Jump to content

Banner.jpg.b83b14cd4142fe10848741bb2a14c66b.jpg

Blogs

Featured Entries

Koraki's Blog

Ipswich/Suffolk based buddy

Hi Guys, Further to my previous post where I came to the admission that I need some real astronomy guru help I am reaching out to anyone suffolk/Ipswich based who would be interested in coming out for a few sessions 1. to have a laugh and 2. to offer some advice to a truly keen but rather perplexed newbie! Get in touch!
Koraki

Koraki

3
GrahamTutt's Blog

Orion From Selsey

Hi, I went sea fishing at Selsey last light and took a tilley lamp to keep my hands warm. I watched the end of my fishing rod for four hours waiting for a bite. Behind the rod tip was Orion, Jupiter and also the moon. The night was cold and clear, frost was on the cars but I was well dressed and stayed warm. I never caught anything but will always remember that magical scene with the noise of the waves. I felt sorry for all those inside missing such a lovely scene on such a calm, clear night. Re
GrahamTutt

GrahamTutt

0
Koraki's Blog

Second Time Out

So I had a spare evening and thought I would put it to use by taking my skywatcher Explorer 200p and HEQ5 mount out again with my 1100D Canon with the aim of getting some good snaps/video's of the moon and Jupiter. Once out however i realised that despite my meticulous planning following the astronomy shed video's on mount/scope setup, i couldn't polar align. The reason was that i couldn't see the reticule against the backdrop of polaris!!! has any one else had this problem and am i being a comp
Koraki

Koraki

1
crashtestdummy's Blog

a few bits and bobs on mirrors and scopes in cars

So first up I bought a new car a month back and I had decided on something a little bigger than my 206 estate so I bought a 307 estate. here is how to fit a meade 16" Lightbridge,an eyepiece case,2 chairs,battery,clothing and boots a tip for people who have bigger mirrors and like to clean them.my 16" mirror wont comfortably fit in the sink like my 12" and 8" did so I originally bought a small kids paddling pool.this proved ok but was too flexible so ive now used the gorilla tub that I use t
crashtestdummy

crashtestdummy

0
BexSmyth's Blog

Info for a new telescope

I currently have a zennox 70 telescope as I am a beginner in terms of stargazing. I have loved using this telescope for lunar viewing however I want to upgrade to a more capable telescope. I have been researching and I have found celestron's nexstar 4se, 5se and 6se scopes with go-to technology however I was interested in having a tracker to keep up to date with the alignments of sky objects. I was hoping if someone could tell me do these nexstar telescopes have automatic tracking systems or is
BexSmyth

BexSmyth

2
crashtestdummy's Blog

managed to do some observing!!!

Well last night I managed to do some observing for the first time since 4th December!!Really started to worry that I wasn't going to get any done before the next moonrising but was lucky.It cleared about 10pm and I managed to stay out until 1am when the clouds rolled in.They were due to clear again in half an hour but I like my sleep so went in.managed to tick off some more ngc's,herschels and caldwells and add a few galaxies as detailed below: ngc 1973 ngc1975 ngc1977 these are listed toget
crashtestdummy

crashtestdummy

1
Johnny4365's Blog

C8N Service Begins

Hi fellow loungers. I've had my Celestron C8N for nearly 8 years. Had many a good night under the stars with it. I have never used it to anywhere near to its full potential, I have neglected it and not used it much the last few years. Started to service it today, beginning with the focuser which seemed a bit sticky. First thing I noticed was there is in fact a screw on the back of the focuser that locks the focuser in position when tightened. This was done up slightly and was making the focuser
Johnny4365

Johnny4365

0
crashtestdummy's Blog

just a quick one

Well my sky time has been pathetically poor recently and it doesn't show much sign of getting better in the next couple of weeks.My last observing session was the 4th of December,a quick hour in the garden and one new ngc object and as usual Rubbish seeing conditions.i keep telling myself I wont bother with the garden again but you have to get time when you can :( well the weather has been very bad recently with high winds and rain.i doubt most people have had much luck the last month.there were
crashtestdummy

crashtestdummy

0
Koraki's Blog

Example View database...Needs you!

Hi All, After trowling through numerous ‘Example View’ tools online for various telescope set-ups I have decided to start an on-line database that will utilise real webcam views taken through different telescope set-ups of different objects for existing and new enthusiasts. This will require an epic amount of short/medium/long videos and so I am calling on anyone interested in helping me to get in touch! If you have any old or new video’s taken through a standard webcam and have to hand or can r
Koraki

Koraki

2
The Stars Are My Pills

28th & 30th December 2013

28th December 2013, 6-8.30pm Pleiades (M45), Jupiter & Callisto, Europa, Ganymede, Io, Orion Nebula (M42), Betelgeuse. 2 meteors, possibly 4. 30th December 2013, 6-10.30pm Pleiades (M45) Orion Nebula (M42), Jupiter & Callisto, Europa, Ganymede, Io, Betelgeuse, Sirius, Andromeda Galaxy (M31), M110, open star clusters: M35, M36, M103. 1 meteor, possibly 2. 2 satellites. 2 unidentified moving objects.
YouCannotBeSirius

YouCannotBeSirius

0
Koraki's Blog

My first REAL session

So, a little history first... Around August 2013 I picked up a Celestron astromaster 114eq, got it out a couple of times to view the moon but really couldn't use it, it had one of the axes controls broken and I found it very difficult without the motors to keep anything in the field of view. This of course will no doubt be down to my inexperience of using any kind of telescope! Anyway, with 4 months of research and learning and about 5 books later I took the plunge and bought my 'REAL' first tel
Koraki

Koraki

2
crashtestdummy's Blog

a little more grinding and bits and bats

So,ive not actually had as much time to give to my mirror grind as I had hoped,mainly due to my cataclysmic luck with cars.I'd had a Peugeot 206sw hdi for about 3 years and it had been pretty reliable save for the last few months where it had been plagued with a few vacuum leaks and then a niggling fault that I couldn't track down.Anyway I decided enough was enough and money was drawn out of the bank and I went out and bought a 307sw 2.0 hdi as I had wanted something a bit bigger and comfier and
crashtestdummy

crashtestdummy

4
LodestarLive Development

Icons

I've decided it is soon time to get an icon for the app - any ideas - I am rubbish at art! Suggestions welcome (clean ones please...)
Paul81

Paul81

0
LodestarLive Development

Start of the blog..

I decided to start a blog charting the development of Lodestar Live. I know a few folks are interested in the latest goings on with development, so this seems the easiest way... So here goes.. The last few 6 weeks have been hectic from a lifestyle point of view so I haven't been able to spend as much time as I would have liked. Infact, I have not even been able to get out observing in the last 6 weeks either :-( That said, I had a set of data laying around of images I took whilst focusing, so th
Paul81

Paul81

0
crashtestdummy's Blog

the mirror grind begins

aperture fever hits us all at sometime.it has now hit me 3 times.8" was big enough for 6 months.12" was big enough for 6 months and now 16" was big enough for 6 months.where next?there's no commercially available scopes bigger than 16" in the uk and to buy one from the usa or a custom uk builder would have cost £7000-10000 for the size I was after so a plan was hatched to build something. myself and damian(master) attended a mirror making seminar with john Nichol who took away some of the myths
crashtestdummy

crashtestdummy

9
Geryllax Vu's Blog

Max Born

The principle of relativity as annunciated by Galileo, Newton, Einstein and many others states that: ♦ There is no mechanical experiment that can be done to detect absolute motion. A form of this statement is the first postulate of the STR by Einstein. This principle can be rephrased in many formulations, which I will show are all violated by my proposed thought experiment (statement formulations are from Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity by Max Born). 1.) The laws of mechanics have exactl
Geryllax Vu

Geryllax Vu

0
Nick's blog, including AOSX (Astronomy on OSX)

Interesting progress!

Well I've been making some interesting progress - all should be apparent soon enough! However - James @ Flo also found a bug in the 1.00 drivers that leaves the preamp on! Nice spotting! I'm up to 1.05 now (multiple changes/fixes).. safe to say the image quality has just shot up with James' fix! I'll shortly be putting together the next release.. There's some good fixes and some additions to the driver that some will find useful. Meanwhile.. I'm doing DIY...
NickK

NickK

0
Astronome's Blog

I've got a spider living in my astrograph!!

Well, you know the way you always look down the tube of your astrograph when you remove the cover.. Not sure what I expect to see except a very unattractive view of my face! One day I did this as usual but saw a lot of lines. Scratches on my mirror I thought. Oh no! But on better examination with a light (don't do this as you will see every imperfection and think your mirror needs cleaning which it most likely does not) I could see that it was a spiders web. What to do? I got a short cane a
Astronome

Astronome

3
Blog 19648

Rain, wind, Jupiter and moonlight

Lowestoft weather has been so changeable, breaks in the cloud so infrequent and the comfort of my fireside chair so all enveloping, that I have hardly ventured out with my scope for what seems an age. Pining for some photons, I set up my DSLR on a tripod and photographed Jupiter dodging the clouds and coming within 6 degrees of the Moon. With a bit of ham fisted Photoshop jiggery pokery, I constructed a composite image of the event. Looks a bit 'Macbeth' but I quite like it! If the weather sta
Hawksmoor

Hawksmoor

0
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue. By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.