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Ever since I was a lad...

Hanuman

By Hanuman
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Hanuman

Hanuman

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...I've had a passing interest in Astronomy. Took over 30 something years to get a telescope though. My wife bought me a skywatcher 130M at the end of March. Somewhat unprompted and impressively she did her research and bought pretty much what I had in mind.

Had a week of clear nights but it's been frustratingly cloudy since.

However in those first days I was blown away by the moon as it was waxing. Spent a lot of time along the terminator.

Saw Jupiter and a moon or two before it disappears behind the houses to the west.

Disappointed by Mars so far, but absolutely entranced by Saturn.

Bought an extra plossl eyepiece - 17mm

I've got a couple of Canon EOS SLRs (350D and 400D) so wondering about imaging through scope with them - will probably ask bout this in Imaging section.

Thinking about light pollution filters - live in Birminghm so it's quite bad.

Converted a webcam but not tried it out properly. Haven't had the skies.

Reading lots.

Waiting for clear skies....

Anyway hello.

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Hanuman

Hanuman

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Excellent suggestion - Thanks Glen.

Been reading and collecting a few target lists but too many seem to include DSOs and I don't think I have dark enough skies or the navigational skills yet.

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Glen

Glen

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Welcome bud, it'll just keep the interest alive if needed. That and some of the brighter messier

Messier object - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Possibly a little Sun observing by projection[?] caution advised of course!

And seeing the Sun spot's evolve (great time to do this) or just relaxing in the star fields, there's plenty to see ,do, and ask when the time comes. :)

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JamesM

JamesM

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Hi and welcome to the forum. Congratulations on your scope by the way and looks like you are making a good start. you might want to think about downloading a free piece of planetarium software called "Stellarium" which you can view here. As far as astrophotography is concerned, the answer lies in the type of imaging you want to do. To image solar system objects (Planets and Moon) which are bright, all you need is a simple inexpensive webcam which you use to capture a lot of quick 'frames' from which you subtract the poor ones (blurred/out of focus) and then stack the best ones on top of each other using free software called Registax to construct a composite image. If however you wish to image deep sky objects (DSO's) such as galaxies and nebulae, then you will need a very precise mount in order to accurately track these faint objects for long enough in order to facilitate the required longer exposures. The mount you have will not be accurate enough to image DSO's but there is plenty of detail to capture from the changing phases of the moon to keep you busy for some time. Hope that helps you with your understanding.

Clear skies

James

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