Astronomy

[EJG1980]

Fantastic stuff! It was clear here too, I was all set to get outside as soon as the football finished... by which time it was completely clouded over I'm gonna get a clear night eventually, all I have to do is learn some kind of voodoo weather dance!

[yesteryeargames]

Sadly i am having to have the scope sent back tomorrow for a repair i had a quick last go on it tonight , its less than 2 weeks old and i descoverd a broken bit in the second mirror spider bit( it was like that from day 1 but i only just noticed )


First light optics have agreed to pick it up tomorrow to look at if they cant fix will send a new one.

[EJG1980]

Agh, that must be bloody annoying! I've used FLO a few times though and they've always had good service so hopefully you shouldn't be out of astronomical action for too long.

Thought I'd upload this after seeing your Jupiter photo. It's a quick video I took in September 2011 using a webcam attached directly to my telescope. Not a bad view of something that's half a billion miles away

[yesteryeargames]

That's really cool , did you you a modded Xbox cam, I have just bought a cheap one and am going to give it a try.

[EJG1980]

It's a Philips SPC880 (flashed with the SPC900 firmware) fitted with a 1.25inch telescope adaptor that I bought from Morgan Computers a couple of years ago. It was highly recommended on astronomy forums as the sensor is meant to be very sensitive.

[EJG1980]

After recovering from the shock of having some clear skies this evening, I had another go at the Orion Nebula. I managed to get more of the nebular to show up this time, but I'm not sure if the centre is quite as sharp as last time.



Hopefully I'll have another clear night tomorrow. I'm gonna spend as much time as possible trying to get my polar alignment right, with a bit of luck I should be able to improve on the above

Edit: had another go at processing the image and got it looking better. Slightly noisier than my first attempt but I've got more detail and sharpness in the clouds of gas.

[KIT786]

wow, you were able to that through a telescope! Have always wanted to get a telescope but think live in a too lit up area to make much use of one

[EJG1980]

Unfortunately it only looks like that using a camera attached to the telescope and a long exposure time. Look at it though my telescope with my eyes and it looks like a tiny, fuzzy, cloudy white patch

I'm on the outskirts of greater London, only 15 minutes from Wembley, so there's a fair bit of light pollution here (not as bad as central London thankfully!) but even with that you'd be surprised at the kind of things you can see through even a modest telescope.

[EJG1980]

Going on holiday for a week in May to a cottage in the middle of Exmoor National Park. Exmoor is an International Dark Sky Reserve and on a clear night the sky is meant to be absolutely stunning. If it's a a cloud free week I'm going to be wetting myself with excitement every night

[yesteryeargames]

Amazing pic,

Yeh only a cloudy and black and white sadly,

I managed to find the crab nebula, although it was justa very faint smudge , would a filter help bring it out ?
I and found a nice
double star at the top of gemini.

then the clouds came Grrrrrrrrr :S

[EJG1980]

That double star (Castor) is meant to be on of the best you can see. Albiero in Cygnus is my favourite though as one star is yellow and the other blue, the contrast between the two colours is beautiful. Sadly it's the wrong time of year for it right now, even by 6PM when it's not fully dark it's too low in the sky for me to see from here.

[yesteryeargames]

Are you going to try and see the asteroid next week? I bet it's cloudy :S

[yesteryeargames]

Took these with the iphone last night, my first proper view of saturn on a clear night , blown away it looked much better than in those pictures

[EJG1980]

Those are great shots considering it's just an iPhone being held up to the eyepiece. You can't beat the naked eye view though, I don't think it's possible to get tired of looking at Saturn.

Are you going to try and see the asteroid next week? I bet it's cloudy :S

It WAS cloudy! You must be psychic

[yesteryeargames]

modded my xbox cam got these results