Hey people

[Jbwz]

Hey everybody. Just registered and wanted to say hi.

I'm Ilya, software engineer from London.

Thought it's time to register here, as tomorrow I'm going to be getting my first ever telescope (130p heritage).

 

My little story:

I guess as many people I've been just staring at the night sky since I was a kid just fascinated by it. Around a year ago I've started marinating the idea to get a telescope. I wanted to do so straight away, and when I've started researching the topic I came across common advice to postpone buying the telescope and first learn your basics. The Backyard Astronomer's Guide became my little companion and I've starting learning my way around the sky with the naked eye. Being in light polluted Queen Elizabeth's park (during summer) I had to postpone my daily walks to a much later time of the day (I believe astronomical twilight was starting at ~1 am and that's the best I could get in London).

That was amazing. Within a month, those stars I've seen for years became my friends. I've learnt what they are, their names, what constellation / asterism they are part of. Of course I've started taking friends along, teaching them about stars, constellations, asterisms, and sky in general. Sometime during this summer I remembered someone gifted me a pair of (absolutely horrible for stargazing) binoculars and I've started using them to aid my -1 vision eyes.

Even tho it was always a pain to use them, I was still surprised how much more is visible through them.

 

Now, I believe the time has come to get the first telescope and get deeper into the sky.

Deciding to stop on 130p was a difficult decision because my end goal is to get into deep sky object photography, but I strongly believe in the gradual approach people and book is suggesting (naked eye -> binoculars -> first telescope -> develop skill -> end goal {if there is any})

 

Nice to meet you all, I'm looking forward to having many interesting conversations, and maybe even some collaborations one day, when I am ready.

 

P.S. For anyone around London -> I've also just joined The Baker Street Irregular Astronomers (astronomers club in central London. Meeting up once a month). Hoping to attend the next gathering they host. Come say hi.

 

P.S.S. gonna throw my early tries in astrophotography

 

Ursa major. Just phone taken (Samsung S21 ultra). Have been researching the topic of astrophotography at the time (concept of stacking, different frames taking light / dark / bias / etc). Was learning my way around the stacking software. 

 

 

I believe my first photo taken. Early stages when I didn't know anything about what I'm looking at, so decided to take a photo during a walk to research at home (all the lines / names was added during research process).

 

This is weird one and has to be taking with a huge grain of salt. Same time I was learning my way around the sky and particularly about astrophotography I took my fiend along. He's into photography and we took his camera along (Canon R6 with 50mm f1.2 RF). The idea was to find andromeda galaxy and have a long-ish exposure frames to practice stacking, but I didn't have a clue where it was (only vague) so essentially I've pointed at roughly where I believed it was.

After stacking I payed with Affinity Photo (not knowing anything about photo editing) I started pulling different sliders and somehow got this. I, and some people who seen it think it's not actual stars or anything but rather artefacts due to over editing.

After this was produced I was trying to find what that actually is (if anything) and raw frames put thought astrometry.net yielded this.

 

Right, pardon me for a huge hello.

 

P.S.S.S.

Forgot to mention, my current plan is to get 130p to use it for around a year and probably keep it as a portable "goto" one, get used to working with a telescope (probably arranging few field trips to non light polluted places, mb Snowdonia?) and then progress to Skymax 127 for another year to get more into astrophotography before I decide what to replace it with (to have a main tool)

Edited November 26, 2022 by Jbwz

[Sunshine]

Now that’s an intro! Welcome!

[bosun21]

That was a great introduction Ilya. You have started off very well but then tried racing up that astrophotography hill. To photograph the Andromeda Galaxy you would at the least need a tripod for your camera to keep it motionless. I could go into depth concerning this but I deem it a pointless exercise for a complete beginner. Going along to an Astro club is a great decision and let’s you look at and through different telescopes (weather permitting of course). The binoculars you have are marine binoculars which are not the best for astronomy although they have obviously done enough to keep your enthusiasm bubbling. Good luck on your new journey.🌙🔭

[christiano]

Great story!

Welcome from another newbie.

[wookie1965]

A warm welcome to SGL

[cajen2]

Hi Ilya and a warm welcome to SGL. You'll find everyone very helpful here, so please ask if you need any help.

Great choice for a starter scope - you'll find some wonderful stuff with it. Start saving up for some decent eyepieces to replace the giveaway ones! 😄

[Floater]

Welcome. Hope you have lots of fun - and it seems like you are already doing that … 🙂

[barbulo]

Hi and welcome to SGL

[PeterCPC]

Hello and welcome.

[Dave Lloyd]

Hi and welcome. 

[Pete Presland]

Hi welcome to SGL from Pete in Bedfordshire 🙂