite eye piece. I wasn't fast enough with the 6 mm to get in tight but at 15 the rings looked as one and they and the planet looked white.

She was at this angle at 11 pm Culburra Beach time
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Re: New telescope

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Well... its Jupiter and so much swearing and anger went into this one crappy pic. I got a lot to learn :sadbanana:

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Re: New telescope

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Made it a bit better and you can see some of the moons and some faint bands in the planet. Might be a bit too yellow though but I don't think I can get it much better. The bugger moves so fast so it was hard to catch. This was a 15 mm wide angle eye piece and a barlow.

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Re: New telescope

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Nice image. Can see the bands and the moons. The costs and technicalities of taking photos using a telescope seem to me to be such a big step up from observing. But its hard to show people how awesome it is to see Saturn or Jupiter. I set up our small scope on a good night and tried to let my sister see Saturn. Every time I got it just right she'd bump the table, or grab the scope. Hopeless.
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Re: New telescope

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A part of my problem is my tripod is cheap and has worm gears with cable controls for pitch and yaw. So trying to get Jupiter on the live view of the camera was harder than just observing through an eye piece. I think my red dot finder is way out again. But the added weight of the camera and extensions needed cause it all to wobble so much. So I had to get Jupiter at the top of the live view, let the scope settle from the wobbles then get the shot as it crossed the centre of the live view.

But you are right about how awesome it is Smiths to see these planets. My pic can't do it justice as the camera is limited and our own eye's are so much better. Even looking at star is awesome. I was looking at Saturn on Saturday night and Antares which is close by. Antares poured so much light down my scope, the other stars were hard to see. Then I looked straight into the cloud that is the Milky Way and I've never seen so many points of light in my life. It blew my mind but it's hard to convey that to people unless they get in behind the scope and touch nothing but just look and stay on the eye piece.

What can fix some of my photo issues besides more practice is a motorised tripod but that's a grand. For $1500 I can get a 127/1500 Cassegrain on a go to mount. My scope is only a 120/600 refractor. So I guess I have a shopping list for next year.
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Re: New telescope

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Great stuff Doc. :yes:
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Re: New telescope

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Fark it's frustrating trying to take photos. Anything at a high angle on the mount I have, well as I just spent an hour finding out, it's useless! I'm talking about an 85 degree angle and with a eye angle eye piece, the moon looked amazing but there are clouds about. As soon as I attach the camera the scope has moved and when I did find the moon, I couldn't focus, needed the longer t adapter. Then lost the moon again and finally clouds fucked me over.

Brilliant observing scope and what you see is amazing, the jewel box is gorgeous, but taking photos... :bang:
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Re: New telescope

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Dr. Pain wrote:Brilliant observing scope and what you see is amazing, the jewel box is gorgeous, but taking photos... :bang:
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Re: New telescope

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Your half bottle wine prophecy got me back out tonight and I had much better results. Helps if I use the right camera settings but it was a big step forward. :)
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Re: New telescope

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Re: New telescope

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My housemate is looking for one. We have been doing some reading for the last month or so. We would like to use something we can image with, which means the mount alone is up around the $2000 mark.
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Re: New telescope

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Damn! That's cheap! I need to get a 90 degree diagonal for mine as being so long it's a pain in the neck for me to use but that scope is the same 102 mm but double the focal length for the same money, with a motorised mount...

Fuck! :(
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Re: New telescope

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DexterPunk wrote:My housemate is looking for one. We have been doing some reading for the last month or so. We would like to use something we can image with, which means the mount alone is up around the $2000 mark.
What does that mean?
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Re: New telescope

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Extreme close ups of Uranus :rofl:
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Re: New telescope

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norbs wrote:
DexterPunk wrote:My housemate is looking for one. We have been doing some reading for the last month or so. We would like to use something we can image with, which means the mount alone is up around the $2000 mark.
What does that mean?

Meaning, a mount and tube that’s able to have a camera mounted using a T-mount, and track for long exposures. A lot of the tracking equatorial goto mounts use stepping motors and aren’t necessarily good enough for imaging nebulae or planets etc. it’s not so much of an issue if you just piggy back off the tube. I have a 60D here that’s sort of faulty, but I don’t think will be hard to get working... I might have a go at taking the IR barrier filter off that.


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Re: New telescope

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Ah, so imaging is Gen Y speak for photography? :D
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Re: New telescope

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I’d say astrophotography falls under ‘imaging’. Not sure what generation has to do with it but even old bastards like you use the word imaging fairly frequently in the industry. I’m also Gen X.


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Re: New telescope

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I'd probably buy that telescope, looks like a very decent one, were we not living right under a street-lamp, another shining bright from the next street at the back. There's no stargazing here. Bugger.
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Re: New telescope

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DexterPunk wrote:I’d say astrophotography falls under ‘imaging’. Not sure what generation has to do with it but even old bastards like you use the word imaging fairly frequently in the industry. I’m also Gen X.


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I wonder if it is a academia thing. I asked 5 people I know in photography and none of them call it imaging.

Gen X. For some reason I thought you were 30.
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Re: New telescope

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In medicine they call it imaging such as x-rays, MRI, CT scans.
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Re: New telescope

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I'd have thought the term imaging makes sense when you're not capturing visible wavelengths. Once visible, I reckon it becomes photography.

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