PeterStudz

I like this as it’s immediate and still gives the feeling you are looking through a telescope.

I did this last Tuesday, 6th April in the early hours. My second attempt at M3 and personally I’m happy with the result given the limited gear and my inexperience. Taken with an iPhone 12, cropped and edited with the standard camera app plus Filterstorm. Telescope Slywatcher Skyhawk 1145P on EQ1 with economy motor drive. StarGuider 12mm eyepiece. Single 30 second exposure with the standard camera app. After doing this, messing around and observing M3 for a couple of hours I decided to see if I could see the Leo Treo. I’ve never tried looking at these before. And Leo wasn’t in a good position. I’m in Southampton which suffers from a considerable amount of light pollution. From my garden East to South is best (the higher the better). But anything SSW to West is poor as that’s right over the docks which are lit up like an Christmas tree all night an every night. And that’s where Leo was by the time I decided to have a look. But as hard as I tried I could not see any hint of the galaxies with my eyes. So I decided to stick my iPhone to the eyepiece and take a searching 30 sec exposure. Then move one FOV and take another. After a few attempts the galaxies appeared like magic on the phone screen. The camera was showing something that I could not see with my eyes. Sure, faint but obvious. Even NGC 3628. OK, they are very faint and washed out (you might need to use averted vision on the picture to see them - lol) but that’s hardly surprising especially with a small telescope. In a decent dark location it would surely be much better. I wasn’t going to post this here but then I thought what the hell! Haven’t edited it much - just cropped, rotated - so you can get an idea how faint they are and what the light pollution was like. Personally I was over the moon just to find them. I have plans of going somewhere in the New Forest , which isn’t far away, and giving it a proper go.

Many thanks Martin. I’ll let you know how I get on, good or bad. But I’m confident I can make something from it. And it was great to meet you too. All of this brings back memories of my first telescope as a child. And back then something like this would have been my dream telescope.

Many thanks to @Grumpy Martian for arranging to meet me at a motorway service station near my home and giving me this telescope for free. There are some “dimples” on the primary mirror so it might require recoating. But I’ve already done a rough collimation, propped it up against a garden chair and looked at a random bit and of sky. It seems to focus OK. It hasn’t got a base so I’ll need to make one out of ply. Will probably take a while for me to get going although my daughter wants to use it now.

These are great sketches and thanks for sharing. As someone else has already pointed out - it looks just like you are looking down the eyepiece. And as far as I can tell skilled sketching is the only way to create a picture that looks like the image you’d see in the eyepiece. A camera can’t do it.

This is our setup as it stands but it’s very much a work in progress. We’ve only had a small telescope - a Sky-Watcher 1145p with EQ1 for a few months. Many of the ideas I got via old threads on this forum. Really wanted to avoid a GEM mount but I’m now getting to quite like it. Mind, it’s not so great for my daughter as I have to set everything up first, find a target (sometimes with a bit of help form her) and at that point we can both take in the view through the eyepiece. And being in Southampton, Bortle 8, doesn’t make it any easier. Although tinkering (I do enjoy tinkering) and tightening things up on the EQ1 has improved it significantly. Taking pictures with a smartphone, my daughters suggestion, kind of evolved from simply pointing the phone down the eyepiece. We’ve also got the economy drive which I’ve modified. I’ve added a larger knob, replaced the little 9v battery with a 12v rechargeable lead acid, knocked down to 9v, and added a mini volt meter across the motor terminals. The idea being that I can now dial-in a voltage - the same volts should drive things at near enough the same speed. This has significantly improved the way it works and taken away much frustration. Of course not intended or just used for astrophotography, although we can now get some vital extra seconds when taking pictures, it really helps keeping the target in view while fiddling with eyepieces and phone mounts. And most of these bits I had sitting doing nothing down my shed. I also beefed up the little focuser. There was far too much play in the draw tube and hanging a phone off the top would pull on the assembly creating distortions every time a picture was taken. I added Teflon tape to the draw tube and added an extra thumb screw that holds the eyepiece. In fact these thumb screws are just threaded into plastic and we’d already striped one, so metal thread inserts were also added. I did splash out on a NexYZ phone mount and although the idea is great we’ve had a few issues with it. The main one is that it’s so heavy. Using this plus an iPhone 12 adds almost half a kilo, throwing everything way off balance and pulling on the draw tube. So at the moment I’ve settled on a cheap mount off eBay. It actually fits our StarGuider eyepieces really securely once the rubber eye-cups are removed (see pics). And it’s very light. The only faff is positioning the phone lens so it points exactly down the hole. This has to be repeated every time it’s used. Since the same phone is being used this should ideally be a once only operation. So, once the sweet spot has been found I intend to clamp it down with a screw, and make a ply extension plate to hold the bottom of the phone. That way you just pop the phone in and tighten it down without having to fiddle around. And we should be able to do this in the dark too. A few tips/things I’ve discovered: Practice setting everything up in daylight. And practice some more. Make sure your phone camera lens is clean and clear of dew. I spent a whole night trying to find out why my pictures were fuzzy. I’d carefully kept my eyepieces clean. Eventually discovering that my camera lens was covered in dew. Do a very basic star test on screen with the phone mounted to your telescope. That way you can get a good idea if everything is true. Take loads of shots. You can always delete and then keep the best.

I recently came across this. It might have been mentioned before and you all know about it so I apologise if that’s the case. I’ve found it quite useful... https://spacemath.gsfc.nasa.gov/SMBooks/AstrophotographyV1.pdf

Welcome! I’m new here and very much a beginning. But I would certainly be interested in any sketching skills and wisdom.

Thanks! I haven’t but will look into it.

I should be out looking at the moon tonight as for once it’s clear. But sadly I have other things to do. So here’s my first attempt at a nearly full moon from last month, February 25th. Sky-Watcher Skyhawk 1145p, StarGuider eyepiece (I’ve forgotten which one), iPhone 12 and a cheap no-name phone mount. I just pressed the shutter button. Edited a little in the standard camera app.

From my rather light polluted sky’s I’ve had virtually no luck even seeing a fuzzy blob when I’ve looked at things like M3 with any sort of moon. However, once the moon has gone I’ve had much better luck. Still hard to see much detail but M3 is a far better sight. I even managed a phone picture which bought out some structure.

Many thanks for these suggestions. I have thought about getting a better finder. But we’ve only had a telescope for 3 months now. And I’ve been more interested in getting some better eyepieces. My initial plan was going to get something once a month or so. But then I noticed stock being low, prices going up etc and I sort of “panicked” and bought several at once. Not that I now regret it though! We are finding things if a bit slowly. And it’s disappointing to find a target only to be let down by a poor quality eyepiece. So these seemed far more important. And at this level the other thing that we’ve found fun is just scanning the sky at random. Or after we’ve failed to locate something. Hard to do with a flimsy EQ1 but doable. Even boating the telescope about at what appears to the naked eye a black bit of sky with reveal a host of stars. And I’ve quickly learnt that as long as you are in focus and see something “fuzzy it’s something interesting. Getting back to better finder. Something as light as possible would be best for us. Will take a good look at what’s around but not going to rush. Peter

We have a similar size telescope. It might be a bit better that yours was but not by much. I also live in Southampton which is Bortle 8. I’m very much a beginner too. And apart for something extremely bright, like the moon, I’ve never been able to see anything in the RDF. All I do is move the telescope so that the target is at the top outer edge of the RDF, nudge the telescope up ever so slightly in the hope that the target will then be roughly in the finders view then get my daughter (if she’s there) to lock the mount in place. It’s hard for me to do it alone without the telescope moving. However, more often than not the target is somewhere there when I look in a low power eyepiece - at 20x. If what we are trying to locate is high in the sky then when using the RDF I’m often literally lying flat on the ground. It’s hardly comfortable but it works. Still, we have managed to find things that we cannot even see here with the naked eye. The M3 cluster was one recent example. I new it was roughly between two bright stars, which we could see, but there was a large area of nothing in between. This involved me dividing the distance between the two stars using my fingers and then having my daughter move the telescope so many fingers. We have a flimsy EQ1 and this moves in what seems a random fashion. Me looking down the finder her moving the telescope around until I told her to stop. Comical maybe but after around 20 mins of searching we found the thing.

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!