Waddensky

I heard that Tapatalk was removed from the Play Store too. Your browser should do the trick. The mobile version of Stargazers Lounge is fully functional and works excellent on my phone.

This value indicates the estimated effect of light pollution on the darkness of the sky. It's measured in magnitudes per square arcsecond, just like the surface brightness of celestial objects. You are right, a higher value is better: 22.00 is about as dark as it can get, a value lower than 18.00 is an indication of heavy light pollution. Here's a classification of night sky brightness with sky quality listed in the column 'Approx. SQM'. The values on the Clear Outside website and app are 'estimated' because they are calculated from light sources as seen by satellites. If you want to accurately measure the darkness of a location yourself, you can use a Sky Quality Meter (SQM).

Yes, as AstroRookie says the challenge to see them all in one night is called a Messier Marathon. They're not all visible at the same time, but every Messier object can be observed through the night if your latitude is not too northerly (because of the shorter twilight duration). This is possible in a few weeks in March and April. A 'half marathon', when most objects but not all can be observed, can be held around the September equinox.

These are rotating satellites or tumbling space debris, they are quite common unfortunately. Satellites in MEO can be illuminated by the Sun most of the night. Zooming in on these lights is not very helpful, as chromatic aberration and focus errors conceal the real source of the light.

Perhaps it was 12" long? 😋

There's a discussion on another forum where the OP actually ordered one to see what's going to happen.

$400 is fine to get started. Not really sure about Canadian prices and suppliers, dut I'd suggest to get a 6"or 8" dobson if they are available for your budget. They are very easy to set up, offer great performance for the price and usually come with decent accessories so you can go stargazing right away. They are a bit bulky though, if you can, visit a shop beforehand to get an idea of size and weight.

That's a great scope too, a longer focal length so in general higher magnifications than the Heritage but in other aspects quite similar. A lot less portable though.

Wonderful report, thanks! I'd say the moonlight is bright enough to activate photopic vision. Star colours always seem more vivid to me in the twilight, perhaps the same effect.

Welcome! The Heritage 130P and 150P are great scopes to get started. Keep in mind that the planets will be very small disks at useful magnifications (even in large scopes), I'm not really sure a 5 year old is able to recognise and appreciate these views. You can take a snapshot of the Moon and maybe you're able to capture the moons of Jupiter or a hint of the rings of Saturn, but that's about it. Astrophotography requires a different setup and a great amount of effort (and budget) to get reasonable results.

Congratulations! Seeing M42 with the naked eye is awesome. Once you recognise this little hazy patch you'll see it every time you look at the constellation.

It's all vectors. The water is exerted a lot by the Earth and a little by the Moon. Doesn't matter if the gravitational force of the Moon and the Sun is much less than that of the Earth, the resulting vector points a little less to the center of the Earth as a result. Kepler was right, Galileo was wrong. Edit: I hate to reference Wikipedia but it actually explains this very well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_force

Ancient tribes aside (why does nobody mention the Belgae or the Frisii, even Ceasar knew they were the bravest - they still are 😇), I'm not familiar with the Saxon brand, but if they are Synta scopes as Peter says, they should be ok.

Great question, great answers. As said: the density is not the problem, but the temperature is. In any case, long before the Sun swells to the size of the orbit of the Earth our atmosphere and oceans are evaporated. I can imagine that the Earth even deorbits due to the drag caused by the collision with solar gas particles.

Interesting observation. Is such a filamentary structure common for interstellar dust clouds? Or could it be due to some gravitational interaction with the stars of the Pleiades?

As far as I know, that is the consensus. It was previously thought that the nebulae were left-over material from the formation of the cluster, but now they are considered unrelated. Here's an interesting paper on the reflection nebulosity near the Pleiades. The filamentary structure is interesting though. Stunning picture by the way, wonderful details!

Here's another round-up. If you want to use them handheld, 10x magnification is about the maximum. 10x50's, 8x42's or 7x50's are very convenient for stargazing (although the exit pupil on the 7x50 is a bit large). I have a pair of Nikon Action Ex 10x50 and I really love them, great performance and - although not the lightest in its class - easy to hold steady. I think they can be found for around or under $200 but I'm not familiar with US prices.

I'm with @cathalferris on this one. If you take a look at the link @jock1958 provided, you'll see that the UHC is a good all-round filter and that the OIII is a bit more specialised (but performs really well on a number of objects - the Veil for example). Just make sure you get a real narrowband UHC filter like the Lumicon or the DGM NPB. Filters like the Baader UHC-S are broadband filters.

I was of course familiar with Tony's guide, but I've never seen this chart. It's very convenient and broadly matches my experience. A great resource! Just trying to figure out what the thought behind the order of objects within each category is 🤔

Hi! Lots of great things to see with that telescope, even galaxies and nebulae. The Andromeda Galaxy is lovely but doesn't show much detail. Use the least magnification you can (the 25 mm eyepiece in your case). Other galaxies that are well worth a look are M81 and M82 (a nice pair but can be a bit difficult to find). If your location is dark enough, M51 is a very interesting target. If you wait a few weeks (or get up early), the Orion Nebula (M42) is always wonderful to look at. Globular clusters are also nice targets, this time of year M2 and M15 are high up in the evening. Cruise around the Milky Way in Cassiopeia and Cygnus, lots of open clusters to 'discover'. Don't skip the Double Cluster in Perseus. And of course, there is Mars! Good luck!

All these objects can be found under Bortle 5 with your scope, but their appearance differs a lot from M57. M81 and M82 are bright smudges, but the 'star hop' as described by Pixies may be a bit difficult. M51 is more subtle, but not so hard to to find from Alkaid. M101 is large and has a low surface brightness - try this one once you've found the other ones. I think the main thing is to know what to expect. If you've found the M81/M82 duo, you'll have a good idea of what a galaxy looks like. Good luck!

No, the number of photons is determined by the apterture. I'm not an astrophotographer, but imagine two telescopes with the same focal length but with different f-ratios (say f/6 and f/4). The reason the f/4 collects more light per time unit, is because with the same focal length (and therefore the same 'field of view'), the faster scope has a larger aperture than the f/6. The human visual system doesn't work this way, that's why focal ratio doesn't make a difference visually but aperture does. A larger scope allows visual observers to magnify more with a larger exit pupil, making it easier to detect dim objects.

Yes, this is also true. There are two mechanisms in the visual system at work here: one is the tendency of our eyes to detect the object easier if the objects is larger, the other is that the same contrast difference between the object and the background is more easily detected on a lighter background than on a darker background. If you magnify and make the exit pupil smaller, the object becomes larger (and thus easier to detect), but the object and background become darker (making the object harder to detect). The contrast difference between the object and the background never changes, so the best exit pupil is the exit pupil where these two factors are in optimum. It depends on object brightness, background brightness and object size. Here's a paper from Andrew Crumey on the subject. Very interesting!

No, but the page size and contents are identical. Here's a comparison between the two editions. I wouldn't take the Desk Edition outside, just like I don't take my Uranometria 2000.0 outside.

The Interstellarum Deep Sky Atlas is great. The binning of objects in several categories based on what can be seen with different telescope sizes is very convenient and unique for a star atlas. The pages are large and well-scaled. I have the Field Edition: the pages feel like paper but they handle moisture really well. If you take the atlas outside to use at the scope, it's well worth the investment, in my opinion.