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Hello from bonnie Scotland! :)

Nadine2704

By Nadine2704
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Nadine2704

Nadine2704

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Hi there!

I'm Nadine and I live in central Scotland.  I have no real experience with anything astronomy-related, just a great love for gazing at the stars!  I once won a competition for making the best paper-mache Jupiter when I was 5; that's about the extent of my expertise! :p  I've always been fascinated by space, and I've FINALLY invested in my first telescope, which I'm just waiting for to arrive!  I went for a Sky Watcher Skyliner 200P 8" Dobsonian after a bit of research; also bought a 2x Barlow Lens, but to be perfectly honest I have no idea what I'm doing haha!  I'm hoping that a bit of common sense will help me figure out what I'm doing, when it arrives, but if anyone has any tips at all, about ANYTHING, then they'd be greatly appreciated!  

I'm really interested in astro-photography too.  I don't want to jump right in at the deep end and buy a whole load of gadgets that I don't know how to use, but does anyone have any tips on getting as decent as possible photos using the scope I've bought, plus a mobile phone/generic digital camera?

Nice to meet you all, and thanks for any tips you can give me! :)



 

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swag72

swag72

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Welcome to SGL Nadine - Glad that you found us. There's loads of stuff on here to get you going and if you do get stuck, then just shout!

Regarding imaging, perhaps just find your feet first, then do some more research and decide if it is something that you want to do. Have you looked in the iaging section? Will give you an idea of the sort of things that are possible and what kit you need to get there.

Look forward to seeing you around :smiley:

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Space Dragon

Space Dragon

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Hi Nadine

Welcome to the wonderful world of Stargazing. Best advice to begin with is......be patient and you will be rewarded. Some good  targets to begin with are The Pleiades [M45]....Orion Nebula {M42] ....Double Cluster and Jupiter. All fairly easy to find and great to observe.

Any Astro App on a phone or tablet will show you where they are and this forum is a great source of help.

And some warm clothes will help.

Best of Luck

Duncan

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narrowbandpaul

narrowbandpaul

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Welcome from Central Scotland,

Dobs are a good way to start off, generally the biggest bang for your buck, and an 8" don will show you quite a lot especially from a dark sky.

In terms of imaging though they aren't quite so good. It's due to the fact that the base doesn't rotate to follow the stars across the sky. You'll notice once you look through it that the objects in the eyepiece are continually moving. To capture really good images of deep sky objects need to be perfectly tracked for minutes on end.

However you certainly can use a phone or off the shelf digital camera held up against the eyepiece to grab an image of the moon and planets (Jupiter is largest and well placed just now). I have held my phone against the eyepiece and it worked just fine. It's a bit fiddly but it is more than possible

Hope that helps

Paul

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glowjet

glowjet

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Hi Nadine welcome to SGL, great scope the 200P Dob, but before you step onto the photography ladder, you should obtain a copy of Steve Richards book "Making Every Photon Count", available through FLO, see top of page, and a copy of "Turn Left at Orion" available from most book sellers. It is a steep learning curve but if you get stuck, never be afraid to ask, enjoy :)

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JamesM

JamesM

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Hi Nadine and welcome to the forum. As others have said above, congratulations of purchasing a great scope and one that won't disappoint you as you embark on your astronomical journey. As others have indicated above, astrophotography takes quite a bit of preparation and the learning curve is steep at the beginning as you will need to bring together many different elements which are essential if you want to produce good consistent images. The above suggested book by Steve Richards is an important recommendation and in my view essential reading if you want to avoid buying the wrong kit as the equipment necessary for imaging is different to that required for good observing. One further suggestion would be to download a free piece of planetarium software called Stellarium which will help you learn the night sky, find and identify objects and can also be configured to show the same night sky as that which you can see from your observing site (e.g back garden). It also has lots of additional great features that will keep you busy when the clouds come in. Really easy to use and very popular here so if you run into any problems there are many of us here that can help you.

Clear skies and enjoy the forum

James

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Nadine2704

Nadine2704

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Thanks for the lovely welcomes! :)

I've already got Stellarium on my laptop, so I'll be making full use of that when my scope arrives! (Which was meant to be today, but for some reason the 'guaranteed Saturday delivery' that I paid for apparently wasn't all that guaranteed!)  I'll also check out the books that were mentioned before I consider photography!  I'll take a look at the Imaging section on here too and learn a little more before I jump into it!  I'll be quite content for the time being if I can get a fuzzy picture of something that resembles a planet using my phone or a picture of the moon that isn't a giant white blob :p

Sadly the forecast for the next week here is clouds, clouds, clouds!  Just my luck!!

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