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Altitude/RA?


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Hello fellow astronomers. I am new to this wonderful hobby. I was loaned an Astromaster 130 EQ Newtonian telescope. Another hobby of mine is photography. I have combined these to take some pictures through the telescope. See attached. 

I am consulting a moonrise/moonset website that gives me information about the position of the moon. At 10:00 pm, for instance the readings are Altitude 43º heading 207 SSW. When I look up at the moon, the altitude seems to be much higher than this. The scopes Altitude is set at 51.4° (the latitude for Bath). How does this relate to the RA setting on the scope?

I have set the scopes Polar alignment using a compass and the Altitude to the latitude of my location. I am still finding difficulties finding some of the planets and setting the camera,s shutter speed to show Jupiter in more detail than a white disk with moons.

The next task is to fit the motor drive for RA and do some deep space stuff

Despite all these beginner problems, I am having great fun. I have been a fan of Astronomy for many years now and watch "Sky at night" and the "Stargazing" programs.

I am amazed at what some of you out there are acheiving with your telescopespost-44230-0-67032400-1430166988_thumb.j

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Hi chazz, RA (right ascension) and Dec (declination) are what the setting circles on your scope will show. These are not the same as Altitude and azimuth (heading) as the former are references on the celestial sphere and the latter are local angular measurements.

The setting circles generally aren't worth using.

The best way to find something is to line it up in your finder then use a low power eyepiece to centre it.

Take a look at the free software Stellarium to help you find things.

If you can see Jupiters moons in your images then you are over exposing the planet. You need to reduce the exposure time or the gain (ISO) to see planetary detail.

Be aware that deep space imaging is very challenging and a very steep learning curve.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

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Hi chazz, I have this scope. Takes a while to get the hang of it and by the time you do you'll want to get a bigger scope. I'll try to attach a picture of Jupiter I took recently. I take an avi and stack it in registax6 which is free online.

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Hi chazz, RA (right ascension) and Dec (declination) are what the setting circles on your scope will show. These are not the same as Altitude and azimuth (heading) as the former are references on the celestial sphere and the latter are local angular measurements.

The setting circles generally aren't worth using.

The best way to find something is to line it up in your finder then use a low power eyepiece to centre it.

Take a look at the free software Stellarium to help you find things.

If you can see Jupiters moons in your images then you are over exposing the planet. You need to reduce the exposure time or the gain (ISO) to see planetary detail.

Be aware that deep space imaging is very challenging and a very steep learning curve.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Nice explanation of the difference between latitude/longitude and RA/Dec. Got to disagree with you on the setting circles though, I use them on my eq 3-2 and NEQ6 pro very effectively, I generally point the scope more accurately than I can get either of my goto set ups to work. In fairness I precisely level the tripod and accurately polar align and I'm not sure how accurately the Astromaster 130 eq lets you do this and maybe the setting circles are smaller than I'm used to.
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