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Photos I took with my telescope last night.

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Isn't there a comet moving through the area near the plieades this week? Were you able to spot it? We've had cloudy evenings here so we're out of luck.
 
Wish my youtube account wasn't closed or I would post the video of Jupiter being zoomed in on using an HDTV camera during a Phillies game. That was seriously some impressive shit, this is cool too though!
 
blinblue said:
Very cool pictures. The only vaguely related photo I took was back in 2004 when Venus traversed in front of the sun. This was taken on a Panasonic FZ10 (I loved that camera) through a welding mask. Cropped and colors adjusted to look cooler 🙂

closeup.jpg
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Very nice picture.

I am still using a Panasonic FZ20, I just can't bring myself to get rid of it, it still works well and takes great pictures.
 
Arcadio said:
Awesome, OP. I own a telescope myself, but I've only used under the light polluted skies of NYC, so I've only been able to admire the planets and the moon. The Pleiades and Orion's Nebula are great targets as well, but right now they are coming out too late at night. I know nothing about astrophotography, that's why the pictures are not the best quality...

Oh, yeah, and you can see Jupiter's moons with binoculars.
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Those are pretty good for NYC. Light pollution is a photo killer. It turns the sky orange or pink on long exposures.

It appears you are digiscoping your telescope (looking into the eyepiece with the camera). The secret is most astrophotographers use DLSR cameras, removing the lens of the camera and the eyepiece on the telescope and adding a few adapters. The bare camera looks right into the bare telescope. Then you find a great tracking mount and do nice long exposure photographs. When you get advanced, you take dozens of photos and stack them with special software.

Here is a moon shot I did a while ago.

moon1o.jpg


Here is the unedited or cropped image as it came out when shot:
http://img824.imageshack.us/img824/8774/img1047j.jpg
 
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Arcadio said:
Awesome, OP. I own a telescope myself, but I've only used under the light polluted skies of NYC, so I've only been able to admire the planets and the moon. The Pleiades and Orion's Nebula are great targets as well, but right now they are coming out too late at night. I know nothing about astrophotography, that's why the pictures are not the best quality...
Click to expand...

We all know why you really have a telescope 😀
 
brainhulk said:
what kind of peeping-tom shots can you get with that telescope? pics?
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I've never tried to take long distance shots yet, but I'm sure they would be pretty sweet

Unless you have a giant scope, it's hard to get higher than a 50x without losing a lot of clarity.
 
Ms. DICKINSON said:
I wonder if the telescopes from Big5 Sporting Goods are any good.
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What are the brands or prices?

It's a sad fact about the telescope industry that many people get sucked into cheap telescopes that do not work well enough to see anything and these do not get used very often because people become disappointed with the hobby. The photos I posted are also long exposures that bring out color and contrast. It looks nothing like that visually.

I advise anyone to do their homework before buying. Telescopes are more expensive than people think. I tell people don't get their hopes up too much unless they're taking it seriously.

I do not try to get anyone hooked on this hobby for this reason. It's a money killer.
 
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Aaah yes, telescopes. I had a fantastic one a while back - 6" dob on a homemade mount. It was gorgeous. I really shouldn't have got rid of it. I remember one time was Saturn was "presenting" her rings and I sat out there for hours a night watch it. I want to get back into it but I need a powerful compact scope, like a Mak-Cass etc...
 
JMapleton said:
I can honestly say though, I only recommend a telescope to those who live in rural of very very suburban areas without any chicks around.
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ftfy.

I remember going out west to 'watch the stars with my first serious gf back in 1989 or so. Lasted about 3 mins before I thought I dented my hood.
 
nkgreen said:
My mom recently bought a cheapo meade telescope at a charity auction. she was absolutely amazed that you could see jupiters moons.
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you can probably pick out the great red spot, as well, depending on how large it is. my dad had a not very expensive telescope a while back and i loved it

neat pics, op.
 
Fatdog said:
Isn't there a comet moving through the area near the plieades this week? Were you able to spot it? We've had cloudy evenings here so we're out of luck.
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Comet 103P Hartley
http://www.heavens-above.com/comet.aspx?cid=103P&lat=0&lng=0&loc=Unspecified&alt=0&tz=CET

I found it last weekend with my 7x50 binoculars but it wasn't very impressive. Seemed a lot fainter than the magnitude given at the time but my eyes weren't dark adapted either.

Nice photos everyone. I've never tried taking a pic threw my scopes before. No tracking ability. Both are on Dobsonian mounts (8" & 16")

If anyone is thinking of buying a scope because they like the pictures they see, you might be disappointed. Visually, objects don't look like exposed photos.
See if there's an astronomy club nearby & look threw some different scopes first to get an idea of what you want.
 
I took a few images of the Plieades years ago in an astro class that turned out really well. We had a 42cm reflector with a scientific grade peltier-cooled CCD, and did the full deal with taking 10 flats, 10 blacks, 10 red, 10 green, 10 blue, 10 blacks, 10 red, 10 green 10 blue, then more blacks... repeat, full image decomposition etc. The results were really spectacular, but unfortunately I don't have them still 🙁
 
JMapleton said:
What are the brands or prices?

It's a sad fact about the telescope industry that many people get sucked into cheap telescopes that do not work well enough to see anything and these do not get used very often because people become disappointed with the hobby. The photos I posted are also long exposures that bring out color and contrast. It looks nothing like that visually.

I advise anyone to do their homework before buying. Telescopes are more expensive than people think. I tell people don't get their hopes up too much unless they're taking it seriously.

I do not try to get anyone hooked on this hobby for this reason. It's a money killer.
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Something like C-Star 700 which is under 150$. I don't know if they are cheap junks but I do see lots of telescopes at Goodwill/thrift stores.

http://www.amazon.com/Cstar-3-inchx7.../dp/B000U6HTTO
 
Ms. DICKINSON said:
Something like C-Star 700 which is under 150$. I don't know if they are cheap junks but I do see lots of telescopes at Goodwill/thrift stores.

http://www.amazon.com/Cstar-3-inchx7.../dp/B000U6HTTO
Click to expand...

I would tend to shy away from that one. And stay away from any refractor (long tube) that you'd probably see at a thrift store.

I mean if you want to dip into the hobby just to try it out and you can get a telescope for like 20 bucks, do it, even if it's a super cheap one, just to try it out. Then if you decide you like it, you'll certainly want to upgrade.

One bad thing about telescopes many people overlook is the necessity of quality eyepieces. I know a source where a Celestron AstroMaster 114 EQ with a complete Plossl eyepiece kit can be had for around $200. (EP kit is normall $100+ by itself)

I would def advise anyone buying a telescope to only do so if you think you'd really be interested in it and understand it takes patience and a little learning. Anyone can PM me for the name of my source and I'll hook you up.

Otherwise, I thrift store telescope is a great way to dip your toes in the hobby. Buy the cheap one, use it for a while and once your frustrated, but a decent one and donate the scope back to the thrift store.

But like I said, I don't recommend the hobby to anyone who is not super interested. For many it's just boring looking at faint smudges or dots all night. I think it's cool though.
 
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