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jimmym123

By jimmym123
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jimmym123

jimmym123

Posted
Posted

hi all

im james aka jimmy. im 21, im a microbiologist from south lincolnshire. i'm mostly into cars but i'm starting to get into star gazing. Me and my girlfriend went out one night with a star map and it has gone from there.

i do enjoy photography and im eager to learn about astro-photography.

Here's the negative point, i havent got a clue what telescope to get :eek:

Enough waffling on! i'll speak to you all soon

Thanks

Jimmy

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brantuk

brantuk

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Hi Jimmy - welcome to the group.

Picking a scope is a very involved exercise. I would stick to the binos and star maps (as did I) for a good few months whilst you bone up on the different types of scope, what they can be used for, and how much they cost.

Then you'll have a better idea of where to position your budget for current and future requirements. Make a note of the different mounts and tripods as well as this will have a huge bearing if you wish to do photography later.

Feel free to ask any questions in the relevant sections of SGL - there's lots of very experienced people who will be more than happy to help.

Also - join a local astro soc - you'll have the benefit of trying out different types and sizes of telescope.

Oh yes - and save lots of money - it'll disappear rapidly when you come to buying one.

Hope this helps and good luck to you both :eek:

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narrowbandpaul

narrowbandpaul

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hey jimmy

you can stick with starmap and binos if you want, but there is nothing stopping you going straight into imaging. My friend did that back in 2000 and pioneered amateur narrowband imaging....

but before you buy a scope/mount ask plenty of questions, find out what you can spend, how mounts work/are polar aligned, what sort of imaging do you want to do....eg solar system stuff or deep sky like nebula and galaxies

you can spend months learning the sky if you want. I did that. Many people do. But with technology like goto mounts, as long as you know the catalogue number for the object you want to image (like M42, or NGC7000) a goto mount used for imaging will do the finding of the object for you.

but know your budget, know what kind of photography, learn about mounts and different scopes, then once you bare sure you have what you need, you can make a purchase with the utmost confidence

good luck

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jimmym123

jimmym123

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thanks for the warm welcomes!! i have a fiesta st lol im very ford orientated lol.

the star map was a start and im buying more and more books with the catalogue numbers in lol. i would like to do some deep space photography but im going to work up to that. i'll start off with moon phases, then work my way further out. mars, jupiter, saturn then nebulas and galaxies. i would love to go the other way in the solar system and get some pics of venus and some solar activity.

i'm lucky my girlfriend is interested, in fact, she is the one that thought it would be good to do it in the first place lol. now im hooked!!

im sure some people will get fed up of the many questions i have!!

thanks again for the warm welcomes!!

jimmy

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brantuk

brantuk

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Hi again Jimmy - don't worry about asking questions - we all started somewhere once and benefitted from help of others - so it's a pleasure to continue the tradition.

It's great that your g/f enjoys it too - my partner is the same, though she's more into the observing side than technical side (which she leaves to me lol). We also like combining the hobby with caravanning/star parties.

If photography is your main motivation then you should explore equatorial tracking mounts (possibly with goto), and the varied techniques and cameras available. It's very interesting and stimulating, but can be very expensive.

For example - a lot of astrophotographers use two telescopes connected together, one for guiding and one for taking the pics. This of course requires two cameras. Depending on the scope/mount you can also do "off axis guiding" (1 scope and 2 cameras). Or you might just mount a camera on a scope and take wide angle shots as it tracks an object. Then there's weather conditions, camera/scope cooling, dew heaters, light pollution, colour filters, frame stacking, photo processing, etc, etc.

A lot to read up but it can be very rewarding.

Your "gradual approach" is a good thing and I wish you loads 'a' luck with it.

Cheers :eek:

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ron.s.g

ron.s.g

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Hi jimmy and girlfriend,

its good you will both be together skygazing as it can take place wherever you go on holiday as well,

think well before spending your money as it can be a bit expensive so choose well,

as you can see lots of advice available so take note,

also have you downloaded stellarium its a free programme but very good.

regards ron.s.g

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