...but is it astronomy?

[Bellyeye]

HEQ5 on pier, PHD finally settled and behaving well. On my 10th 3min sub of M27 imaged with Nebulosity all controlled via Teamviewer on my iMac whilst drinking a cup of tea in the comfort of my living room.

But is it astronomy?..........

[John]

I think it is John 

It's not the way I undertake the hobby but all sorts of approaches seem to fit the definition that I have in my mind of astronomy:

"the branch of science which studies celestial objects, space, and the physical universe as a whole"

Enjoy your cuppa 

[Luke]

Yes Most civilized approach, I sometimes like to image or view the sun or daytime moon from indoors. Comfy chair, drink, pair of slippers, etc.

[K3ny0n]

I like to be warm, I don't see the problem in doing imaging like this as it's the same concept as a warm room in a observatory so good on you! 

Curious to know your setup John and this Teamviewer as I have a Mac too, Whats involved in it?

Rob.

[chiltonstar]

chacun à son goût.........as they say in the civilized part of Europe!

Chris

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

It's astronomy, John, but not as we know it

Of course, that should be Mr Spock line.

[Uranium235]

It's astronomy, John, but not as we know it

Of course, that should be Mr Spock line.

Lol.... beat me to it.

Its what im doing right now, except Im using tightVNC to view the imaging rig. I could even do it on the toilet if I fire up the smartphone.

When it gets to late night and there is nothing left on TV, I usually end up watching The young ones or Red Dwarf while keeping an eye on the PHD graph... keeps me sane!

[bish]

100% is - and I'm a purely visual astronomer.

[asset189]

does it matter if your getting enjoyment from it?  Technology has a lot to answer for sometime but it also makes the impossible possible for many folks who enjoy the night sky.

Personally i still love getting outside somewhere dark and just enjoying the sheer scale and wonder of whats up there. Pair of binos and im set for hours of fun.

[Mr Spock]

Fascinating...

[Bellyeye]

Curious to know your setup John and this Teamviewer as I have a Mac too, Whats involved in it?

Rob.

Basically, because I use a Skywatcher mount and love EQMod, I'm tied to windows. So, I have a windows machine outdoors attached to the mount and cameras.

Teamviewer is remote access software which allows me to access the Windows machine from the Mac indoors. Highly recommended Rob - free and reliable!

[Bellyeye]

does it matter if your getting enjoyment from it? Technology has a lot to answer for sometime but it also makes the impossible possible for many folks who enjoy the night sky.

Personally i still love getting outside somewhere dark and just enjoying the sheer scale and wonder of whats up there. Pair of binos and im set for hours of fun.

Me too. Just recently returned from PSP13. Unfortunately only got a view of the inside of my tent ;-) blasted rain! The company made up for the weather though :-)

[Moonshane]

I'd wager that many professional astronomers have never looked through a scope directly, or not for years.

[Uranium235]

Thats not to say I dont stay out once in a while   and there is no subsitute for a dark sky.

But I always have a pair of 10x50 bins handy in case I fancy a wander through the MW while the mount does its trickery. Not so easy in the winter months though, a couple of hours at -15 isnt much fun - thats when remote control becomes a bit of necessity if doing any serious imaging. In fact, with a decent mount you can go to bed, get a good kip and wake up to a whole shedload of data!

Plus, if you have a little one to put to bed every evening - having a reliable remote control on your phone is very handy indeed.

[r3i]

"the branch of science which studies celestial objects, space, and the physical universe as a whole"

Nicely put.

Whilst the majority of amateur astronomy is probably visual based, astronomy as a whole covers a lot more methods of investigation that amateurs also pursue such as imaging, spectroscopy and radio astronomy.

Even with a warm room, I still often retire to comforts of the lounge and monitor the image capture via VNC on the Android phone.  There's no real need to suffer for our art is there?

[crashtestdummy]

As much as the thought of imaging bores me i would still say its astronomy

[Ouroboros]

I think it sounds ideal. I wouldn't trust the technology to look after itself though. So my version of the 'lounge' is the shed with chair, table for lap top, iPad for watching telly or whatever, and the all important fan heater. But I'm only a couple of steps from the telescope if to camera battery needs replacing or whatever might go wrong.

[Macavity]

I sure "real" Particle Physicists work right next to the LHC beam-pipe. lol. (They don't).

But Lead Underpants aside, they tend not to propagate the species overmuch?

Among the sciences, Astronomy is rather lucky to STILL have all these options.

[pete_l]

But is it astronomy?..........

Looking at stuff in the night sky through a telescope? Yup. No doubt.

Now, if only the "astronomy" magazines and TV programmes would have more of this: real astronomy.

[JB80]

I'd wager that many professional astronomers have never looked through a scope directly, or not for years.

I was having a conversation with a few people and another person and I were talking telescopes, our rubbish attempts at imaging and so forth when a friend of a friend butted in to say "Do any of you actually make a living from astronomy though because I do?"

So we dug a bit further and he was fresh out of uni and working at writing software code  for a research telescope, it was all very interesting but when asked if he had a telescope of his own he said he hadn't and had no interest in getting one.

Bonafide astronomer though.

I think he was a little bit disappointed he hadn't a clue what we were talking about so played the "I make a living from it" card.

Each to their own.

[Stu]

Agreed, it totally is Astronomy, and all sounds very civilised. I only wish I could enjoy it that way because it would be far warmer than grubbing around in the cold outside, as is the curse of all us poor visual astronomers! :-)

It's not for me, but if you enjoy it that's all that matters.

One thing I don't necessarily get ( and this isn't aimed at anyone here) is when people don't even look up under a lovely clear sky? A number of years ago, I was at a pub after an Astro Society meeting, and we ended up sitting outside. It was a lovely clear night, Jupiter and some lovely constellations were overhead, and not one person (other than me!) seemed in the least bit interested. I was gawping up at it thinking isn't that beautiful! That's the only bit I don't get.

On the subject of professional astronomers, I heard or read an anecdote a while back about a group being shown around an observatory. I am para-phrasing but this is the general idea..... It was a clear night apparently, but the 'staff' there said they could not view anything because the computer systems were off and the Goto wasn't working. They were amazed when someone asked for an eyepiece and manually moved the scope to find something of interest! Possibly apochryphal but it illustrates a point. I like to think if I were a pro then I would at least want to know where I was pointing my very big scope! :-)

Cheers,

Stu

[johnrt]

If it isn't astronomy, then what is it?

[astro mick]

Is it Astronomy.

Well yes it is,you are still imaging the night sky,be it in a warm room or not.

I do exactly the same,and really enjoy it.

But i know where your,e comming from.All to often when i aquire my data,i,m not really looking at the image,well i am but only for what,s wrong with it,and how can i make it better.I,m not looking at the structure an complexity of whats before me.

Same with processing,just trying to get the best result so i can post on here.

You could argue are Goto Mounts Astronomy,rather than finding your way around the night sky,by star hopping and reading star maps.

I think with our Rubbish skies,anything to make life easier,be it imaging or Visual,its all Astronomy,at least as we know it.

Mick.

[Pig]

I agree 100% astronomy no question

Just looking up a the night sky with the naked eye is astronomy, in its simplest form, and I wager how it all started

[laowho]

I'd wager that many professional astronomers have never looked through a scope directly, or not for years.

"Suffice to say, 'What we behold is censored by our eyes'" (Dorothy Sayers' Lord Peter Whimsey)