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Buqibu

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Everything posted by Buqibu

  1. And wow Just...wow In my 2 years of observing at home, I have been limited to inner city skies (bortle 7 on maps), and while I have seen amazing sights, I can now truly say I understand why they say "a dark sky is better than a big telescope". Went to the rooftop of a building with my dad in a very small town, maps place it at bortle 4. I have been here many times before, but never with my telescope. Right off you can see many many more stars just with the naked eye. The summer triangle was shining bright, high in the sky. Pointed near Deneb, popped in a 20mm eyepiece in my f6.5, 4 inch achro refractor and oh man...pitch black sky absolutely filled with jewels. Countless stars, truly mesmerizing. Utterly beautfiul. So i went drifting along, slewing around familiar areas. M29 - neat, compact open cluster, nice shape, surrounded by background stars M57 - easily visible, averted vision introduces that unmistakable ring M56 - first time looking at this globular, pretty big, no core to speak of, very diffuse Albireo - a speck of gold and one of diamond, beautiful contrast swimming in a sea of lights, easy to split even at very low magnification M71 - first time for this glob as well - seemed to me bigger and slightly more diffuse than m56. Nicely sat between bright stars M27 - I thought I had seen this nebula in the city, but oh man I hadn't seen a thing. In bortle 4 skies, the huge defined cloud of nebulosity jumped out at me. Averted vision showed the bow shape clearly The Blinking Planetary - this one I'm not so sure of. I thought I saw faint nebulosity surrounding a relatively dim star, but wind was very strong at this point so I decided to leave it because the shakes made focusing a nightmare. Just as I was getting up to call it a night, I look south. I see a kettle. A tea kettle. SAGITTARIUS The legendary constellation was pretty much invisible at home, but here it was clearly visible, though still low on the sky. Wind was picking up again so I picked the first thing that came to mind - M22, the famous globular. While looking for it I stumbled upon M28 nearby. M28 - faint against a bright background, still easily recognisable as a globular with averted vision. Not particularly bright And then, a couple of field of views to the left and.... M22 - absolutely remarkable, huge, bright, and I am pretty sure I could resolve stars in it (a first for my 4 inch, it even struggles to resolve M13). The wow factor here is very much comparable to the description of M27 i did earlier. At this point it was getting late and very windy, so we went downstairs. A night I'll never forget. Sorry for the long post, thanks for reading and clear skies! (p.s, dad was looking around with binoculars, he finds eyepieces annoying but hopefully he enjoyed tonight as much as I did 😁)
  2. I know people say it will be one of the most spectacular events in modern astronomy, but would it really be that great? Based on the reports from the 1054 supernova, it will shine brighter than the full moon for months at night, and it will be clearly visible during the day for a long time as well. A "second sun" would pretty much make deep sky observation impossible for a while, and even though the photographs and scientific data that we would get from it would be amazing, I still feel like for the average amateur it would quite the shock. I read that it most likely won't damage the Earth in any way, but still quite scary to think about. How do you feel about it?
  3. Looked at Orion, The Great Nebula looked fantastic, a large faint cloud of gas. The main four members of the Trapezium easily visible. I think I split Rigel as well, though I'm not sure, somewhere I read it says the magnitude difference is very tricky, other places say its a relatively easy double, might have just been my imagination, hard to say. Iota Orionis looked beautiful, so did HR 1887 and 1886 (very close together, almost like a double). Mintaka looked great as well, thats the double in Orion's belt. Also saw M35, very beautiful cluster (though I couldn't see the smallee ngc next to it). M36 in Auriga was very impressive. For some reason M37 and M38 weren't jumping out at me, I could see stars around that area but not sure if I saw the clusters. Checked out Castor, very equal double, reminded me of Mesarthim in Ares. The Moon was starting to come up and it was getting very cold so I called it a night. Succesful session! Telescope: Celestron AstroMaster 102 Eyepieces: Celestron 20mm, Celestron Zoom + Barlow 2x Bortle around 7 according to maps Thanks for reading!
  4. I have a celestron astromaster 102az and while the OTA is fine, the mount is quite poor to say the least. If I was to upgrade, but this be a good option? Says it's capacity is 15 pounds. My telescope only weighs about 5 pounds. Reviews seem to be very positive and the slow motion control knobs look quite useful. However I'm also wondering if this mount would be suitable for larger scopes if I upgrade down the line. It seems to be designed for smaller scopes, but I would like to be able to put something larger, dare I say even something like an 8 incher 😬😬? If this aint it, what other manual alt az mounts under 500 would be good for the job? (Obviously for visual observing). Reason I want a manual one is because in my country it would be pretty much impossible to repair an electronic one if something went wrong. Also I don't want an equatorial mount because I also enjoy terrestrial viewing. Thanks!
  5. Yeah! I dont have much to compare it to but the CA really doesn't bother me too much
  6. Took the telescope out for the first time in 4 months today. It was the only completely clear night this week so I decided not to waste it like so many others these past few months. Went out around 4 pm to look at The Moon, it looked very nice, a bit wobbly but there were moments of great clarity in there. Soooo many craters! I went back inside for a couple hours then out again. It had gotten dark, sky was still moonlit but Orion was easily visible. Of course I checked out the Orion Nebula. Even with the 70%> Moon out I could still see a hazy, faint "cloud" around this pack of stars. This pack of stars being the Trapezium cluster. I was able to distinguish the 4 components that give it its name, very unique. I have to say its probably my favourite multiple star system (well its the only one I have seen😅). Also visited some double stars in the area. The Orion Belt was also rich in stars. As for the end (at this point my hands had gone numb from the cold 🥶) I looked at Pollux and Castor in Gemini. Castor is a very nice double! I also tried to find M35 but it was getting too cold and with the Moon out it wasn't an ideal situation. So I decided to go back in, short but a nice session! Anyways, thanks for reading, sorry if these sound uninteresing compared to some other reports I read on here, just wanted to share🙂. Clear skies! Note: Telescope used is Celestron AstroMaster 102 Eyepiece: Celestron Zoom (barlow 2x used for the moon) Bortle 6-7 skies according to maps
  7. Great report! Also that scope is very cute
  8. Thank you! I am in the northern hemisphere, have a little modest 4 inch achromat (though I love it). Is it too late to perhaps catch a glimpse of this new comet Leonard? Any other temporary event going on? Will definetly check out Auriga when I get the chance 🙂
  9. Hello all! Hope everyone is doing well, I've been absent from the website and astronomy in general for the past few months. I have not brought out the telescope since September, mostly due to school, the weather, the cold, laziness etc... Anyways, how are you finding this winter season, any cool things to observe? (Besides the famous Orion which I am of course familiar with). I would like to slowly get back into it, what's a nice place to start? Thanks in advance and Happy New Year!
  10. Thats a great sketch! Would you say binoviewers enhanced the view? I've read a lot of posts saying they do and are worth the money.
  11. Thanks for all the replies! So a refractor will always have better contrast even if it is much smaller?
  12. I know apochromatic refractors are considered the best optical telescopes out there, and I get that they are great for astrophotography because of their lighter weight, lack of diffraction spikes, pin point stars etc... But for visual, why buy a 2000 dollar 4 inch apo when you can get a 14 inch dobsonian for the same amount of money? The dob will have better resolution and light gathering capabilites, so why go for the APO? (we are assuming in this scenario that storage is not an issue). Would love to know and hear some opinions, I'm quite new to this. Thanks in advance
  13. Thank you! Yes it is from tonight, that exact position. No idea why my app wasnt showing it, perhaps because I have the brightness dimmed on the phone. Clear skies!
  14. If it helps, photo taken from 42 degrees latitude, around 9 pm.
  15. Here's a photo of Saturn I just took. The dot to the right is Titan i think, but the one above it isn't showing up in SkySafari or Stellarium. Is it a star? About the same magnitude as Titian. Thanks in advance!
  16. Buqibu

    Saturn

    Celestron AstroMastee 102AZ, using Celestron Zoom eyepiece plus Barlow 2x, around 100x - 165x. Seeing was better than usual, could make out the big pale band in Saturn's sphere, along with the shadow it casted on the ring. Also noticed its southern portion peeking out beneath the rings. Slight glimpse of the Cassini Division here and there. Sketch done with Sketchbook app on my phone. Visually it looked slightly dimmer, with purple fringing around it as is the norm for achros, other than that, I think I got a pretty accuarte sketch here. Enjoy!
  17. Celestron AstroMaster 102AZ, using Celestron Zoom eyepiece at 24mm. 4k video, 30fps on Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus (freely held). Proccessed 1200 frames in PiPP, stacked the best 25% in AutoStakkert, edited wavelets in Registax. Hope you like it🙂.
  18. Went out expecting some quick views of the planets Jupiter and Saturn, and maybe of The Moon later on. Seeing was not on my side this time. I don't know if it was the atmosphere, the heat from nerby buildings, humidity, poor transparancy etc...all I know is, the views were very wobbly. Couple that with the wind and I decided to switch my attention elsewhere. I thought I'd have a go at some deep sky objects, considering the moon wouldn't be out for another 2 hours or so. Quite a lot of stars visible (at least for urban skies, maps place it at bortle 5/6, but it really depends on neighbour lights). First object I went for was M15 (globular cluster), high in the sky, well placed for viewing. Got a bright blob of undefined stellar mass, about right for the 4 inch achro. I also took a look at M2 - same story, though M2 was lower in the sky. Considering it gave similar views at lower altitude, I'm assuming M2 is slightly more impressive than M15 in the same conditions. Both clusters took magnification well, though I could not clearly resolve stars. Next, I moved on to this naked eye double above Saturn - Algedi Secunda. Very nice, wide double of seemingly identical components, both barely fitting in the field of view. Kind of like a big version of Mesarthim in Ares. Next, I decided to try and find a new object. Noticed this nebula in SkySafari, well placed, high in the sky, bright as a planetary nebula can be, seemingly easy to find. "The Blue Snowball Nebula" (C22). I looked around the designated area of sky and found this bright pair of stars at 8mm. Though one of them had something odd about it...it wasn't focusing. The other star looked like a point, this one like a blueish white circle. Could this be it? It seemed too bright to me, I thought it would be far more of a challange. Decided to check SkySafari, and couldn't accurately match the surrounding stars in the app to my eyepiece view. Same thing in Stellarium. I was absolutely convinced this wasn't a normal star, so I looked online at an accuarate star chart , depicting even faint stars in that area. Found an image aaaaaandd...there it was. The nebula in the same position I saw it in the eyepiece. I was very pleased. Snaped a few pictures, blue colour clearly visible in them. I always imagined these objects to be out of reach to me, thinking only large telescopes and fancy cameras can present their beauty. But every passing night I am proven wrong. Of course you won't see hubble like images, you might not see big bright beautiful, colourful, detailed views, but there's something about them being real, right up there, as they've been for millions of years. As for the end, looked at The Andromeda Galaxy and the Double Cluster. By this time my hands were starting to go numb from the cold so I called it a night. Very memorable session😁. (All observations were made with Celestron AstroMaster 102AZ, using a Celestron Zoom eyepiece).
  19. Celestron AstroMaster 102AZ, using Celesteon Zoom eyepiece at 8mm. Picture taken with Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus in Pro Mode, ISO 3200, 1 second exposure.
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