Is this possible = VixenED103S

[StarBurger]

Hi all - I know literally nothing about amateur skygazing so i hope you can give your input on a couple questions for me:

1) I happened on this guy's amateur astronomy photograph site and was pretty blown away by his photos. I mean seriously floored. He says he took them all with a Vixen ED103S. Here is one example:

http://www.seeingstarsnm.com/uploads/M31_sum_proc9.jpg

Is that possible? This looks like a hubble picture to me!

2) Secondly I looked at the Vixen ED103S online and it looked like it was a fairly small telescope in the picture. Like something you could stand next to on your balcony and its about as tall as you.

Vixen ED103S Refractor Telescope with SXD Sphinx Mount - Telescopes at Telescopes

But then i saw this picture on his site and this thing he's got looks monstrous:

http://www.seeingstarsnm.com/uploads/IMG_3903.jpg

Is that the same telescope?

So for $4,500 I could put my eyes up to that thing and see Andromeda in its full glory like shown above?

Thanks

[Photosbykev]

You could take a photography of M31 through that scope of that quality but you would not be able to physically view M31 in that much detail and colour through any scope. Most images you see online are the result of post processing hours of data to pull out all the fine detail and colour

[Pete Presland]

as Kev said 99% of all photo's will show more detail then you can ever hope too see through an eyepiece.a lot of the pictures are a result of many hours exposure time and much processing.

[StarBurger]

Well now you know just how much of a newbie I am. Can I ask what the draw is for you guys if all you ever see are black and white smudges?

It honestly seems more frustrating than fulfilling. Maybe the hobby is still in its infancy?

Would waiting 10 years for the technology to improve be worthwhile? Or have we reached the limits that amateur telescopes will ever be able to provide?

[Pete Presland]

imaging seemed like a natural progression to me,i do more imaging than visual work these days

[Stu]

Hi StarBurger,

I can assure you it's a very well established hobby and thousands of people find it very fulfilling.

It may not have made it as a main stream hobby yet because it requires patience, can be frustrating because of weather conditions and a certain amount of knowledge and skill is needed to find and enjoy things. It is unlikely that technology will overcome all the frustrations, although I guess adaptive and active optics may eventually be able to cut through poor seeing better. Clouds are a trickier problem altogether

I personally don't enjoy imaging because I feel that I can look at images from a wide range of sources, including hubble when ever I want anyway. Viewing things on a screen doesn't really do it for me but I understand lots of people love it. What I enjoy is finding very beautiful or interesting objects, understanding what they are and how they formed, and knowing that the photons of light emitted from them hundreds, thousands or even millions of light years ago are hitting the back of my eye ball ie I am seeing them myself.

Some things require big aperture to see well, but that is quite possible these days, 16" scopes are quite within amateur reach. I have an 8" scope and it shows me plenty that satisfies me.

It will not give instant gratification, but with imagination, patience and knowledge it is a fascinating and very rewarding hobby.

Here endeth the rantings of a crazed visual observer .

Seriously, give it some time and learn your way around the sky. Check out M42, jupiter, saturn etc and go from there. An 8" Skywatcher dobsonian scope is not that expensive and will show you plenty. I hope you find it worthwhile.

Cheers

Stu

[E621Keith]

Visual astronomy hasn't change much. I still find those faint smudge very exciting. In addition you also get the moon, planets and star clusters. To us, the galaxies and nebulae still look like what they used to look like through a telescope. The telescopes got better, so we could see more, but they remained faint smudges nevertheless.

Astrophotography advanced very quickly in the last two decades with the spread of CCD and digital imaging. It allowed imagers to extract details that were not visible in the past.

That made astronomy as a whole more exciting, but it does not make visual any less interesting. Knowing those little photons travelled millions of years and ended it's journey in my retina some how makes me feel connected to the object I'm viewing.

[John]

....That made astronomy as a whole more exciting, but it does not make visual any less interesting. Knowing those little photons travelled millions of years and ended it's journey in my retina some how makes me feel connected to the object I'm viewing.

Yep - thats the "draw" for me too and it's kept me in the visual side of the hobby for 30 years

Still, "horses for courses" and all that - astronomy has lots of facets and you can and should make it what you want it to be - it is a hobby after all

[StarBurger]

Thanks guys. Going by what "the masses" will enjoy, I think amateur astronomy will remain a small group because the dumbed down masses want visuals. That's just my opinion based on my understanding of human nature.

I think the technology that would truly make the hobby take off would be the simple experience of having people over, walking them out onto your balcony, having them lean over, peer into an eyepiece, and see a full-color blown up Andromeda galaxy in front of them. That right there would make this hobby wildly popular. But as I understand it, that will never be possible. Something about the distance, and disturbances between there and here makes everything end up black and white to the human eye?

With that picture of Andromeda above - can I ask - would Andromeda be that large and brilliant through the eyepiece, minus the colors? In other words, could one theoretically bring a friend "out on the balcony" and see that exact photo, but in black and white?

If I'm understanding correctly, imaging basically means you snap a picture of the object, and your computer does stuff with software that gives you a nice color photo - on your computer screen, hours later? Unfortunately that process alone will eliminate a lot of simple minded stargazers. Buzzkill.

This is no insult to you guys. In fact its a compliment, and im being a bit harsh to the general public for wanting easy, immediate, and spectacular results. You guys do this for the same reason I would. You actually understand that we are floating on a rock in the middle of a vast sea of nothingness, and it utterly blows your mind whats outside our little "bubble". So you put the effort and heart into learning and working for the "small" victories and small sightings, no matter how small or smudgy they may be

When i asked about technology improving, do you think that telescopes can improve magnifciation without getting physically larger, if you gave technology another 10-20 years to "improve upon the telescope" ? Or have we reached the limits of mirrors and lenses for the standard sized telescope? Im comparing this to computers, which get more powerful and smaller as the years go by. Seems to me there may be some physical limitations. Would a fellow 100 years from now have a telescope the size of a baseball bat that is as powerful as Hubble?

[Stu]

I tend to agree with you starburger, I think many people may be wowed by planets like saturn and jupiter, but the difficulties of seeing fainter objects may be too much trouble.

Visual observing, certainly for dso's, is never going to be a ' balcony' activity. Andromada actually is probably one of the worst objects in that even in quite big scopes, it rarely looks dramatic. To see things visually with the sort of drama you are looking for probably needs a 16" to 20" scope under a very dark sky, which means driving somewhere dark, isolated and probably cold. Most of us would do that given the chance and I guess that's what shows whether you just have a passing interest or a real passion for the hobby.

As for pocket sized hubbles, can't see it ever happening. Too many physical and technical reasons why it's impossible to achieve.

Cheers

Stu