ASTRONOMY

[thms]

wow cool the moon looks good

[Richie]

yay i finally got faint banding through cam (2 faint dark lines) now it actually looks like jupiter and not just a ball with no detail





can only get moons to show on my webcam if i up the gain and exposure which turns it into a white mess


(Europa - Ganymede - Io) Callisto is next to Io but you can't see it because jupiter's shadow is blocking it atm

k im done with videos for now ill try get better quality stuff once i get my barlow and when saturn is in a better position

I'm tempted to get a telescope to see what's like but I wouldn't want to spend a fortune + im not sure if it'd be hard to see certain things as i'm in the city, might be too bright hmm, any suggestions?

[Stephen]

well my 5 inch telescope is this one http://www.firstlightoptics.com/begi...-flextube.html

http://www.lightpollutionmap.info/ is good to check light pollution I live in a light orange/yellow area so quite bad but not major city bad

planets aren't really affected by light pollution but atmospheric turbulence can mess up focus. Like tonight I quickly had a look at jupiter and even though the north and south equatorial belts were in view the planet started wobbling in and out of focus. Looking through a 5 inch scope looks like my last jupiter pic but alot brighter with the brown n+s belts popping in and out of view and the moons in a line next to the planet (plus the wobbly focus)

also you need to remember that galaxies, nebula and globular clusters will just look like faint fuzzy shapes of smoke (ive only seen orion nebula, hercules cluster and a few open clusters) not had any success with galaxies with this size scope.. anddd averted vision is needed more with this scope too (looking slightly away from the object to see it better out of the corner of your eye)

imo unless you're doing serious astrophotography (them colourful galaxy/nebula pics which are taken with hour long exposures using equipment that costs £2k+) you aren't gonna visually see amazingggggg things, it's more like a "wow that faint smoke is another galaxy millions of light years away" kind of thing

another thing is if you are trying to find deep sky objects then the moon is your worst friend as it washes out everything except close open clusters and planets (although I had a great view of the orion nebula the other day during the full moon)

ANOTHER THING is the eyepiece I use to view planets cost me £49, the filter which slightly reduces light pollution and brings out more contrast in some planets cost me £44 and the barlow that I'm buying to further magnify views of planets + hopefully get better webcam pics with is costing another £40+

expensive hobby when the accessories cost more than the scope + you get what you pay for

.... i heard local astronomy clubs are a good way to see if you might be interested in astronomy

[Explorator]

You can see the rings on Saturn, looks good!

[Lindsey]

omg this is so cool! I remember my dad having a telescope when I was younger.

[The Don]

Taken any more pics @Stephen;? Looks like a really fascinating hobby. Love browsing the pics at /r/astrophotography but obviously as you said their equipment costs thousands of pounds.

[Stephen]

nah i think i've done my best i can do atm also the weather is ****

I've got a 2.25x barlow lens on the way though so hopefully will be able to get a better shot of saturn soon

[Stephen]

second pic messed up the white balance

[Stephen]

[Gina]

wow loving those most recent pics u get some pretty +rep for them