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By tylersk90
Hello Everyone!
I am new here, but have a question I hope to find some answers to! I recently ordered a pair of APM APO ED 7x50s for my first stargazing bino. After further reading I decided maybe the 10x50 variant would be better suited to my needs. I ordered the second pair and now have them both side by side to compare, before returning one. I've considered most of the other differences, but I notice the shade of green reflected by the eye piece are a much darker olive in the 10x50s vs an emerald green in the 7x50s. Is this normal? I am initially concerned it may be a QC issue (for which pair I an unsure), but I'm sure someone in the knowledgeable community will be able to shed some light on my issue! : )
Thank you!
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By Harmann Multani
Hi,
If one has a largescope like a Celestron EdgeHD 14" or a Meade LX200 14", can it be used for visual astronomy other than astrophotography?
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By orions_boot
Evening all. Thanks to you all so far for helping me working out my telescope purchase. In the intervening period I purchased a pair of 10x50 Olympus bins and spent a week outside at least an hour every night working out what I am looking at.
I haven't kept a full log of each night in detail so I will summarise what I have seen. It is not particularly dark where I live but I had had a chance on two nights to go rural and then to 'dark sky site' all of which has spoiled me! Street lights go off after midnight here so I reckon that could make a big difference and will check later in the week.
Jupiter - The first and easiest target on the very first night. I was taken back being able to see the moons in a straight line, one to the left and three to the right. Over the week I have seen the arrangement change in distance between moons and even number of moons visible.
Saturn - Very small but clearly yellow. Sometimes I think I can see the rings and then I wonder if it is a blur on the lens or just not focusing.
Something above and to the right diagonal of Jupiter - I am trying to work out what this is from Stellarium but I don't know for sure. A possible candidate is M26. I first saw it this evening and describe it as a definite white fuzz. Could anyone please suggest an object and advise me how to correctly describe the direction/method to find objects to other people?
Coathanger - One of the first asterisms I came across by mistake and have used it every night as a way to find some other stuff I researched.
M27 - Managed to navigate to this every time from Sagitta. From my garden is a faint white circle. Rural I saw a less faint white circle. Dark sky I saw a rather bright white circle and with some long blinking and everted vision I thought I could see faint details of the apple core shape at the top and bottom.
M31 - I first found this at the rural location semi by mistake and working off a vague memory of a route I read to find it. Seeing this was the best feeling so far. The idea that I was looking at an entire galaxy through only a pair of binoculars seemed quite amazing. It was a white fuzz in the middle and with some blinking and averted vision I could see it spreading out sideways. I have found it again tonight but it mostly remains as a white fuzz blob but a rather large one. It seems to take a bit of time in to the night before it becomes visible.
NGC6997 - I have inferred this was the object having looked around Deneb where there is quite a lot of action. It was a smallish cluster and not particularly bright but obviously a cluster and the only thing on Stellarium in this area.
Milky Way - Whilst at the dark sky site I could very clearly follow the Milky Way and make out what I thought was dust between the stars.
Mars - a very small but obviously red dot.
Stars - Not so easy for me at the moment to name different stars. I know around Vega I have seen a double star one blue one more orange but this could equally have been somewhere else in the sky. I have also seen a lot of stars in pairs often of different colours around Cygnus.
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By Hislip5354
Hello all,
New to the hobby and eager to learn information about where to start. Mostly interested in planet viewing, especially the moon. Looking to start out and need the portability as i may have to get out of town a ways to really get a good look at the heavens. I'm considering either a set of 20x50 or 20x80 binoculars (tripod mounted) or getting a Meade StarPro AZ 90mm telescope. Both are within 50$ of each other online. Wondering what would be my best bet for starting out, I will be staying focused on the moon for now, and thats my #1 priority (seeing the moon in extreme detail) but may soon get into farther planets/galaxy observation.
I greatly appreciate any advise.
thank you.
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By RH323
I'm fairly new and on one of my daily stargazing sessions I viewed, with the naked eye, a huge passing light going SE, from my perspective it was brighter and bigger than any stars, planets or meteors that I've seen before. It was roughly the size of a baseball.
If this was a star -> .
this is roughly how big it looked -> O
It had a trail of similar size, seemingly dusty. It also passed and disappeared between Corona Borealis and one of Hercules' legs.
Viewed on May 16th, 22:00- 23:40
I assumed, based on recent headlines, that it was Comet Swan, but upon further investigation, that was far from true.
Comet Swan should not be visible with the naked eye, and definitely not to the degree I saw. Additionally, based on my coordinates* it wouldn't even cross the sky I saw, it would be below the horizon.
(*roughly 15 °N, 120 °E, PH)
Considering again the magnitude of the object amd the fact that I viewed it with the naked eye discounts it from being an asteroid or meteor*.
(*More possible but still hard to believe with its size, you wouldn't even see something like that during meteor showers)
So I then researched if it could be space debris. I thought that something as big as that should be covered by a news article somewhere.
*The only results were of the 18 ton Chinese Rocket but it couldn't be that because:
A. It passed over Los Angeles and New York then fell into the Atlantic Ocean, with some pieces landing in Africa. Meaning it wouldn't pass over my country.
B. That happened 5 days before my viewing, on May 11 at 11:33 AM ET (08:33 PDT)
It's still possible but it just seems unlikely, and with how big it was I'd assume that it would attract some media attention but I cant find anything else.
Does anyone have any idea what it could have been? I have to know. If it was debris then all I need is confirmation.
*
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/05/16/chinese-rocket-falls-to-earth-space-debris-problem-worsens.html
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2020/5/13/21256484/china-rocket-debris-africa-uncontrolled-reentry-long-march-5b
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