The Astronomy hobby thread

[p911dad]

Eric's great pics encouraged me to post this Iphone shot of the sky from the eastern Moroccan desert last November.

[Eric Hahl]

Hey, you got Orion too! Nice!

[p911dad]

Thanks! I got up at 4am, stepped out of the tent and just set the phone on a barrel to steady it and pushed the button. I don't normally get to places that dark and without any cities nearby.

[Eric Hahl]

Amazing that my photo of the Orion nebula fits inside this little red square on your photo. There is a lot of stuff out there!

[Eric Hahl]

I bit the bullet today and ordered a new mono camera, camera angle adjuster, filter wheel and filters to do narrowband and LRGB imaging. I think I'll hold onto my color camera as well as its the same sensor size and image scale as he new camera. Going to do some cable management while I've got it all apart.

[Pazuzu]

I get lots of scopes to repair from a certain source who sends me their customer returns. The first thing is to find out if they're really broken (often they're not, the customer had second thoughts and returned it with some random complaint).

Tonight I worked with a Celestron Origin. This is a $4000 telescope with no eyepiece. It's instead a permanent f/2 camera on a 6 inch Celestron RASC tube with a stock Celestron Evolution alt-ax mount. No hand controller, no alignment tools, nothing.

You turn it on, link your phone to it with an app. It automatically plate solves in a few locations, fully determines it's orientation, and then points to wherever you want. Then it takes images, autofocuses, live stacks them, and puts them on your phone screen.

From placing it down (I didn't even bother with a tripod), to have the attached image, was 10 minutes of total time. I've never used it before. This is 6x10 second live stacked images, unguided, and taken from a mount sitting on a picnic table. I didn't even adjust the pointing, that was where it pointed, without any correction from me. I didn't touch the scope except to turn on the power button. Built in focuser, built in dew heater, built in filter slot, saves images onboard and sends them to your phone automatically, you can also cast it to a TV apparently.

Technology is going to obsolete astronomy.

[Eric Hahl]

Great item for outreach I suppose and for just seeing what's out there. Not so great for the serious photographer...yet.

[Cajundaddy]

Here is an aurora image I took from central Idaho back in October. Next time I will shoot video or time lapse because this stuff moves like waves across the sky.
iPhone 15 Pro on a tripod

[masraum]

Originally Posted by Cajundaddy

Here is an aurora image I took from central Idaho back in October. Next time I will shoot video or time lapse because this stuff moves like waves across the sky.
iPhone 15 Pro on a tripod

Wow, really great!

I was happy last year to see anything this far south. I never really saw movement, but I watched over the course of at least 20-30 mins, but I think it was closer to an hour. I did see it brighten and darken and some areas would have bright spots compared to others.

[Eric Hahl]

Great Aurora shots. I messed mine up when I shot. Had the shutter open way too long and blurred out lots of detail. They still look good but next time should be better.

[CurtEgerer]

Just took this tonight. About 90 miles from the launch. Pretty much first try at astrophotography. Lots to experiment with. I think this was a 5 second exposure at f1.7 with ISO2500 (50mm lens). I need to try a much lower ISO and a much longer shutter speed.

[Eric Hahl]

Well, I purchased a monochrome camera and filters the other week. Got them outside under the stars one evening to do my initial test of how everything works. I got about an 2 hours worth of data on the Horsehead nebula. I've done mono processing before buts it's been a while. Time to learn how to do it again.

[flatbutt]

Originally Posted by Eric Hahl

Well, I purchased a monochrome camera and filters the other week. Got them outside under the stars one evening to do my initial test of how everything works. I got about an 2 hours worth of data on the Horsehead nebula. I've done mono processing before buts it's been a while. Time to learn how to do it again.

Yeeaah I think you're ok.

[Pazuzu]

Where's the flair from the spider vanes? All of the cool kids have spider vane flair!

[Eric Hahl]

Originally Posted by Pazuzu

Where's the flair from the spider vanes? All of the cool kids have spider vane flair!

LOL, I guess I'm not one of the cool kids. I just have a couple of lowly refractors.

[Eric Hahl]

...and, I just purchased a new refractor. I will be selling off my RedCAT 71, 350mm f4.9 and the FLT-120 780mm F6.5. Both are excellent scopes in excellent condition. Probably will advertise them on cloudy nights dot com in a week or so along with other bits and pieces.

If there is any interest let me know.

[RNajarian]

Originally Posted by RNajarian

Not exactly a traditional celestial body. . . but I have been fascinated with the failed 1972 Soviet Venus probe currently in a highly elliptical orbit (perigee 128 miles, apogee 1271 miles). I’ve tried to spot it in the evening sky when it is over my location and near perigee to no luck.

https://www.n2yo.com/satellite/?s=6073

Well respected photo astronomer Ralf Vanderbergh has been able locate and photograph the spacecraft. There below are a couple of examples.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosmos_482

https://youtu.be/QHsHrL-DnEQ

For some weird reason this story fascinates me. . ..

Apparently Cosmos 482 is expected to enter the atmosphere in May 2025 after 53 years in orbit.

https://www.mlive.com/news/2025/04/a-1000-pound-space-object-orbiting-earth-since-1972-is-expected-to-crash-land-in-may.html

As of 4/26/2025 its perigee is 100 miles. That number has been decreasing steadily in recent months. Looks like the upper atmosphere is having an effect.

I’ve been tracking the decaying orbit for 5 years or so. Looks like it will survive reentry, hope it lands somewhere we could inspect it.

[Eric Hahl]

Switched out a telescope with a faster one. Sold the William Optics 120 F6.5 and purchased this William Optics 111 F4.8. Slightly wider field of view but more capable camera wise. The old 120 could only shoot up to aps-c sensor size. The new 111 can get up to full frame.



Thinking about selling off the handy RedCAT 71 f4.8 if anyone is interested.

[flatbutt]

What's the actual FOV? My GTF gets 1° and 54 arcminutes by 1° and 16 arcminutes with an APS-C sensor. Or it should but my skills are still no bueno.

[Eric Hahl]

REDCAT 71 with ASI2600 camera(APS-C with 3.76um pixels)....3.87degrees by 2.58degrees. If that's what you are asking.