Page 18 • Astronomy • Non-Gaming • Science & Technology • Eurogamer.net

ILoveThrashMetal 14 Jan 2016 13:39:38 1,066 posts
Seen 4 years ago
Registered 10 years ago

damagedinc wrote:

RyanDS wrote:
Are you UK based.

If so neither to be honest.

With a 130 the UK skies really struggle to get stable enough to make a 6mm useful. I found the sharper, smaller Jupiter much better generally than the large fuzzy 6mm.

M42 you want wide, not tight focus, so the 25mm is what you want anyway.

If you want to spend some money I'd say invest rather in filters (eg a decent moon or light pollution one) or better quality eyepieces than the stock ones.
Yeah south east, cool sounds good. Dont want to be the guy chasing the higher zooms at cost of quality. Will stick with what i have got till i really know what i am doing and then maybe invest in replacement EP's for my stock ones.

I wouldn't hold your hopes up for clear skies down here in the south east. Christmas holidays I had one night of clear skies and that was the evening before I was due to go back to work. I need a cloud gun.

damagedinc 14 Jan 2016 14:45:23 3,104 posts
Seen 20 hours ago
Registered 10 years ago

Most my success has been between 0300-0500 recently. Thankfully i do shifts so not difficult for me to be up around this time. ..last couple of nights have been brilliant. More good weather for stargazing predicted for the weekend aswell.

This does change at a drop of a hat though

Ra_ra_rasputin 14 Jan 2016 17:39:32 332 posts
Seen 3 years ago
Registered 8 years ago

Am off to the Kielder Observatory at the end of the month (Christmas present!) up in Northumberland.... anyone else been there? Didn't realise it was Europe's biggest area of dark sky either!

Not sure what they do if it is cloudy... which I think there is quite a chance of at the end of January (although on the other hand cant get better than a crisp wintery night if it is clear!)

Fab4 14 Jan 2016 20:19:23 8,924 posts
Seen 1 year ago
Registered 15 years ago

Looks like a lovely observatory too.

ILoveThrashMetal 20 Jan 2016 17:32:19 1,066 posts
Seen 4 years ago
Registered 10 years ago

Get up a bit earlier tomorrow peeps! http://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/visible-planets-tonight-mars-jupiter-venus-saturn-mercury

ILoveThrashMetal 20 Jan 2016 17:35:38 1,066 posts
Seen 4 years ago
Registered 10 years ago

Also this has an open evening this weekend, but please don't go when I'm queuing to look through the big scopes. http://www.the-observatory.org/open-evenings

RyanDS 29 Apr 2020 10:38:30 14,073 posts
Seen 19 hours ago
Registered 13 years ago

Jesus, 4 years since this thread was used! Post divorce I sold off all my kit as I moved back to London, but last few weeks with the lack of flights etc the skies have been amazingly clear so treated myself to a new scope.

Got myself a Celestron Nexstar 4, a nice scope that is big enough to see some nice things, has GOTO and is also small enough to put in my backpack so I can ride on my motorbike somewhere dark.

Really impressed by the little scope, going from my old 8 inch to a 4 inch* was not as bad as I was expecting. Especially in London where the light ruins everything anyway, so I am mainly looking at stars / the moon etc anyway. Along with the scope got 12mm, 40mm eyepieces and a Barlow so have a nice spread of 33x to 221x magnification.

I didn't realise how much I missed the stars, I have been spending 5 hours a night sitting in a courtyard of my block of flats with a small part of the sky visible, lots of light, but am still blown away. I can't wait until the lockdown is gone so I can go out camping and get some proper viewing.

*yeah yeah, get the jokes out

Deleted user 29 April 2020 12:47:09

@RyanDS Nice. Still got the 8" Skywatcher Newtonian here, but haven't actually had it out for literally years.

I need to sort something!

Dr-Strangelove 29 Apr 2020 14:05:13 2,309 posts
Seen 12 hours ago
Registered 17 years ago

That Celestron Nexstar 4 does look nice , anything with the same capabilities (GoTo) but bigger and not be prohibitive in price?

The 8 inch version of that is too expensive, but then I'm based on the of Bath so maybe light pollution here won't be an issue, so smaller may be fine? I guess the smaller it is the easier it is to take out tho, eg camping.

I've not done any decent gazing in years (and most of that was abroad and was setup for me to view) so am really unfamiliar with what is available.

Edited by Dr-Strangelove at 14:08:10 29-04-2020

RyanDS 29 Apr 2020 14:32:49 14,073 posts
Seen 19 hours ago
Registered 13 years ago

Nothing really cheaper that has GOTO that I am aware of. To be honest this was the cheapest "good" scope I could find.

RyanDS 6 May 2020 12:10:02 14,073 posts
Seen 19 hours ago
Registered 13 years ago

Nice night last night so went out with the scope for a couple of hours. Saw something I have never seen before.

8 satellites in a row in procession. Separate by about 1/5th of the sky they just came one after another. Was interesting to watch but am glad was not doing any photography. Googling it appears it may be SpaceX stuff:
https://www.space.com/spacex-starlink-satellites-surprise-british-skywatchers.html

Fucking annoying if this is just the start. It really will kill amateur astronomy photos where 3-5 minute exposures will be ruined if the sky swarms with these.

AboutHalfaStevas 6 May 2020 12:19:09 2,765 posts
Seen 1 year ago
Registered 6 years ago

Yeah, sounds like the train.
Normally I'd be saying it's probably gonna get worse for that...

But, you know. "Normally."

Dirt3 6 May 2020 13:17:05 1,775 posts
Seen 18 hours ago
Registered 7 years ago

RyanDS wrote:
Nice night last night so went out with the scope for a couple of hours. Saw something I have never seen before.

8 satellites in a row in procession. Separate by about 1/5th of the sky they just came one after another. Was interesting to watch but am glad was not doing any photography. Googling it appears it may be SpaceX stuff:
https://www.space.com/spacex-starlink-satellites-surprise-british-skywatchers.html

Fucking annoying if this is just the start. It really will kill amateur astronomy photos where 3-5 minute exposures will be ruined if the sky swarms with these.

I heard they got the orientation of the panels wrong or something and they are going to fix them. Apparently they are going to put 12000 of them in orbit.

DJCopa 6 May 2020 13:30:57 2,577 posts
Seen 3 days ago
Registered 15 years ago

Yes, they are looking to change them remotely to stop the glare (not sure how?).

I've been watching the past week or so (naked eye), there is timetable online somewhere telling you times/dates - Fascinating to watch, surprised I haven't heard any chem-trailers linking it to the current pandemic.

Nexus_6 6 May 2020 14:34:18 6,168 posts
Seen 2 days ago
Registered 17 years ago

@DJCopa Now there's an idea. Do you have a newsletter?

DJCopa 6 May 2020 14:45:51 2,577 posts
Seen 3 days ago
Registered 15 years ago

@Nexus_6 www.fakemoon-flatearth.com

The first 50 signups get an 'Elvis is Alive' bumper sticker.

Nexus_6 6 May 2020 15:51:47 6,168 posts
Seen 2 days ago
Registered 17 years ago

\o/

up_the_ante 6 May 2020 16:42:58 1,574 posts
Seen 9 hours ago
Registered 14 years ago

So I took my telescope out for the first time in 2 years last night and quickly realised I'd forgotten how to set up an equatorial mount! 15 mins later and I realised the finder wasn't even aligned properly. Aborted and am going to attempt a more organised approach tonight.

Deleted user 6 May 2020 18:20:40

@up_the_ante You'd better collimate, sunshine.

YOU'D BETTER.

Astronomy • Page 18