Moon

[burnout]

So on a learning curve with my new found hobby so i decided to take a vid of the moon ....is there anyway of stopping the wobbling of the image ?

 

[johnfosteruk]

That's a nice start to the new hobby

The wobbling is due to 'seeing' the atmospheric turbulence caused by living in Britain!!

It varies from night to night and some nights it'll be rock solid, others it'll be like a bowl of Moon soup. Your only option for permanent avoidance is to move to space, or up a mountain so there's less atmosphere.

 

[Dave In Vermont]

John - above - is right about what we call 'seeing.' Nothing to be done about this phenomena - just time. However, you can make sure you're not adding to the 'wobbly' situation.

Even touching the mount can give telescope's fits. If you're looking at, or filming, the Moon at 100X, any vibrations are also being magnified by 100X. But there are some things you can do to lessen any vibrations, aside from not jarring or even touching the mount. There are anti-vibration pads, sold in sets of three for astronomy-use, you can place under the legs of a tripod. If you put the word 'Astro' in front of something - it will increase the cost you pay to get same by a factor of 2X sometimes! So you can avoid that trap by looking in places other than shops selling astronomy-gear. Anti-vibration pads are used in a number of ways aside from for us folks. I made my own out of Sorbothane® pads that are sold for the vibrations caused by large freezers and other heavy, motorized equipment. Also don't try viewing out of an open window - the heat-currents from the house will cause bad wobbling.

Also see if your mount is loaded with too much weight for optimum viewing. If it's rated for, say, 20 pounds, and you've got a telescope with even close to this weight-load, you may find it giving you more wobbles than it could for best viewing. For this problem, you could buy a bigger mount. OR hanging a weight directly (or close to) under the mount. I use a 10lbs weight from a weight-set made for exercise. Anything will do. Be inventive and save some £££. Or you could look for 'Astro'-weight sets, and buy a 10lbs. weight for £500! <kidding!>

And do try to avoid setting up your scope near heavily-traveled roadways that is used by a lot of lorries (trucks here) - if possible. The vibrations will pass through the ground.

Hope this helps!

Dave