Not wanting to get a telescope?

[Claire]

Haha! Paint it red for us

[Astro_Baby]

I think the idea of learning the sky is a good one, my own star navigation is ver far from perfect. The biggest problem to leatnng the sky for an awful lot of us though is lacl of time, poor weather and appaling light pollution.

30 years ago when people had 9 to 5 jobs and probably worked near where they live time was available. Today an awful lot of have long commutes and long working days ( I work in the public sector and leave for work at 7am and am seldom back before 7pm and I consider that a relatively light day compared to many ) throw in eating, sleeping and the other amenities of life and time becomes very limited, throw in kids and your lucky to have ANY time.

When you throw in the poor UK weather which at best allows only 25% of the nights to be used the available time drops further.

On top of that light pollution for many of us means unless we, in the limited free time can travel, then any chance of seeing some stars let alone learning the sky, is reduced to a very low order of probability. I have posted pics before of light pollution where I live. I am lucky if I can see major stars tha make up the basic asterisms of the square of pegasus and the summer triangle.

Now.....I would love to improve my stellar navigation, years ago it was fair to average but its been lost, but if I were to start today with maybe 30 years to garner the know how I am afraid I would be in a pine box myself long before according to 'the old school' I should buy a telescope.

By the way Claire none of this is a pop at you, far from it I admire anyone doing it the hard way.

Years ago when I was doing this lark binos were the way to go, there was a good reason for that, telescopes were VERY expensive. Most amateurs could aspire to not much more than a 6" reflector or perhaps a 3" refractor.

Decent scopes cost almost as much as a family car.

As a consequence people were often forced to grind their own mirrors and construct their own scopes.

I presume the old school wouldn't want to go back to that state of affairs.

In short back then people did what they could, same as now, and the best most people could hope for was learning the sky. The chance to photograph Jupiter in color was reserved for the likes of NASA and Caltech, the chance of owning a scope that could make a decent view of Saturn was similarly reserved to those who had either big pockets or the technival nous to make their own scope.

Things are very different now.....and thank the Lord for that because very few of the big dob owners with the 'old school' approach would be using 12" and16" scopes.

It always surpises me, thought it shouldnt because similar attitudes were evident years ago in this lark, how averse a lot od people are to new technologies. For a part of science, albeit at an amateur level, which is technology dependent the amatuer community sometimes seems to have a real aversion to new ways of getting stuff done.

I suspect if some members of the amatuer world had been employed at ESA and NASA they would have argued not to have Hubble on the ground of " eeee we never 'owt like it when I were a lad, Palomar was good enough for us then we didn't need all this fancy techy stuff to see stuff with"

It seems odd to me that people will happily use techno for stuff like Parabolic Mirrors, ED Glass etc....after all I have never seen anyone suggesting "dont go buyimg that fancy parabolic rubbish, I used a shaving mirror in a cardboard tube for 20 years and were reet happy with it"

. .

[Claire]

great post astro! Maybe it's just the 'newb' in me that makes me want to go the 'old school' way i am. i do see exactly what you mean with time constraints. I'm a single mum to 3 children aged 6, 3 and 2, and ofc I can't leave them when I get a clear skies night to drive somewhere a little darker and do some stargazing!

I'm in Preston and I don't think the light pollution is really awful, but I know it could be a damn sight better.

as for the 2nd half of the post, i understood what you were saying but kind of lost you when you were talking about reflector's and refractors

hehe

[Astro_Baby]

Aha Claire with three it must be hellish. I have two but they are a bit older at 18 and 13 but I find myself used as a taxi driver and driving instructor to my eldest and chemistry teacher to my youngest on top of being the maid, the cook and the best mate

When they were younger I was a working mum and tl be honesg if I had time to have an hour to myself I was lucky.

There was a report last week sometime that suggested most people today have just 90 minutes to themselves a day. What a country eh ? Whats gone wrong when people spend so much time working, its no wonder everything has gone to pot.

I used to think when I retire I would have time for stargazing but these days I cant see retirement as ever being a possibility.

[orionswallet]

Hi Claire,

I'm in a similar position to you, i.e just started with astronomy, and I've bought myself a pair of good ol' 10x50 binoculars (and a cheapo tripod!) to work with.

I'm happy to spend the next few weeks learning about the constellations, viewing up to magnitude 7 or 8 stars through the binos (unfortunately a fair bit of light pollution where I am) and just generally finding my way about - the free Stellarium software is also a great piece of kit which I use in conjunction with the binoculars so I know exactly what I'm looking at - spotted NGC6910 last night, was quite a thrill, but my wife doesn't share the same enthusiasm as me, she doesn't "get it" (yet!!!).

Point is, there are loads of things to look at with the binoculars - I'm going to wait a couple of months and if my interest is still high and I want to develop then I'm going to invest in a telescope (already got my eye on a skywatcher skyliner 200p dobsonian telescope) - gives me time to start saving the pennies now.

Plenty of things to look at with the binos, and good for you for taking the time to enjoy the sky "binocularly" first (is that a word??).

All the best,

John.

[Claire]

It's hard work but the kids are great - so much fun! especially as my eldest is really into 'the stars' too

I'm not working at the moment, just gonna stick as i am with them until they are at school then will go for a career i think. who knows lol

i can toatally see where they get 90 mins from!!!!

[Claire]

cheers John! I have no idea about telescopes at all! so ill just say that i hope you have fun with it when you get it!

been snowing and raining all day today, and doesn't seem like it's going to clear tonight :9

[Capricorn]

Find binoculars are fine but mainly for casual viewing to capture a bit more then the eyes do.

They, to me, serve mainly to work out if what I believe should be at a position actually is. The faint blur of M31 being an example. Difficult to see by eye, at least in a town area, but binoculars show a bit more. So confirmnation that it is where I think it should be. Then I can usea scope to get more out of it.

There is no reason why a scope should in effect limit or restrict you. An 80mm scope isn't that big, usually collects more light then most binoculars and with a 20 or 25mm eyepiece you get a fair field of view.

You then have the flexibility to change magnification.

15x70 bins will not show much of Jupiter other then a small disk, I have a 70mm scope (similar size to binoculars) and can find Jupiter, swap to a 6mm eyepiece and see bands.

[Claire]

See now here is the newb in me, I have pretty much no clue what you mean by the different numbers and the different parts of the telescope. i mean, scope, collecting light, eyepieces, magnification etc. It's all pretty much gobbledeegook to me! I will look into it though

[BinocularSky]

great post astro! Maybe it's just the 'newb' in me that makes me want to go the 'old school' way i am. i do see exactly what you mean with time constraints. I'm a single mum

OK, single mum-hood is not easy (my daughter is one, so I have a clue), BUT you are under an hour from The Astronomy Centre. There you will find Peter Drew, who is active on these forums, and who is a binocular aficionado. If you do get a chance, get yourself there -- it's a decade or so since I've been, but I still recall the warm, friendly and knowledgeable welcome I had. To be recommended. You will learn a lot with some very good people.

[Claire]

Oh Steve that's really wierd. I've literally JUST been looking online for places in the north west I can go and look. and the one that I liked the most was that one! How funny! I saw it's open to the public on Saturday Evenings, so I'll def have to try and get myself over there. Great it comes with a personal recommendation too!

[Astro_Baby]

It's hard work but the kids are great - so much fun! especially as my eldest is really into 'the stars' too

Aww mine dont have an interest. My eldest likes the engineering aspect and has helped me strip and rebuild mounts, telescopes and pretty much everything I have ever fixed - he's also a good cook and I always take time to teach him cooking.

My youngest is a budding scientist and has a fascination for theory but little interest in observational astronomy...he likes to read stuff about quantum foam and so forth, like to harass me with conversations about quark-quark interactions and lord only knows what else - last week it was heavy metals and transuranic elements - its like living with Albert Einstein at times

When I restarted astro my eldest used to nag me that it was geeky and so forth but then he used to hate me picking him up from school in my roller skates as well