I SAW IT ..... i saw it ..... WOW

[TareqPhoto]

Here is a simple dirty image of the Pleiades taken today about an hour ago from now

[Red Dwarfer]

52 minutes ago, TareqPhoto said:

Here is a simple dirty image of the Pleiades taken today about an hour ago from now

Nice result !

[Dave In Vermont]

Here's TheSkyX Serious-Edition's take on them:

 

 

Should be correct-image regards N, S, E, &W.

Seeing as we're playing!

Dave

[TareqPhoto]

From my location it is going to up, not to the side, it is really amazing to see how it is different orientation around the world.

[TareqPhoto]

By the way, my bext friend is Stellarium, more friendly screen and more simple to me, or better to say it is straight forward

[Red Dwarfer]

6 minutes ago, TareqPhoto said:

From my location it is going to up, not to the side, it is really amazing to see how it is different orientation around the world.

I just seen it 5 minutes ago and found X 15 magnification about right in the Celestron 400mm frac ...

That is M29 and M45 ( Pleiades ) both added to my Messier list tonight . 

 

[Dave In Vermont]

I also use Stellarium, and like it very much. But since I loaded the extra star-atlases, it takes awhile to load. So TheSkyX is my go-to for fast acquisition of images, etc.

Dave

[TareqPhoto]

1 hour ago, Dave In Vermont said:

I also use Stellarium, and like it very much. But since I loaded the extra star-atlases, it takes awhile to load. So TheSkyX is my go-to for fast acquisition of images, etc.

Dave

Oh, how did you load it with extra star data?

[Dave In Vermont]

You can take your pick of how many extra stars you want. stars8 is the largest at 533MB or 1.3GB for the whole batch of the main file.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/stellarium/files/Extra-data-files/

You may need a little help to use and install these things. Or you may not. Depending on your level of experience. I'm too tired to walk you through it tonight if you do need assistance. But I'm sure we can help you soon if you need be. You can also load more DSO's and other things. Fair warning though - loading a lot of these will slow down Stellarium quite a bit. You can pretty much load every bit & byte of data available in the world!  

I strongly suggest you take it easy when you're just starting out. Find out what you're doing first!

Catch you later, Tareq!

Dave

[Red Dwarfer]

Here is a quick shot of Venus in pre dawn twilight as I did not have any luck photographing the Pleiades last night ... 

Personally , I like diffraction spikes ...

 

[TareqPhoto]

5 hours ago, Red Dwarfer said:

Here is a quick shot of Venus in pre dawn twilight as I did not have any luck photographing the Pleiades last night ... 

Personally , I like diffraction spikes ...

 

Good job!

Yesterday somehow it wasn't good visual for us, i mean 2 or 3 days, ago - specifically when i started this thread- the visual was better, i thought it will be better yesterday as the moon is waning, but nevertheless, i will keep watching and imaging whenever it is possible, still waiting the PoleMaster and the astro camera which likely it will get here next month.

[TareqPhoto]

Thank you very much Dave for your link, i will check out how to update my Stellarium data list, and if it is getting slower as you said then i will use another software if necessary.

[SonnyE]

You know... once you see something, you can't 'unsee' it.

I think we've all seen a few things we wish we could unsee.

(Speaking strictly terrestrially...)

[TareqPhoto]

It has been a while to my thread here, as i said before, M45 is seen by bino or scope just fine, with eyes it is like i have to focus for long time to adjust my eyes to darkness or make less LP to my eyes to see the stars.

At the same time, i am so happy that i can see M42 stars by my eyes, easily seen from my yard, giving me a big hope that i may shoot Orion or Horsehead sooner or later once i get the filters, and now i am trying to check out another objects stars if i can see, Deneb/Sadr and Cygnus region stars are seen, so this area is also covered and hope i can get something out of it, being above my head or high in the sky may help for less LP, who knows.

I have to list which objects or DSO i can see from my urban under LP, maybe i can see the stars, but if i try for imaging i will fail with LP, so will see what i will end up sooner or later.

From what i see in my yard, the North and East are the best parts of the sky i can see, then West as less visual, South is the worse, i may able to see something from the South constellations, but sounds the LP from South direction is stronger than other directions, so i will focus on North/East sides of the sky for a while, Saturn is almost the best object i will focus at by the South later, maybe the moon too if it moves by south direct some nights i can do for specific phases.

[rockystar]

it depends what kind of lights are used in your city - if they are sodium street lights, then you can use filters to filter it out when photographing. LED lights are harder to filter.

[TareqPhoto]

5 hours ago, rockystar said:

it depends what kind of lights are used in your city - if they are sodium street lights, then you can use filters to filter it out when photographing. LED lights are harder to filter.

I did read about that, so why LED is difficult or harder to filter?

The street lights are sodium, or the yellow one [which is sodium you believe], but some houses around including my house we have LED or white lights, but the are in lower height than street lights and not strong, and mostly after midnight some houses don't turn on their lights much, and i turn off my house light by yard or outside.

I have to practice and shoot and see, i may have issues, and maybe i will be lucky some nights, i have to use whatever i can, for now i don't have filters, so that i didn't try to start, and i tried to test my color camera instead of my mono cooled camera to have colored results.

[LukeSkywatcher]

Great excitement in the OP. I thought when i read "WOW",  that this was going to be a first sighting of Saturn. The Seven Sisters (cant spell it the correct way) are probably as famous or as recognizable as Orion's belt. To the naked eye, the sisters are pretty underwhelming, but instantly recognizable. They are one of the handful of objects which look better with binoculars rather than a scope.

[Dave In Vermont]

The problem with LED-lighting is that LED white-lights cover the whole spectrum, from infra-red and into the ultraviolet. So to filter that out would require the equivalent of a black-mask over your lens or mirror!  

But if you (or group) approach the city first - before they are installed - a city can odrer a directional-baffle be put in place to direct the lighting to be pointing straight-down - so it's not lighting the entire sky. This is simple to do and will actually saving money on energy-costs. More information is available (and help) from the International Dark-Sky Association:

http://www.darksky.org/

Hope it helps -

Dave

[TareqPhoto]

Well, Saturn has that WOW factor indeed, but not for long time, also my main purpose in astronomy was DSO, specifically nebulae, then planets coming next, and i already started threads here and another forums asking about visual scopes for planets, so it is in my plan for sure, but i was giving up to see any stars of DSO mostly Messiers objects, and i didn't know that some can be seen under light pollution, and M45 is one popular object anyway, i don't care to shoot M80 or M63 or M05 compared to M42 and M45 or even Andromeda, and i am happy again to see Orion stars and also Cygnus region stars, means i may have a small hope to imaging some nebulae in my mind.

Dave, there is no way to reach the city for adding baffle if they plan to convert to LED, next of my house there is no LED light yet, but not far from my area on the main road/street they had that LED lights, and that is why on the map of light pollution it shows a white zone for that area, i really prefer LED over sodium or yellow light for my sight, but for astronomy i don't wish for it at all, and if it may happen and they replace it i don't have any support or power voices so they can listen, in fact i will be the only one in the entire city who is asking for baffle, and even if i gave them this idea it will sounds that it will be only me personal, and not sure if they really care to add baffle to save energy and to save the sky.

I am lucky enough that in front of my house the street isn't lit by any of street lights, but on distance around 100m away parallel street they have that sodium lights, and when i am in my yard with my fence i don't see it directly, so the stars can be seen if it is so high in the sky, the lights are on the north direction, there is no any near lights visible towards the East, luckily i can see M45 and M42 by the East then, and in the winter later they will be high in the sky without the sun i hope so i can give them better try if no clouds.

[Dave In Vermont]

I'm sorry to hear your city can't be reached. But there is a good side. If aimed, or baffled, downward - LED's are much better than the sodium or mercury-vapor lights. They won't just blaze on their own.

I hope your city/area is aware of this as it's not just for us strange people who like tubes! Unchecked, light-pollution is also linked to damaging developing brains of children. As well as leading to extinction of some species! IDSA has many good articles that show we all need truly dark skies for a time for our health.

Good Luck -

Dave

[TareqPhoto]

Dave Dave Dave, oh Dave, my country is trying to make big competition for more light pollution or another pollution, health is the last thing they care about here, so I pray to GOD that he can give me long life.

Now all what I think about is to buy filters and start shooting DSO before any more light pollution out there, not sure how good I will have, but if minimum I can get 4 DSO and 2 planets and the sun and the moon then I will be very happy and done, then later I can try something more.

[TareqPhoto]

I am so tired these days so didn't have the opportunity to go out and shoot, also i got back my old laptop that i will be using for astrophotography, but hope sooner or later i will go out to shoot the sky or DSO.

I just went out about 50 minutes ago, and i looked at the sky, again WOW.

I saw Venus as usual every early morning before the sunrise or twilight, i saw the Pleiades, i saw the Orion region very clear, i even saw Sirius down to the Southern East or East maybe, i saw some stars here and there, the sky was clear, so i missed this night again.

Not sure if the LP will prevent me to have longer exposure, because last week i tried to have subs only lights and the longer i was able to go was 10 seconds, but someone told me that it was underexposed, and the settings of the camera was wrong, so maybe this next time i will make better settings and hope to have longer exposures regardless the light pollution, i know we don't have the Eclipse here which is the main event of the sky this year, but i am new to imaging so i should focus on what i can shoot, i already saw and imaged the solar eclipse in the past when happened in my country and lunar eclipse too, so i am not new to that but i am really new to DSO imaging.

[kens]

I'd suggest you start with some globular clusters. There are plenty in the Messier catalogue and they are usually big and bright enough to image despite the light pollution.  

[Ricochet]

On 20/08/2017 at 08:06, Dave In Vermont said:

If aimed, or baffled, downward - LED's are much better than the sodium or mercury-vapor lights

I do not wish to derail the thread but in my experience this is not true for observational astronomy. It may be true for a light to which you have a direct line of sight but the problem arises with "indirect" light pollution from the lamp, that is light which is reflected from the road surface below back up into the sky. Being a broadband emission this light contains the blue end of the spectrum which appears much brighter to the eye than the yellow of sodium lighting. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyglow#Dependence_on_light_source for some discussion on the subject, which corresponds quite well to my experience of local roads being converted from sodium to LED lighting. The most key notes are:

Quote

When observing the night sky, even from moderately light polluted areas, the eye becomes nearly or completely dark adapted or scotopic. The scotopic eye is much more sensitive to blue and green light, and much less sensitive to yellow and red light, than the photopic eye. Predominantly because of this effect, white light sources such as metal halide, fluorescent, or white LED can produce as much as 3.3 times the visual sky glow brightness of the currently most-common high-pressure sodium lamp, and up to eight times the brightness of low-pressure sodium or amber Aluminium gallium indium phosphide LED.

Quote

the basic results of recent research are unambiguous: assuming equal luminous flux (that is, equal amounts of visible light), and matched optical characteristics of the fixtures (particularly the amount of light allowed to radiate directly upward), white sources rich in shorter (blue and green) wavelengths produce dramatically greater sky glow than sources with little blue and green.

And a comparison graph of the effects of low pressure sodium lamps vs other lamp types.

[MarsG76]

Well done... it only gets better from here on...