Moon and Mars
 

Take a look at the moon and you will see Mars very nearby. Beautiful sight. Earth/Mars will be closest in March, I think.

thx!

Thanks.... gonna check that out tonight!

sweet..i hope i have a clear night!!

I was beginning to think I was the only one here with an astronomy interest.

Jupiter and Venus are also very bright. About two weeks ago the moon, Jupiter, and Venus were almost equidistant and in a straight line. Beautiful.

Have a Saturn pic, but that will go in another thread.

Jim

Awesome..........unfortunately its raining here.....
First time in months.......figures lol...

Nope. It's been too long since I had my scope out, but I still look up fairly often. I've got an 8" Newtonian on a Dobsonian base. We've got a few others here and Pazazu has worked on some really big scopes.

I love interesting conjunctions.

the moon is yellow, bark at the moon type. Can't see Mars yet...

Theres an Iphone ap called StarMap 3D

It shows all the stars and planets. The other day I could see mars and venus.

Does the confluence make redheadsmorebatschitcrazY? If so, I needs more foil for my helmet....

If not, nice pic and I'll go out and look with just my usual armament....

I used to know a woman who got real crazy during a full moon - one time, she wanted to do a night climb on a heavily crevassed peak in the Cascades where we were camping. Not even a red head - a blonde.

I'm sure I've posted this before. If you want to see the sky as it should look from where you live, and zoom in and out and change the time ahead or back minutes, hours, days, years, there is a free program that's REALLY cool. You can even add in satellites, asteroids, etc.... You can click on items and get info/details, etc.... It models the correct locations of the moons of planets (like Saturn and Jupiter) and even the Great Red Spot on Jupiter is in the correct location at any time.

Did I mention it's free?

I'm not affiliated, just an enthusiastic user. I've used this when using my scope to find hard to find objects, or when I can't get outside to just browse the sky.

Stellarium.
They've got it for Windows, OSX and Linux.
Stellarium

A few screen shots.

http://dailypackage.fedorabook.com/u...stellarium.jpg

http://www.stellarium.org/img/screen...10-planets.jpg

http://ostatic.com/files/images/Stellarium%282%29.jpg

I don't know if this is available for iPhone or just Android, but google makes an app called "Google Sky Map" that's also very good.

Uh oh!
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1328993609.jpg

Stellarium is the schiznits

Steve - thanks for the Stellarium link. Looks excellent! May have to get a 'scope - have wanted one since forever but I'm afraid I'll shell out for a good one then not have enough time to enjoy it. May have to wait until real retirement.

When I was a kid I was obsessed with astronomy. Ok, anything about space or science, really. My folks would often find my head buried in a Unitron or Questar catalog. They finally took me on a 'field trip' to New Hope where I met Larry Braymer and spend a fair amount of time with him in the shop seeing how the scopes were built and tested. Terrific guy to spend so much time with an unknown kid. I really lusted after a Questar (quartz optics, of course) but they were a tad over $1K at a time when $15K would buy a tract house (late '50s).

I'll stop - I'm lusting again.
\

Just to torture you a bit more, my 8" scope was only $350. The main reason for the low cost is the mount. A Dobson mount is really cheap compared to an equatorial mount, and really well suited to visual observation.

You are cruel.

The Dob definitely saves a bunch on mount costs, but sacrifices photography. I'm amazed at how much more you can get for a $$ now with the Celestron and Meade units.

Yes, if you want to do photo, you need a good German equatorial mount. I'd love to get a good mount and do some astrophotography. Ive done some very basic stuff of brought objects like andromeda and the nebula in Orion with my camera and a telephoto lens. Out was fun, but nothing like a good mount and some long exposures. The digital age had really done amazing things for AP.

I imagine for long exposures, a person needs a tracking mount. Or is there some technique that works for manual mounts?

If you are really interested in astronomy find a local astronomy club. I joined our local club years ago and it is so much more fun to have long time astronomy geeks show you some sights with their HUGE scopes out in a dark site. They can show your the fun things to see, and give one on one advice on what to buy and what to avoid.

Astronomy can be the cheapest hobby around. Go outside and look up! A good set of binoculars can be a great start and you likely can borrow some from a friend if you don't own some.

I've droolled for a 10" or larger Dobsonian, and you can build them pretty cheap once you get the mirror.

But, me and a buddy were just talking about the CCD cameras you put on the eye piece, have a tracking mount, and view/observe from your couch on the big screen or on your computer to digitally record time lapse.

Google it, but people are using webcams with the lens removed, or a DSLR body only, and such.

1st Attempt with DIY Astro CCD Cam - YouTube

Another project I don't have time for......

I had a 1970 Questar for several years, which traveled with me to Aruba for the solar eclipse, traveled to Cocoa Beach to photograph a night launch, traveled with me to, oh, probably 5 major observatories around the US. They really were as high of quality as they claimed to be...

There's still a market for them, look into it. a decent workhorse version can be found for about $1500.

Yes, for long exposure, you absolutely need a tracking mount, but even then, if you are doing long focal lengths, you can have issues with just an auto tracking mount. Most folks will use a guide scope. I think the general idea is to mount a smaller scope with a smaller camera to your main scope, put your target or a target in the center of the view, then your computer will monitor the image in the secondary scope and make fine adjustments to the tracking over time.

Cost if you want to do AP can add up very quickly.

The good news is that you don't need as much exposure time now as you once did, well, you do, but you don't. Instead of trying to take a single long 2 hour exposure of an item, lots of folks will take many 5, 10, 15, 20 minute exposures, and then use something like photoshop or one of the specialized bits of software to stack the exposures electronically. I've taken static exposures of a second of bright objects like Andromeda or Orion's nebula and "stacked" 50 or 100 together to make fun images. They aren't award winning, but I took them and you can see detail in them that you can't see with your eye viewing through a scope (well not my scope in my yard).

Here's one of my favorite pictures that someone else took of Orion. It's the whole Orion constellation. I think this is an effort of a year or more taking many, many shots and merging them together.
From Here: Orion, from Head to Toes | Deep Sky Colors - Astrophotography by Rogelio Bernal Andreo
http://deepskycolors.com/pics/astro/...10_OrionWF.jpg

Here is a huge version.
http://deepskycolors.com/pics/astro/2010/10/mb_2010-10_OrionWF.jpg

Great pic, Steve.

Mike - one day.... Alas, today isn't it yet. I did a search and found that they are still in biz and still producing telescopes.