PeterStudz

I was very young but living in the States at the time of Apollo. And my first memory is watching live the first moon landing. Extremely exciting times! Someone I know who was lucky enough to see a Saturn V launch I can remember saying something like “it felt like his bones were vibrating under his flesh”. And I think that was from about 3 miles away.

Thanks, some really good suggestions here. Eg I hadn’t thought of Almach at all and looking it up that’s a must see. I can also understand the “slippery slope” suggestion. Although I prefer visual I’m already looking at possible upgrade paths.  Have already invested in a couple of StarGuiders - decent eyepieces are very nice to handle. Or perhaps that’s just me and a bit weird!

I’ve been doing phone snaps (standard iPhone 12) for a couple of months now. This started when my daughter wanted pictures of things we’d seen on her telescope. It’s a small telescope, a Sky-Watcher Skyhawk 1145p on an EQ1 and we are in Southampton which suffers for considerable light pollution - officially Bortle 8. This started with pointing the phone down the eyepiece, then gaffer taping the phone to the lens, soon followed by using  a mount, later on modifying an economy EQ1 drive to help with getting slightly longer exposure times. Results are getting progressively better. We’ve had good views of the Orion Nebula, Pleiades and lots and lots of the moon. Here are a few other recent examples. 

M81 & M82 - 42x magnification 30sec exposure 

Beehive cluster - 20x magnification 30sec exposure 

M3 - 100x magnification 10sec exposure

I’d posted M81 & M82 in another section and someone asked me to post it here. All using the standard camera app in Night Mode. No stacking or anything fancy. I’ve circle cropped and darkened (basically black point) the background on some as they are for my daughters school project. I wanted to get the “looking down the eyepiece vibe”! I’m chuffed at the M81 & M82 galaxy result. Our first time locating something we couldn’t see with the naked eye. In fact even in the eyepiece M81 in our Bortle 8 sky was the faintest smudge and I couldn’t even see any hint of M82. I wasn’t even sure if seeing/photographing on a phone was possible given the light pollution and small aperture. 

M3 gave me lots of grief. It was faint and small, then cloud cover came over, lifting after about 1.5hrs just as I was about to give up. After that the position of the phone mount wasn’t quite there so ended up with kidney beaning. Finally finished at 3:30am and I was tired! Will definitely give it another go. That’s one of the problems doing this with young children - they need some sleep and my daughter had long since gone to bed.

Our setup might be worth mentioning and helpful for others. I had to beef up the focuser a little. Having a mount and phone hanging off the eyepiece was causing the assembly to flex. Enough to introduce unwanted distortions. Also balance of the tube with that extra weight. We are also using a cheap economy drive on the EQ1. But the small 9v battery replaced with a larger rechargeable lead acid battery and a mini-volt meter so it’s possible to dial back a previous setting. Maybe I should show want I mean with pictures in another post as this is dragging on!

With that we can get exposures of up to 30 sec with up to 50x. And around 15 sec with 100x. An improvement over nothing but we are finding the whole experience extremely fun! Personally I think that this type of imagining is best if you think of it sitting somewhere between sketching and full on astrophotography.

Interestingly I’ve found that for me the cheapest has been best.

I have the NeXYZ but as has been pointed out it has annoying flaws. It’s also damn heavy at 293 grams. By the time a smartphone is added it starts to pull on the eyepiece ever so slightly but enough to effectively take it just a bit but annoyingly out of collimation. Although I have a small telescope so you might be OK with something larger. I also find that the weight puts everything way out of balance.

For me I have StarGuiders. I’ve found that with the eyecup removed this cheap lightweight (£6, 78 gram) holder works perfectly. And grips very securely. I can also get Z-axis adjustment by moving the screw-out eyecup. It’s the holder top-left in the above post.

We did have a look at Mars. Couldn’t not do as she recognised it by eye when looking at the sky. I explained to her why it would be so small by drawing a diagram on a bit of paper. But at least her comment when she saw it in the telescope was “you can now see it’s a planet and definitely not a star”. So kind of a win there.

I’ll post something in the mobile phone section later. I’m going to be busy for a while.

My daughter is astronomy mad at the moment. The telescope is technically hers. I wanted to get her something a little larger - say around 130mm and a Dob - but at the time there was nothing decent available. But I thought that if I could keep her interest up with this then we could always upgrade. 

So far we’ve got good views of the Orion Nebula, the Seven Sisters and of course lots and lots of the moon. She’s also into the moon landings and it’s fun showing her the sites. The next up is the Beehive Cluster when conditions allow. She wanted to see a galaxy but I did tell her that it might not be possible with what we have. Will also try to visit a friend who lives in a darker sky area when the pandemic situation eases.

Her school have been good with space stuff too. They got an astronomer to do a Zoom talk about a month ago. These days children are very media driven hence the phone pictures. I wouldn’t have bothered otherwise. She wants to do a short video of what we’ve seen for school.

Using a small telescope - a Sky-Watcher Skyhawk 1145p, EQ1 plus small cheap & bodged motor drive in Bortle 8-ish sky’s. Or so the data says but I’m becoming convinced it’s more like a 7.

I haven’t been a member long and I’m new to all of this but thought I’d share this. It’s also the first object I’ve found that I couldn’t see with the naked eye and I spent around 40 mins searching before I found anything.  

Should have looked at Andromeda too when we had the chance but it’s now gone over the back of our house. For my daughter, it’s was after midnight and she was long in bed, I even managed to get a final picture or two at 42x with my phone camera. Just using the standard camera app (still working out the likes of NightCap). OK, you could say it’s a grainy picture of some dots and a couple of small fuzzy blobs. And I’m sure I can do better next time. But I’m chuffed and over the moon.

Interestingly I could not see M82 (only a very fuzzy and dim M81) in the eyepiece with just my eye. The phone camera was picking things out that I could not see or maybe just missed. Should have played with other eyepieces to get a better view but it was getting late, rather chilly at around -2C and by that time the tube was starting to bang up against the tripod, the galaxies being almost directly overhead. Next time!

It also makes me realise how lucky people in this hobby are. Sure, everyone has seen galaxies in books, TV and the internet, but how many have seen one with their eyes? Not many I bet. Even something like the Milky Way which of course can be visible with the naked eye. My daughter has told me that at 9 she’s never seen it. We’ll have to change that!

Apologise for the formatting issues. I did a cut and past from my iPad as I found it easier to type from another app. That’s probably where the problem came from!

Hi Gavin,

I’m new to all of this having only had a telescope for a couple of months. Well, technically it’s my daughters. So I’m not as qualified as many members here. However spec wise our telescope is very similar to yours. I’m also in Southampton which in my apart of town is around Bortle 7. Still we’ve had some fun and success from the back garden. As far as dark sky’s go this is what I’ve found.

The supplied eyepieces aren’t great. For me I had a 25mm, a 10mm and a 2x Barlow. The 25mm is OK but the 10mm poor and the 2x Barlow next to useless. I’ve now replaced all but the 25mm (but that will go soon-ish) and bought additional filters and accessories. The replacement eyepieces have help a lot but I’ve now spent more on these + accessories than the telescope itself. 

I quickly noticed that parts of the sky are darker than others. For me E-SE is best. But S poor. So if possible I try and look at things when they are E-SE. Also the higher something is in the sky the darker the sky. The horizon is poor. A star chart is helpful for this.

Generally some days of the week are darker than others. For me the weekends tend to be better. Time of night too. For me after mid-night it’s darker. That’s if you are willing and able to stay up late.

Something known as “seeing” plays a big part however dark your sky’s are.  I’ve found that the best seeing is often on still windless nights. But I’m sure that other atmospherics also play a part. If the stars are twinkling like mad you can be sure that seeing will be poor.

Be comfortable when observing. I will see more when I’m relaxed. I find sitting in a chair (I’m getting old) is better. It also means that the telescope is at the same height for me and my daughter. My daughter stands and I sit! And wrap up warm.

Allow time for your eyes to adapt to the dark. I’ll sit in the chair with a coffee (OK more often a beer) and by the time I’ve finished my drink my eyes are far more adapted. During this time I can scan the sky. It’s amazing what you start to see, things that you thought weren’t there. 

Purchase a red light/torch. You’ll need some assistance finding your way around your gear and as soon as you turn on a normal white light your night vision is gone. I’ve got a small red keyring type red light and a red head torch.

Hope that helps and above all have fun. So far the real issue for me has been cloudy sky’s rather that light pollution. This winter has been far too cloudy!

Thanks! I think you might be correct about the phone mount. I’ve now got a  cheap phone mount but it’s tricky to get it aligned so that it’s looking straight down the eyepiece. And even when you do it’s not very stable and if not extremely careful can be knocked out of place. But only had it for a few days so haven’t used it proper. Haveing a look at the Celestron NeXYZ now.

I’m new here and my first post. My 9 yr old daughter is astronomy mad and wanted a telescope for Christmas. But because of the shortage I couldn’t get what we wanted. Ended up with a Skywatcher skyhawk 1145p. Really wanted something with a little bigger primary mirror and simpler to use. Still, we were lucky to get that and at a reasonable price!

Started off looking at the moon but have only had 4 clear nights since Christmas. And one of those was working out how to polar align and getting use to everything.

This is our first picture of anything in the nights sky. My iPhone 12 was literally gaffer taped to the eyepiece. The stock 10mm. Just pressed the shutter for (I think) a 5 second exposure. All I could do without too much star trailing. Then a little noddy “processing” in Camera+ in order to reduce the light pollution. We are in a city, Southampton, England, so it’s no exactly ideal. Still, when my daughter saw the result she was literally jumping up and down. I known it’s far from perfect but still pleased for a first attempt.

Nice as it’s something we can both do. I hope that she won’t get bored too quickly. The biggest issue at the moment is the lack of clear sky. We now have a phone mount, a couple of better eyepieces and a cheap motor drive. Much to learn!