RobertI

One thing potentially in favour of Haw Wood that they already do an astronomy / dark sky week for astronomers in November, so are familiar with the needs of astronomers and clearly supportive of what we do.

Well done! I’m just about to book a tent pitch at the same event, currently deciding which is the best spot. I’ve limited experience at star parties, but from what I’ve seen, blacking out is not to be underestimated - in the pitch black of the night any tiny gap of light can seem blinding and really upset people, so a test run is a good idea. On cars there’s a Christmas tree of lights every time it’s locked/unlocked or opened, so literally everything has to be covered if you need to get in or out of your car, but I guess you won’t have one of those though. Hope to see you there. 🙂

Thanks Vlaiv.

Thanks Vlaiv. I have often thought about shortening the tube, I would be prepared to do it as the scope isn’t worth much, but probably will never find the time! Could always try your solution for straight through viewing! 🙂

Superb Stu. Your inspiring me to try something with my iPad.

Thanks for that Vlaiv. I have a 4” F10 Tal which I find a very “un-versatile” scope because it will not quite come to focus with 2” diagonals so can only use 1.25” diagonals and eyepieces, limiting the FOV to around 1.6 degrees I think which is not much better than my C8! I’m guessing that there is not enough in focus in the Tal to use your solution?

Thanks Paul, there’s already been some discussion on that towards the end of this thread if you’re interested….

Superb rendition Mike, I like how you’ve shown how the visibility of the Cassini division varies round the ring, the subtle shadows and subtle shading on the inside of the ring.. 👍

Lovely description Mike.

Hope no one minds, here are a few popular DSOs to demonstrate the FOV of the SeeStar 50 (red box - ignore the fact the FOV label says ASI290), hopefully I’ve got the calcs right but feel free to correct me.

The answer for me is no. BUT, I was doing some EAA a few years back, and captured a few galaxies in one night. A supernova was discovered in one of those galaxies soon after, and it turns out I had captured it before the official discovery date, but obviously never reported it as I didn’t know it was there at the time! So now I check all my EAA galaxy images for supernovae - science of a sort!

Yes you’re right I’ve had a play in SkySafari and it is a slightly smaller field of view than I thought, and frames a lot of objects well. Big enough to fit in largish objects like M33, M42 (just) and the Pacman neb, but small enough to resolve globulars. And not too zoomed in to make tracking a problem for shortish exposures.

This is a really good video, and a glowing endorsement of the product. The results from the middle of Tokyo are pretty impressive, so from a dark site should be excellent. I think the image scale will be better for larger objects like emission nebulae, larger open clusters, galaxies and Milky Way. Plenty of objects to see for the price. I note he said he has not tried other products from Unistellar and Vaonis, only the Dwarf which is a slightly different proposition, so would be good to see him compare them at some point.

Result!

I had a friend once who was obsessed by cranes (the construction kind, not the feathered kind), and was very knowledgeable about them. I asked him what fascinated him about cranes, and his response was “Rob, if you need to ask, you’ll never understand”. I can’t help feeling that visual astronomy, and the art of observing faint fuzzies, is very similar!

I shall watch this John, looks fascinating. I didn’t realise Terry Pratchett was a keen astronomer.

Well I’m going to be positive here and say the future of visual astronomy is looking very bright. Technology like Starsense is making visual astronomy easier and more attractive, solar scopes are adding a new dimension to the visual hobby, there is a huge array of good quality equipment available, and in my opinion, imaging can never beat the experience of seeing the moon, Saturn, Jupiter and the brighter clusters and colourful doubles with your own eyes. And for those few that are smitten by the visual bug, it becomes a way of life. Personally I think all this evolving new EAA type tech is fantastic, be it phone apps or Seestar/Dwarf/Evscope type products. I love my homebrew black and white EAA setup, it shows me the myriad springtime galaxies that are a barely perceptible smudges through my C8 - that said I get little time to set it up, but it’s nice to know I have it!

I was interested to see the Askar 103 triplet on the FLO website - it seems to have a removable section of the ota which I assume will allow bino-viewers to be used without a glass path corrector or Barlow. With my William Optics BV and 20mm eyepieces this would give 35x magnification and nearly two degrees FOV which is pretty wide field for binoviewers. It’s also £998, which seems to make it a good alternative to the Starfield 102ED, especially if you like binoviewing. Anyone use one of these for low power bino-viewing? https://www.firstlightoptics.com/askar-telescopes/askar-103-apo-triplet-refractor.html

One of the things I love about astronomy is that once armed with the right equipment, the hobby can be enjoyed for zero cost. Yes I know the many of us keep spending to find that perfect setup, but equally many folk get a nice refractor or dob (or two!) and some decent eyepieces and have all they need for years. It’s also nice to know that when your equipment can’t be used due to a bout of poor weather or whatever, it isn’t costing you MOT (ministry of telescopes), sky tax, insurance (usually) or annual servicing. 🙂

Welcome, and YES to binoculars for that first step into astronomy. 👍 Get some good ones though, there’s a lot of rubbish out there. Just a point to note, in older eyes (like mine!) the pupil may not dilate enough to make use of the full light gathering power of 7x50, so 8x42 might be a better bet for low power binos.

It’s a tough one to get right. The advice was always to start with binoculars, but more recently even this advice has been questioned by some. Whenever anyone asks me now, I simply lend them my Heritage 130P and I generally find out what they are REALLY are interested in. The most recent time I did this with a friend who expressed an interest, it turned out all he wanted to do was take a snap of the moon. The concept of looking for faint fuzzies was not something he was aware of… or interested in.

Currently on holiday in Turkey, I took the 10x50s to a deserted beach cabana to observe the parts of Sagittarius I rarely get to see. Quite a lot of nearby light pollution but the skies were actually really dark. Highlights included the Lagoon, Triffid, Swan and Eagle Nebulae. M22 globular was a large bright glow and I fancied I could almost resolve some stars - oh for a telescope! The Sagittarius star cloud was spectacular, made more evident by some bright stars scattered around it, making its boundaries seem distinct. Ptolemy’s cluster was large, bright and open, seemingly made for binoculars, shaped like a mini Cepheus to my eyes. Numerous open clusters abounded. Tomorrow I might try Scorpius. It’s strange to see Polaris so low in the sky.

Fortunately not, it’s a string of magnetic beads! 🙂

Just had fun recreating the solar system using marbles with my eight year old son. The distances from the sun are accurate relative to each other, but the planetary diameters are not due to limited range of marbles!

Thanks John. They are actually a home made pair using two Nikon Teleconverters cable tied together!! They appear to produce around 2x magnification. It would be nice to have a ‘proper’ pair though.