Jump to content

SkySurveyBanner.jpg.21855908fce40597655603b6c9af720d.jpg

First use disapointment :-(


Recommended Posts

Barry, as a nearly as new astronomer as yourself (practically anyhoo, I've been an armchair astronomer if such a thing exists for years but didn't start observing till this last Christmas.) with a 130mm SW I'd add that it really helps to study the objects in the sky as well, whether it be a lunar atlas, a map of the constellations, the Messier catalog, Hershel 400 or whatever. Find everything you can online or in print to give as much context as possible and become familiar with the objects you're viewing.. As well as the practical stuff like apparent magnitude, It helps with star hopping to locate your object which gives you more observing time, it helps you appreciate the scale of it all and it just helps you to understand what you're looking at. I think that knowing about what you're looking at helps you see more because you know what you're looking for. Sketching your observations helps with this too. I've sketched a few sessions now and while nothing's going to win any prizes it aids my observing muscle so to speak.

Make a target list Based on your readings and even if you don't find something you'll find other stuff en route that'll be equally as captivating. Then the fun is in identifying it after and seeing if you can get back to it again. 

Get in the obs reports board in here, that'll help with knowing what to look for too. 

The hobby is as much about what you know as what you see I think, especially with the climate (read clouds) in the uk anyway. 

Also keep good observing logs, primarily to keep account of what you've observed but also so you know what to have another crack at when conditions are better or the sky is darker or when you have 'better' equipment. 

There's a lot of links to resources I've mentioned which can be found on here or via Google, if I wasn't basically asleep I'd share some, just say and I will later.... 

Of course as well this place is an amazing resource, continue to make use of it, speaking of which.... 

Mak thanks for the EP recommendations I'll be taking the plunge soon I think, do the vixen provide significantly better views that the revelation? I'm always a little scared when things get 'rebadged'

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 86
  • Created
  • Last Reply
52 minutes ago, johnfosteruk said:

Mak thanks for the EP recommendations I'll be taking the plunge soon I think, do the vixen provide significantly better views that the revelation? I'm always a little scared when things get 'rebadged'

I've not used the Revelation EP's per se  but I have used Celestron and Orion Plossls. All of these Plossls, including many other 'rebadged' Plossls are actually manufactured by Guan Sheng Optical (GSO) and can also be actually bought under that name.

Below; GSO 2.5x Barlow and my TS Optics rebadged equivalent. Telescope House sell a Revelation version of this cheaper than the GSO in this country. I wish I'd known that before I pulled the trigger on the TS Optics!

GSO actual.jpg

TS mine.jpg

Many other eyepieces sold under rebadged names are manufactured by Barsta. There are other Pacific Rim factories that produce probably 90% of the world's optical equipment. Mostly in the city of Kunming in the Yunnan Province in South-west China.

Celestron 17mm & 32mm Plossls. These are rebadged GSO, just like the Revelation.

17mm Celestron.jpg

Celestron 32mm Plossl.jpg

Although many of the GSO and Barsta products are also manufactured in Taiwan as I believe, like Synta, they are originally Taiwanese companies.

Vixen Sisters.jpg

I should imagine the Revelation would be the same as the Celestron and Orion Plossls. They are perfectly decent for the money and superior to the plastic bodied Modified Achromat giveaways with the Sky-Watcher scopes. The Vixen NPL series are an inexpensive (for Vixen) Chinese made Plossl series of quite high quality optical glass. I honestly think they come close to TeleVue or Baader in quality to look through. The 25mm & 30mm have large eye lenses and are comfortable to use with wide shallow safety undercuts on their draw tubes which don't particularly catch on brass compression rings. For the money, they are worth it. Some don't like the plastic twist up eye guards on the larger Vixen NPL's, but they are pretty sturdy.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have been somewhat overwhelmed by the enormous amount of help and advise which I have received from fellow members. Whilst I have been a member of other (different subjects) forums and have contributed my knowledge to same, I have been staggered by the warmth, friendship and huge amount of information that you have provided me with.

Thank you soooooo much for making the steep learning curve so enjoyable.

Barry

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A few thoughts from another novice:

1.  Hubble Space Telescope cost a lot more than yours so would expect to get better results.  Don't expect you will be seeing images the same as NASA publish on their web site.  Similarly you will see some beautiful photos of nebulae and other objects - created using sensitive imaging devices, collecting light over many hours.  Don't expect he same through your eyepiece.

2.  And although you wont be improving on Hubble imagery you can and will see some fascinating stuff.  Personally I'm fascinated by Globular Clusters and my fascination was started the 1st time I saw one through my telescope.  Try looking at one (e.g. M13) and then try and find out what they are, etc.  To me it's as much about what you are looking at as what you are seeing (i.e. you might just be "seeing" a diffuse light patch in the sky but you are looking at a large spiral galaxy heading towards us at over 100km/sec on a collision course, a galaxy with its own stars (and undoubtedly with planetary systems, dust clouds, etc).

3.  The people to feel sorry for are those with many £1000s of gear who spend all night every night for a week collecting imaging data, almost as long processing it only to find that is is not as good as the image they took of the same object several years ago.  As novices we take great strides forward every time we get the scope out.  Even if things don't go well, we are learning fast.

4.  Don't just look through your scope but research into what you are seeing.  If you have not already get a planetarium/star chart application for your computer (there are several excellent free ones around - many people use stellarium http://www.stellarium.org but there are others.  Chose an object (e.g. M13), using your star chart (or GoTo drives if your scope has them) try and find it and then research what you have seen.  Immense satisfaction.

All that said, different people get different things from astronomy.

Ian

Link to comment
Share on other sites

following on from that, I think a lot of what you see is your mind, and not just your eyes. Take the mercury transit yesterday for example: When I looked through a telescope at it, you can see how you would be underwhelmed by a black dot on an orange ball, if you just step back and really think about what you are seeing, I think it's just amazing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 hours ago, psamathe said:

Try looking at one (e.g. M13) and then try and find out what they are, etc.

I can vouch for that, had my intro to GCs recently with M13, in cracking conditions and now have the bug myself. Ruddy clouds have scuppered any future efforts though. I've got half a lifetime, or more hopefully though!!!

"To me it's as much about what you are looking at as what you are seeing"

And that's put more eloquently than what I said, in that it's about what you know as what you observe. Just to find out about what's happening up there in that little blob, or fuzzy area, incredibly rewarding, regardless of the quality of the views.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 hours ago, psamathe said:

many people use stellarium http://www.stellarium.org but there are others.

I installed a copy of Stellarium some time ago and it seems very accurate. What initially looked very complicated has started to make sense.  Its particularly useful to see where certain things are at certain times . . . which I guess is what its supposed to do :-) :-) 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, johnfosteruk said:

. . . Just to find out about what's happening up there in that little blob, or fuzzy area, incredibly rewarding, regardless of the quality of the views.

I couldn't agree more. I watched a couple of Brian Cox programmes on Eden recently and it gave me tingles.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Bodger said:

I installed a copy of Stellarium some time ago and it seems very accurate. What initially looked very complicated has started to make sense.  Its particularly useful to see where certain things are at certain times . . . which I guess is what its supposed to do :-) :-) 

I've run Stellarium for years, although now I only run it on Ubuntu, it is accurate apart from the actual position of Jupiter's Great Red Spot. Cartes du Ciel is the closest with this from my experience. Celestron's SkyPortal is also pretty close.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm going to jump in on this as well, as I'm really struggling. I've had my scope for nearly 2 weeks and still haven't even got it star aligned once yet. I can't get anything lined up in the finder scope. The movement of the scope is just far too clunky/jerky. Tonight was the 3rd time I've went out with hopes of finally getting some use out of all the money I've spent, and yet again it's been an utter nightmare.

The only thing I've had in focus so far is the moon through the finder scope! Was very nice to see the detail though!

Help save me from thinking this was a gigantic waste of money...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't have a goto, but I know at least some of the hand controllers have a speed control, could you not get it in the general area and then set it to the slowest setting to alleviate the clunkiness and fine tune your view?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, DarrenH said:

I'm going to jump in on this as well, as I'm really struggling. I've had my scope for nearly 2 weeks and still haven't even got it star aligned once yet. I can't get anything lined up in the finder scope. The movement of the scope is just far too clunky/jerky. Tonight was the 3rd time I've went out with hopes of finally getting some use out of all the money I've spent, and yet again it's been an utter nightmare.

The only thing I've had in focus so far is the moon through the finder scope! Was very nice to see the detail though!

Help save me from thinking this was a gigantic waste of money...

Don't give up.  At the moment I find it difficult because it gets properly dark quite late (after 23:30?).  Add to that the aspect that I need a bit of light to get everything set-up and I am trying to polar align with un-dark adapted eyes when it isn't fully dark anyway.

Have you checked for any local'ish clubs as they are worth a visit (worth joining as well as normally pretty low cost and a great source of help and knowledge as well as everything else they do.

Ian

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, johnfosteruk said:

I don't have a goto, but I know at least some of the hand controllers have a speed control, could you not get it in the general area and then set it to the slowest setting to alleviate the clunkiness and fine tune your view?

I've been trying to do it by hand....

Are the non-goto scopes much easier to move around?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, psamathe said:

Don't give up.  At the moment I find it difficult because it gets properly dark quite late (after 23:30?).  Add to that the aspect that I need a bit of light to get everything set-up and I am trying to polar align with un-dark adapted eyes when it isn't fully dark anyway.

Have you checked for any local'ish clubs as they are worth a visit (worth joining as well as normally pretty low cost and a great source of help and knowledge as well as everything else they do.

Ian

Sorry for the double post, I'm not sure how to multi quote!

It's the same here in regards to being proper dark. It's 10.30 before the horizon is dark and my weather app says it's 11pm before is 'astro dark'. As for clubs, we're very rural and my French is very poor, so it just won't happen. Everyone around here is either nearly dead or an aging farmer..... At the grand age of 32 I'm probably one of the youngest people for miles

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Mine's lovely and smooth, but it's not a dob so I can't really compare. I fitted a motor to mine though and you can disengage that so it's just a 'manual' again, surely you can do the same on the dob. You're undoing your locking knobs etc before manually slewing?

 

What about Nearly dead aging farmers Darren?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There is no locking knobs. There is the one that attaches the OTA to the mount, but that makes no difference unless i'm moving it up or down. As for aging farmers, that was merely to point out the demographic of people who live around here IE no one interested in stargazing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

24 minutes ago, DarrenH said:

Sorry for the double post, I'm not sure how to multi quote!

It's the same here in regards to being proper dark. It's 10.30 before the horizon is dark and my weather app says it's 11pm before is 'astro dark'. As for clubs, we're very rural and my French is very poor, so it just won't happen. Everyone around here is either nearly dead or an aging farmer..... At the grand age of 32 I'm probably one of the youngest people for miles

<off_topic>Don't worry about poor French.  When I moved to France I had not spoken French for 40 years and even back at age 10 my school categorised my French as "dreadful".  But when I moved to France I vowed to never let language stop me doing anything.  So joined a dog agility club and had great fun, my poor French.  they actually helped my French a lot as it was not continual correction but occasional "steering" (e.g. pointing out that if you pronounce the "c" at the start of the word for puppy it is actually not a word you would use in polite conversation).  But they were very friendly, very welcoming, I had great fun, I think they enjoyed me being there (as I was invited to do more and more and even to join one of their competitive teams).

I also learnt to fly gliders, all the instructors refused to speak English and normal answer to my language concerns was "The Control tower will understand 'Mayday' even in English" - but we managed everything with me destroying their language ('cos you would not believe how bad I was at it - real embarrassment).

French probably have more clubs around than you think.  Where I was (also very rural) there were more than 2 within easy travel.  French are quite keen on astronomy.

Go for it.  It will be great fun.</off_topic>

https://www.afastronomie.fr/structures

Ian

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't drive. Makes attending anything quite difficult!

 

Stellerium - I bought the cable etc to make this work, but I was under the impression you had to star align before it would work?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Never done it myself but saw a demo of it once at a star party.

If I may suggest that you start a new thread in the mounts section, there must be a few people doing it and they're more likely to spot it there.

Dave

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue. By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.