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Hello Everybody!

bus_ter

By bus_ter
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bus_ter

bus_ter

Posted
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Hello Everybody (in the words of Dr Nick..),

I've been into this hobby now for a couple of months and have so far seen..

My first planets, Jupiter and its current little friend Uranus. I can't believe it's taken me my whole life to actually 'see' a planet with my own eyes. Wow! To think they've been there the whole time and all I needed was a little magnification. Seeing Jupiter for the first time was quite special. This wasn't a picture of Jupiter.. it WAS Jupiter. One of the most spectacular views you can see, can be seen from your own back yard :-).

My first Galaxy (Andromeda!). I never knew you could see another Galaxy so easily!

My first double star, Albireo. Yes stars really do come in different colours!

Also my first star cluster, I didn't even know these existed. I've found one in Sagittarius, but I can't work out if it's M23 or M25?!

Still looking for my first Nebula!

After some research I bought my first telescope, a Skywatcher Skymax 127 SupaTrak from First Light Optics. There service was simply excellent, and after making an enquiry online we had a phone chat and discussed my needs. Anyone looking at this telescope I would recommend spending the extra £50 on the Celestron version. You get an upgraded mount with GOTO and an upgraded red-dot finder scope.

I've had some difficulty in finding objects not viewable with the naked eye. The light pollution here is bad (East of Newcastle) and I can only see the brightest stars, making star hopping difficult. I also find that one bright star in the sky becomes a dozen in the finder scope, and it's not always easy to tell which one was the single bright one! That coupled with everything being reversed/flipped in the view has made it quite a challenge. A GOTO mount would make my life so much easier, but I also know I'm learning so much more doing it the hard way. My knowledge of constellations for example, has improved massively, from a lifelong knowledge of just Orion and 'the plough'!

My background to the hobby is from photography, where I started taking images of the Moon with ever increasing zoom lenses and teleconverters (photography version of a barlow). I wanted to take it to the 'next level' and found my way to the scope and this hobby. I've done a small amount of imaging so far (with my dslr) and you can see my beginner images below.

So far I've been posting on the ukastroimaging forum which is great, but traffic there can be a little low and there seems to be more activity here. So hello everyone :) looking forward to contributing here.

I've also booked a place at the Kielder starcamp next month, and look forward to seeing some of you there!

Cheers,

Simon

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bus_ter

bus_ter

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Thanks for all the kind comments :-)

@Rusty Strings: Nikon D5000 with a 1.4x teleconverter connected afocally

@Revs: I used a Photoshop Plugin called 'Topaz Adjust' and a setting that detects slight colour and exaggerates it. So all the colour in the right moon image is actually in the left image at an imperceptible level.

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Merlin999

Merlin999

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Hi Simon and welcome,

I am a complete beginner and have only just bought my Skymax 127 and played with it for the first time last night. I am totally blown away by your photo of Jupiter and moons. I have to apologise for being a complete astrophotographer noob, can I ask exactly how did you take that photo? What eyepiece did you use?

And your moonshots are spectacular!

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