Marvin Jenkins

My biggest annoyance is making a fool of myself, easily done. I had a couple friends come to stay and with clear new moon skies they were enthusiastic about there first views through a scope.

I did the ‘full Brian Cox’ so they would have some understanding of what they were going to see. Second part of the speech was, do not kick the tripod, do not pull on the scope, it’s all electronic and tracking.

First thing I did was trip over the power cable, pulled it out of the mount! Fell on my face in the venture and had to re-align everything again in front of the beginners!

Not my greatest moment.

Marv

2 hours ago, theropod said:

New Mexico is a under-appreciated treasure. Up in the northeast corner of the state are some of the darkest regions in North America. Clayton Lake state park is only about 30ish air miles from Black Mesa, OK, and the skies are so dark there it’s almost frightening. As a bonus there is a vivid dinosaur trackway exposed at the spillway for the lake with a few theropod tracks scattered among the many hadrosaur tracks, which isn’t a common thing. I’ve been to the state park several times and might just make a road trip to the region next spring. I ought to have operating my EQ goto all figured out by then. Maybe...

Aren’t those tracks your footprints?

M

3 hours ago, Alan White said:

@Marvin Jenkins you shall be known as Naughty Marv from now on,
Tut, Tut, Trolling your fellow Astronomers with these blasphemies.

It sounds like you need a non Messier avenue to go down, 
perhaps you need to take up Cloud Observation as a penance 😉

It seems my punishment is here. Nothing but heavy cloud and heavy rain. It is that bad, that cloud observing is not possible due to the low cloud obscuring the main clouds.

Even if it clears and I get a full January clear I will be DSO hunting. In all seriousness I understand the double star observing. It just doesn’t do it for me. When I first joined this amazing forum I wondered why some members refused to look at the night sky and only took pictures. 

I realise now that Astro is as a whole, like spokes in a wheel. The whole thing keeps on turning and most of us pick a bunch of spokes, some us just one.

I think that our observable sky is amazing and I have the greatest respect for any avenue that an astronomer chooses, even if it sends me to sleep, each to there own. Clear skies to you all, and magnificent transparency.

N Marv

I cannot believe I got away with this. Actually saying I was so bored viewing double stars I fell asleep at the OTA! Then calling into question the validity of open clusters, and not a single comment!

After the initial rush of ‘judgement’ by the great and good of this forum after admitting never having purposefully viewed a double, I will never feel guilty again.

Shame on you all for not keeping up a watchful vigilance on my blasphemy. I am very disappointed in all of you.

And to make matters worse I have no interest in observing variable stars either. What’s the point! The clear nights to observe fluctuations are at a minimum one month apart.

Marv

Are you able to see Polaris from window? Without the pole star I cannot see how you would polar align.

AP in its largest form is with the use of an equatorial mount to align with the NCP and track from there.

If not then short duration EP shots of whatever you can see could be achieved.

Marv

Ok, redemption time. I have been out on my first planned double star hunt, so all will be forgiven!

I can confirm that after at least an hour at the ep trying different magnifications, the double stars on my charts are two stars close together!

Furthermore. some of the examples were different colours and different sizes. I even found one example of a double star that was an optical double, so not a double at all. Truly amazing, what were they thinking?

It was so exiting to see two stars so close together and ‘not’ in the case of the latter, I woke up after midnight covered in frost, slumped over the OTA. Apparently my snoring was annoying the wildlife.

Oh and don’t get me started on some of the open clusters. They are just areas in space with some stars in that past astronomers named to add excitement to their double star sessions!

Burn him, Burn him I hear the cries and I can see the flaming torches from here.😬

Marvin

Not trying to meddle, honestly.🤣

8 minutes ago, steppenwolf said:

Worst excuse ever .....

Imagers... what do you expect. Already admitted that you have an unused box of EP’s, that is what John and I use for real astronomy. (Thanks for the thumbs up John) 

Especially in light of Stu pointing out that I had already seen the four stars in the trapezium and what with splitting Albireo all while trying to complete Stu’s planet challenge. I am starting to wonder why I felt guilty in the first place.

Marvin

I would advise to not look too far down the rabbit hole. I queried a load of data about the distances of quasars in relation to gravitational lensing and ARP’s ideas of incorrect redshift measurements. Wow it was quite a ride, got messy and no one came out the winner.
That’s astronomy, you have it down to three decimal places, that’s a good thing.

Marv

Don’t forget that if you get the EQM-35 and use it till you are ready to upgrade to something heavier, you still have the 35 for visual use when the heavier gear is running.

I dislike the lack of Astro when we have a great night and my scope and mount is doing imaging and I am twiddling my thumbs. A second cheap OTA would be lovely.

Marvin

Ahhh the feeling of freedom, wonderful. I would go out right now split as many as possible but it is cloudy😭

32 minutes ago, woodblock said:

Thanks. I realise that the difference is very small but I assumed that there would be internationally agreed values for the magnitudes of comparison stars. In both cases the magnitude is quoted to 4 significant digits so I guessed they had some confidence in the values they quoted otherwise there's no point in quoting to that many significant digits.

But I take your point that it won't make much difference to anything I come up with.

I don't understand how these various astronomical databases work  at the moment. From what you say the data comes from different sources. I had some idea that the data was somehow aggregated from different sources.

Cheers

Steve

  

I am not an expert by any means but in this day and age a lot of us think that with modern technology, we have all this stuff nailed down. 
It is one of the things I love about astronomy, we are a lot closer to the beginning of our understanding than the end.

You only have to see the wide differences in distances of stellar objects between the different data bases, many many light years some times. This is far from an exact science.

Marv

I can almost sleep easy tonight now you have forgiven me. Just redemption from big John, it may never come......

M

Just now, steppenwolf said:

Now you're adding bribery to your catalogue of errors! It all hinges on whether the sight of those split stars was worth it or not?

In all seriousness, I was stopped in my tracks. What an textbook example of different star types and wavelengths of light truly orbiting each other, a real physical binary.... do you need more?

1 minute ago, steppenwolf said:

I can't decide whether this further disclosure is a suitable mitigation for your conduct or simply compounds your folly - how pretty were those stars?

Ok I will order the other book! Will that do it?

6 minutes ago, Stu said:

Welcome to the wonderful world of multiple stars @Marvin Jenkins 👍👍

One thing though, if you’ve ever looked at the Trapezium in M42 then you’ve split a quadruple star already! 😁

With Orion becoming ever more present, have a look at Sigma Orionis, a lovely quadruple star, the last of which is quite faint in a 4” scope but easy enough when conditions are good. Rigel is another good one while you are in that area.

I suppose it took me a long time to get going with these, although my first ever observation with a scope was, in fact, Mizar and Alcor, a naked eye double which also splits to Mizar A and B in the scope, but I’m sure you knew that already.

You e got to try the Double Double in Lyra too of course, so many to choose from!

Happy double splitting!

Actually Stu, you had me out all night failing to the planet challenge when I could have been splitting doubles! Part your fault too. I am feeling much better if it wasn’t for the cold winter chill of Johns reply.

M

Just now, John said:

A double star was one of the very first things I observed with a telescope. This was about 40 years ago and the star was Algieba, Gamma Leonis. I managed to split it with my old 60mm Tasco refractor at 133x and was chuffed to bits 

Glad you have discovered these wonders at last Marv

Do I feel a cold withering stare?

1 minute ago, Stu said:

Welcome to the wonderful world of multiple stars @Marvin Jenkins 👍👍

One thing though, if you’ve ever looked at the Trapezium in M42 then you’ve split a quadruple star already! 😁

With Orion becoming ever more present, have a look at Sigma Orionis, a lovely quadruple star, the last of which is quite faint in a 4” scope but easy enough when conditions are good. Rigel is another good one while you are in that area.

I suppose it took me a long time to get going with these, although my first ever observation with a scope was, in fact, Mizar and Alcor, a naked eye double which also splits to Mizar A and B in the scope, but I’m sure you knew that already.

You e got to try the Double Double in Lyra too of course, so many to choose from!

Happy double splitting!

Totally forgot about the trapezium. Got a great look at that in my second week of scope ownership. I had no idea what I was doing so didn’t know to look for the central stars.

I may have a double star marathon sometime soon just to balance the scales.

M

1 minute ago, steppenwolf said:

I'm absolutely horrified by this disclosure and have removed you from my Christmas Card List with immediate effect - shame on you ....

    🤣  👍

Please say it is not so.... I bought your book early on and strapped a DSLR to my scope so it is partially your fault!

Thank you Stu, I hope you forgive me?😂 I think about the firsts, Planets plus moons, transits, comets, galaxies, nebula, globs and open clusters, the list goes on. Finally added an essential missing piece.

M

I don’t want to hear cries of ‘heresy’ and ‘cave man’ but I have been harbouring a secret shame.😬

Up until the other night I had never intentionally tried to split a double star at any point in my Astro journey of three years. There it is, out in the open, the shame of it all !

I would now like to give my reasons for this glaring admission and lay myself at the mercy of the court but I will not do that right now.
I tried a week ago to do a star hop to a target using Albireo as the jumping off point. Albireo stopped me in my tracks, took ages for the star hop to get underway. 
What an amazing sight. A larger bright white to orange main star with smaller bright blue white companion. So crisp and well defined. The only other double I have seen is Polaris but only when going through the polar alignment process. Again I hang my head in shame.

Now for the excuse in the delay in getting to some basic proper astronomy. I got my first scope and in my excitement I said what does a star look like and it turned out to be a point of light. 
Then I tripped over a galaxy by accident and I fell into all the Messier list. I mistakenly thought two stars side by side would just be that, turns out they are quite lovely.

Marv

Terrific Bill, what a set of subjects, although I don’t do EEVA I follow these threads avidly. Just by chance I was doing an imaging run on M33 around that time and due to a discourse on the history of M1 with a friend I tried for a single image which surprised me. A very small amount of red, (nothing like yours of course). I will try and find it in my inbox and post.
Marv

9 hours ago, AstroNtinos said:

I am in mind getting a SkyWatcher 150/750 on an EQ3-2 but is this an ideal telescope for astrophotography

I am going to say that with the above kit you have not met the minimum for AP. The scope is fine, no complaints but without accurate polar alignment and at minimum a tracking motor you will get very little for your money. 

Still a fantastic setup for star gazing though which should not be over looked.

When I started I got a 130 newt on eq2. The newt was great the mount and tripod NOT. I upgraded to a NEQ5 with the upgrade kit and SynScan Goto.

I read many a thread on here that said AP starts at the SW ‘H’EQ5, not my little NEQ5. However, I have passable stacked pictures of galaxies and nebula. They won’t win awards but if you are serious that AP is your direction then I feel you need to get to the kit mentioned above.

I use my NEQ5 with a SW 150PDS and the most base DSLR Nikon. I would say at this point that you go the Canon route. I love Nikon but in Astro, Canon are far more supported by software and there are far more Canon users to trouble shoot your problems. If you want to see any of my pics with the 150 on the NEQ5 then PM me.

Marv

If by Classic EQ you mean non Goto manual adjustment then I would say you have no more Astro photography potential than a Dob.

You can take short single pictures of DSO with most setups, however the amazing pictures you see posted on this site and others are created by taking many pictures of the same object for long periods of time and then combining them into a single stacked image.

without accurate tracking you simply cannot do this. Furthermore a single photo on a fixed mount would be very short in duration where as accurate tracking mounts can give exposures in excess of five minutes.

To put it into perspective I have an EQ5 with the motor pack and SynScan Goto. I have an absolute maximum exposure length of 1 minute with perfect polar alignment which is not a given.

Even though I am doing AP now if I had to start again I would get a decent Dob and really learn and enjoy the sky, then have a dabble at AP after some time.

Marvin

Ohhh, just give me the fishing and I would die a happy man without looking through a scope again. Hundreds of miles from the coast and I hate it, not bad skies for the newt though so 50/50. Fishing... Scope. Fishing.... Scope, could go on for ever.

Marv