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just popped my "WOW Moment" Cherry

robwoods

By robwoods
in The Astro Lounge

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robwoods

robwoods

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Thanks again for the warm welcome, As I mentioned in my hello thread, I bought my first scope yesterday and am eagerly waiting to collect it tomorrow, Whilst buying the scope I wangled a pair of Visionary 8x56 binos (look at me using all the lingo :) ) and thought I would pop out and take a look at the sky, cloud cover was pretty bad but with a few breaks, I could see a few stars so thought I would take a look and....... (ok so you all know whats coming next) More stars, then more and more, then as if by special request the clouds blew away practically in front of my eyes, an hour in the back garden and I have seen planets (well one planet, two if you count Earth) satellites, a helicopter, the craters on the moon and the cluster in Orion (well a couple of dancing pricks of light) I am bowled over, as you can tell!

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bcfcciderhead

bcfcciderhead

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Dont worry i always am when i get out, all i can say is dont expect to see the same as you do in books, i find it just as good to see it your scope without all the lovely colours, just stop and think at what your looking out, the age of it, the size of it , the distance from us, do what i do make a note of what you seen, come back in and read up on it...it will amaze you

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LukeSkywatcher

LukeSkywatcher

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haha well yes I am a little over enthusiastic I suppose, but bare in mind I have never looked at the sky with anything other than the naked eye, but your comments have given me plenty to look forward to!:icon_eek:

Your enthusiastic comments are most refreshing and never be sorry about them.

I was merely meaning that if you are this impressed already..........

Hold onto your hat because your scope is about to take you on the ride of a lifetime.

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LukeSkywatcher

LukeSkywatcher

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just stop and think at what your looking out, the age of it, the size of it , the distance from us

That for me is the WOW factor of astronomy. Here is little old me, one of 6 billion people living on the 3rd rock from the sun staring up into the "abyss" that is out universe and practically EVERYTHING i am looking at right there and then (the light from it) has taken hundreds of millions of years to travel across space to arrive at my EP.

Astounding.

Of course..............the light from planets in our solar system only take a matter of minutes to reach us. Hell the reflected light from the Moon only takes 1.5 seconds.

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robwoods

robwoods

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couldnt agree more, This kind of thinking has been giving me headaches since I first laid back on my motorbike aged 17 (20 years ago :{ ), parked on the north norfolk coast and a few too many beers and really looked at the stars, Its only recently I have been able to afford a decent scope, but I wish I had bought Binos years ago

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sammy1404

sammy1404

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Hold onto your hat because your scope is about to take you on the ride of a lifetime.

haha, lol sorry im still a student so sexual innuendos are the first thing i look for in sentances lol :icon_eek:

But astronomically i totally agree only just got my scope yesterday and saw the moon and jupiter during daylight aswell so its gonna be amazing. But also i cant agree more when people say dont get caught up in all those images you see, my first sight of jupiter, although it was only the size of my small finger nail it was just amazing so dont be put of by things like that, as some person above said just think about what it is your looking at, what its made of aswell, its basically a gas ball in space with dozens of moons which is just specaticularly amazing! then saturn which i cant wait to see, think about how its rings are actually there etc.

Whoever said that they write stuff down youve just given me a great hint lol, im going to tabulate everything i see from now on, well when i get clear skies, and probably just the weekends lol.

Oh another thing that could be nice to do is the Galileo experiment, look at jupiter for about 1 month everyday if possible at the same time and just draw what you see including its moons which are visable, youll see the moons constantly change position which is what he saw 500 years ago (i think thats how long it was), youll have just proven that celestial objects dont have to orbit the earth but can orbit other things and you will have done the first experiment done with a telescope!

Enjoy!

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sammy1404

sammy1404

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I tried that logging the moons of Jupiter thing when I was younger. If you do not cheat its quite a challenge to work out which one is which if you only look once a night over a number of days..

Mark

it shouldnt be seeing as they are always on the same orbital lines, i.e they are always the same distance apart but just in different positions relative to jupiter (i.e they rotate around it whereas relative to the moons would mean that they get closer and stuff). as long as you know which one should be where in order so Io, Ganymede, Europa then calisto.

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mdstuart

mdstuart

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What I meant was do not look in any book/ or on the PC and just look at the dots and then note their position night by night. Try to work out which one is which. They all do go on the same sort of plane but of course when the one that is furthest out is passing in front or behind jupiter it may be the closest to the disk etc...

I agree its not that difficult but as a young lad I struggled for a bit to work it out..

Mark

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LukeSkywatcher

LukeSkywatcher

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Oh another thing that could be nice to do is the Galileo experiment, look at jupiter for about 1 month everyday if possible at the same time and just draw what you see including its moons which are visable, youll see the moons constantly change position which is what he saw 500 years ago

Trust me. You dont need to observe Jupiter for a month to see its main moons change position. You can see them dance with each other over a short period of time (4-5 hrs).

I never know which is which though until i consult Stellarium.

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sammy1404

sammy1404

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Oh another thing that could be nice to do is the Galileo experiment, look at jupiter for about 1 month everyday if possible at the same time and just draw what you see including its moons which are visable, youll see the moons constantly change position which is what he saw 500 years ago

Trust me. You dont need to observe Jupiter for a month to see its main moons change position. You can see them dance with each other over a short period of time (4-5 hrs).

I never know which is which though until i consult Stellarium.

Oh yeah i know that but the thing is Galileo did it for i think 1 month could be 1 week not sure, so just makes it more authentic, thats what im going to do

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LukeSkywatcher

LukeSkywatcher

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Oh yeah i know that but the thing is Galileo did it for i think 1 month could be 1 week not sure, so just makes it more authentic, thats what im going to do

Why spend a month (weather permitting) observing something that you can see happen in a matter of hours in a single night?

Haha i know people like the science part of astronomy but i couldnt care less. I like the pretty sights i get by just observing.

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bcfcciderhead

bcfcciderhead

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2oop on a dob, thats what i have, very happy with it had a great view of M42 (orion nebula) the clouds of gas stood out a mile, of course no colour but so clear as to what it is.

It's very easy to set up and use and the 8" should keep me happy for many years, but....as i can see you like your photo's i think you should go for the EQ mount, maybe with the 200

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