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beetm

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  • Gender
    Male
  • Interests
    Cloudless nights? Painting, Canoeing. Fishing.
  • Location
    Georgia, USA

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  1. Ok, bear in mind I'm a complete beginner with binoculars (20x80) but I just had my first two really clear nights and I have to talk about it! Friday (15th/16th) was not ideal, I'm in a bortle 5 with neighbors who like to leave their outside lights on. I started off at Altair and attempted to find the "Coat Hanger" by working my way towards Vega. I got lost amongst the stars and noticed moonlight creeping in from the east. So, on a whim I pointed at the moon....... Wow! My jaw dropped! The shadow was a thin sliver from about 11 o'clock to 4 o'clock, but it was throwing shadows on the craters etc, it was just amazing. I thought the bright moonlight would spoil the viewing, boy, was I wrong! By the time I was ready to move on from the moon I noticed Cassiopeia climbing out of the trees in the North East. During all the cloudy nights of the last few weeks I had read that Shedar points toward M31, so I gave it a try, and got it first time! Not spectacular, (due to the moon, probably!) but just looking at a galaxy that far away was mind-opening. It looked like a dirty brownish fingerprint in the sky, but I was so excited to be looking at my first Messier!! All in all I spent over 3 hours out there, but it just flew by! Saturday (16th/17th) looked better to me, more stars visible to the naked eye, I started looking for the coat hanger asterism again, and found it reasonably quickly. It filled my fov with relatively bright stars, I think I was looking for something less obvious the night before, searching amongst the fainter ones. Now I know. I will say, (Ya'll already know this!) that once you've found an object it is much easier to locate again and again. The Southern sky was darker than the previous night, so I pointed south and pretty quickly found Ptolemy's Cluster (M7) and it's neighbor M6. Another beautiful moment. The stars were just so clear against the dark sky, just beautiful. Moving up through the Milky way I could just make it out mostly through averted vision. A lot of "faint fuzzies". The best one was the Sagittarius cloud, that was pretty clear just looking at it. Then I noticed Saturn climbing in the same area as the moon the night before, I can't make out the rings as such but it's pretty clear that it isn't "round" I attempted a poor picture with my phone, (doesn't do it justice). Another 3 plus hours that felt like 30 minutes! I was so excited to be out for the two nights, I cannot wait for my next opportunity. If you've got this far thanks for indulging a newbie's excitement, it was a complete blast!
  2. Just echoing what others have said; got a warm welcome when joining, and experienced members seem to have no problem passing on advice. It's a great place to spend time browsing around; in fact I think my favorite place is the "Primers and Tutorials" subforum. Some old posts but mostly still applicable today. Being a beginner my learning curve is steep, but I've learned a lot by reading that subforum. Now, could you just do something about the clouds?
  3. Fantastic pictures, I have a question, if any of the more experienced guys know; if you zoom in on the original release groups of galaxies are all oriented the same way. (Left and slightly above the star for example), this can't be coincidence can it? Edit; Never mind, I found the answer. They said the massive galaxy in the center (not the star, that's a foreground image) is bending the light of all the other galaxies around it, "Like in the bottom of a wine glass".
  4. This is just invaluable to those of us starting out, not used to a restricted FOV. Many thanks.
  5. Thanks Mike, I'll give it a try!
  6. Just wanted to thank everyone for the warm welcome, I've been looking around here and there's a lot of great information for a newbie and some really cool stuff from you experts! I've been itching to get out and do some more star hopping, but it seems every night is cloudy! I follow 'Clear Outside' and 'Clear Sky Chart' and set my alarm for 4am this morning only to find it was pouring rain! Oh well, back to bed!
  7. Another beginner, Celestron 20x80 with a camera tripod which has a built-in monopod. Really only used it once, but the monopod grew on me fast.
  8. My wife bought me a pair of Skymaster 20x80 Binos for my birthday, and it's been cloudy ever since! Went out tonight for the first time and although conditions weren't ideal saw a ton of stars. So many in fact that it became a little confusing. I know a few constellations, and thought I could find my way round the sky but when I look through the eyepieces it's hard to pick out the stars of say, Cygnus. There were probably dozens in my view. Anyway, I'm one of those guys who will probably learn from reading others posts so I thought I'd just introduce myself.
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