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Showing results for tags 'planets'.
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Hello everyone, I'm relatively new to this hobby and there's a few telescopes I've been looking into across a few budget points. I'm most interested in the planets, the moon and double stars, though would definitely like the ability to explore other things, so a good 'all rounder' would suit me best. The first is the Sky-Watcher Explorer 150P F/5 which is relatively cheap, but seems to have good reviews. The second is the Altair Ascent 102ED F/7 which despite not having many reviews seems to be a solid choice The third is the more expensive option, the Sky-Watcher Evostar 100ED DS-Pro F/9 - which has better glass than the former. If anybody has any opinions on these choices or any additional options that aren't too expensive that might perform better I would love to hear everyone's input!
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From the album: Solar System Objects
I didn't get a chance to spend too much time hunting the best seeing conditions for planetary imaging this year, but this is the best image of Saturn that I captured this season... Captured through a 8" SCT @ f30 (Televue 3X Barlow) using a Skyris 618C CCD.© Mariusz Goralski
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From the album: Solar System Objects
I didn't get a chance to spend too much time hunting the best seeing conditions for planetary imaging this year, but this is the best image of Jupiter that I captured this season... Captured through a 8" SCT @ f30 (Televue 3X Barlow) using a Skyris 618C CCD.© Mariusz Goralski
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My Orion XT8 Telescope just before going out on a cold evening!
Dan Watts posted a gallery image in Member's Album
From the album: Scope & Equipment
In my search for Comets at the moment, I had a night outside on a clear evening last week. I cannot wait until Comet ISON makes it's way round. -
Jupiter and Moons
RRT26 posted a topic in Imaging Challenge #10 - Smartphones & Tablets (Now Closed)
Photos taken via my Samsung Galaxy J7 through my Orion f4 scope. The images of Jupiter and its' moons 1,3,and 5 were captured through a 20mm lens. Images 2 and 4 were captured with an Orion Shorty 2x Barlow Lens through a 20mm lens. -
Greetings, I thought I'd share with you all this little arty farty collage I made of the moon and some of the planets: Jupiter, Mars and Saturn. All the photos were taken by holding my iPad to my 8inch dob. They were then processed on my iPad and put together on Instagram. Not amazing I know but I was quite chuffed considering my technical limitations. clear skies, Thomas
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Hello, I have recently bought a 76AZ and seen some incredible sites of the Moon, Venus was good to observe too (all through the 20mm) However Mars was a disappointment probably due to its size; and when I attach the Barlow Lense the zoom is there but the quality is definitely compromised. (Also find trouble with focusing as it shakes finding it hard to find the 'sweet spot') I am asking for some advice on how to 'tune up' or get the best out of my 76AZ, and for any advice on what optics/eyepieces to buy as I have read that the standard ones are not the best of quality. The finder scope is also terrible and will probably resort to fitting an Air Rifle scope in its place! Although guess work with two people works reasonably well! I would love gain any valuable Pointers & Tips anyone may have on how to use this telescope to its maximum performance or what things I can do to improve the quality etc. you can also be honest and say I need to just upgrade ha ha Thanks a lot in advance! ? -
Venus is about 45% illuminated at the moment and is very bright in the evening sky. Over the next few weeks and months Venus will get closer to us and appear as more of a crescent. As usual I took far more shots than I needed so this is just a quick processing of the last one before a tree got in the way and I got too cold to stay out. Made from 1,000 frame video captured with FireCapture and processed in PIPP, Registax, and Photoshop. Equipment: Celestron NexStar 127 SLT Alt-Az Mount ZWO ASI120 MC imaging camera x3 Barlow lens
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Finally, Jupiter is back in the night sky! Oh, how I have missed this beautiful gas giant of a planet. As much as I enjoy imaging deep sky objects, my first love will always be planetary imaging. There is just something about imaging our local neighbors that puts me in a wonderful mood. Watching Jupiter rotate throughout the night is a sight to behold, and for such a large planet it does so about every 10 hours as opposed to our 24 hour Earth rotation. This means I can watch the great red spot on Jupiter slide across the surface in a matter of hours, and I can even see the movement of its 4 brighter moons. The black dot you see in the image is a shadow transit of Europa, one of Jupiter's larger moons. P.S. This is my best image of Jupiter...so far Technical details: 9,000 frames de-rotated in Winjupos Stacked in Autostakkert2 Sharpened in Avistack2 and PS Celestron Nexstar 6se telescope + 2x Barlow + 24mm eyepiece and extension tube Celestron AVX Mount Asi120mc-s camera http://coachella-astronomy-astrophotography.blogspot.com/2017/02/jupiter-2-1-17.html -
Stargazers Lounge community, The sci-fi novel I wrote takes place in a binary star system and I'm attempting to fact check before handing over to my agent. From what I gather, there are S-type, P-type & T-type systems, but I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around the orbital possibilities. Hoping someone's expertise can help! Would it be theoretically possible to have a planet in a binary star system where there is a daily "pre-sunrise" and a "pre (or post) sunset" due to the dimmer star? And could there be daily syzygy with the stars or might it need to be less frequent? If anyone can advise or has any suggestions, it would be so appreciated! Thank you!
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These evenings don't come round very often. Just put my head out the back. Clear Skies minus 2 and dropping. 15 minutes quick set up with the Mak 150. So far Venus, Moon, Mars. To follow in the next couple of hours Neptune and Uranus.. Don't you just love it, it's what it's all about! Bring it on.
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Hey guys. Thought about starting this thread. I feel like we all should inform eachother and newer members alike about the magngifications that can be achieved on planets,that provide the best sharpness/size ratio,depending on the scope and seeing. After this thread has grown a bit, i feel like this should be pinned,as to provide a little guide to newer members that are not experienced with planetary observing,as many will be fooled with the typical 50x per inch of aperture and get disappointed when they find that that image will be dim and blurry. For my 8” F/6 Sky-Watcher Dob For Saturn i like to use 150x in medium seeing and if i want something a bit bigger , switch to 240x ,which will give me a bigger,but blurrier image.iBut In good seeing, i found that 240x was very usable.When we have perfect conditions, i m certainly trying 300x. Mars, isnt very big in the sky right now,so even at high magnifications like 300x it still appears as a small orange dot. For observing mars,I suggest waiting for it to reach opposition.It benifits hugely from it! However,this happens once every 2 years....But 5ere are other planets to keep you occupied until then, such as jupiter,saturn and Venus. For Venus, i use 50-100-120 depending on its phase. For Jupiter, i like to use 150x, as it provides a very sharp image,with key features of the planet such as bands being very detailed.Waiting on my 6mm UWA Skywatcher to bring it to 200 and see how that plays out. Be careful! Don’t magnify jupiter too much, as it will loose much of its features and sharpness. Neptune and Uranus: These two will not impress, but are certainly have a nice colour to them. Even ar high magnifications, such as 300x and 400x, they will look like small discs with color in them.Uranus will look be colored green and Neptune a fainter blue. Mercury About mercury...Havent gotten the chance to observe it ,so the guys will have to inform you about that? Feel free to give your own opinions as to give members a wider source of information to help them observe better ! Cheers and clear skies. Kronos
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I hope computer program grabs are appropriate for this forum. It seemed like the place best suited to these but I wanted to share them. In retrospect there're a couple of layout improvements I could have done with the first two but I'm quite happy with the Sun one. I couldn't make that image any smaller because Ceres already appears only 1px. Links: http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/2227/solarsystemcelestia.jpg http://img838.imageshack.us/img838/9906/solarsystemrocks.jpg http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/7035/solarsystemsun.jpg As the title states, the planetary graphics are taken from the free (and cool) download, Celestia. The Sun image (which is yesterday's Sun actually) was taken from "Helioviewer" which is a very handy website resource.
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Hi, After a lot of research I purchased my first advanced telescope a 12inch Orion SkyQuest Open Truss Dobsonian. Being into astronomy for years now this is the first gaint telescope I am using. Today was first light and I was rather confused as to what I was seeing. Comparing my tiny 4inch view of Jupiter with the view from this 12inch; it was nearly similar! So the question is which eyepieces should I use to get better detail? I have a 28mm, 32mm, 15mm, 6mm etc. and a Baader zooming hyperion. I viewed Jupiter from both the telescopes using a 32mm wide angle eyepiece. This is probably a really rookie question so go soft on me Which eyepieces and of which make should I attach to fully utilize the capability of this telescope? I tried the Baader and the 15mm and the 32mm for seeing Jupiter tonight. Any help would be highly HIGHLY appreciated. Clear Skies, Div
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Hi, I am going to buy my first telescope and I can't make up my mind with the focal ratio. I have seen this two option within my budget Skywatcher 130/1000 eq2 with a f/7.7 ratio Meade 130 Polaris EQ with 650 mm focal length and f/5 ratio. I read that a f/7.7 would be better to watch planets while f/5 would be better to watch galaxies and nebulae and will also give a brighter image. As I am new and never looked through a telescope like those I don't know which to choose. The idea of looking at galaxies really excited me but I also wanted to see planets such as Jupiter or Saturn and it's moons, and at the moment I am not considering photography as I still need to get familiar with the telescope but in the future I would love to take some photos so brightness could be important. My question is how much difference would I noticed between these two focal ratio when I looked at planets and galaxies. Would I get a much better view of Saturn with a f/7.7 or not really? Thanks in advance for your advices
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Some reasonable seeing from my location in Selsey, West Sussex over the last couple of nights. Here are three results for Mars, Jupiter and Saturn from 26 June. Pete
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Gibbous Venus over London. Venus is looking particularly bright at the moment as it is out of the glare of the Sun at this point in its cycle and, unusually for Venus, over the next few months will be visible in the late night sky. This is my second attempt at capturing Venus as usually it isn't visible when I'm out with my scope. The first attempt I made, last year, was completely over exposed and looked terrible so I'm quite pleased with this.
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Saturn seen from London on a clear but windy night. As an experiment this image is made from the best 200 frames taken from each of seven videos at different exposures and stacked in Registax. Post processing was done in Photoshop CS6.
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Hello , I just bought my new Newtonian, reflecter and I looked jupiter and saturn the views were great but when I tried to capture thwn with my smartphone they become white balls then I adjusted the exposure settings on my smartphone everything vanishes . I got a descent photo of saturn with cassini division but jupiter was still looking like a white balls . should I buy a ZWO 120 MC or modify a logitech c270 and if you have a solution to fix that smartphone problem please help me out .
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This planetary conjunction forms a triangle with Jupiter(left), Mercury(top) & Venus(right) Pentax 645D Pentax 500mm lens @ f8 Exp. 1/4 sec. ISO 200 26th May 2013 Pentax Digital Camera Utility 4 Conjunction of Jupiter Mercury & Venus 26th May 2013 from Kelso by mikeyscope, on Flickr
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Hi all, I'm becoming a bit of a Moon and Planets visual observer and in consequence, I'm considering an Amici Diagonal. I have read that at high magnification your view can be obscured. That said, I have read that it is of little consequence when using a Mak and a decent diagonal like this one - https://tinyurl.com/y75z4n5v from Baader Planetarium. I'm really keen to make my East East and my West West. Any advice or experience would be welcome
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I remember when i first heard the planets symphony (in record form, or it may have been cassette), entranced isn't the word, especially Neptune with all the womanly choirs. Just listening to Venus just now, had forgotten how amazing that was, then i played Mercury, then i thjought about what was known in Mr Holst's time about the planets, a quick search tells us he was born in 1874 and died in 1934, but i know notihng about astronomical history so it was interesting to look at what information was available to him as an artist, what did he base Mercury on for instance? In modern times being Mercurial (not that it's used often these days) means that you are a little unreliable, change-with-the-wind, bit of an airhead, stuff like that. When you listen to Mercury it has that kind of flighty cadence! It's all very quick and light and cagey. So i found myself wondering where this characterisation of planets came from, Mars being equated with war, Venus with love etc. I'm roughly versed in Roman history which tells us they took their gods from thje Greeks abd the Greek inheritance is fairly obscure beyond Pelaginas (spelling?). I've just realised it's late here in the UK and i'm rambling coz i've had one too many. Basciically i just love the planets by Holst, especially Neptune.
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Hi, I was asked on a Swedish forum to put an "Astronomical Dictionary" on my homepage. I have made a test page in an easy form. Astronomical related words linked to wikipedia. It aims to the beginners in astronomy so it should not be too complicated words. http://astrofriend.eu/astronomy/astronomical-dictionary/astronomical-dictionary.html Let me know if it's useful and and I shall add more words. /Lars
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Dear esteemed Stargazers, I would like to ask for some recommendations for an eyepiece I look for. First off, I have a 7" Mak with 2700 mm focal length. So I figure, a 12.5 (or 12.0) mm EP should be very nice to start viewing planets (my main interest) on good nights. This would result in 0.83 (0.8) mm exit pupil and 216x (225x) magnification. So far so good and I really would like to add some fixed focal length EPs to my collection as I only own 8-24 mm zoom. The conundrum starts with the choice of EP design and three choices I face shall I go old school style and buy a 12.5 mm orthoscopic EP (Takahashi or Masuyama)? or shall I buy a more modern design with more eye relief and go for a 12 mm Vixen SLV? or do I completely miss an eyepiece and should go for that? Thus I thought I tap into the collective wisdom of the community and ask for advice. Clear skies, Alex
