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Tonight was a perfect autumn evening, but bad for pics

TorontoBuilder

TorontoBuilder

Sapientia et Doctrina Stabilitas
As the title says it was a great evening, sat out cooking chorizo sausages to go with risotto. The lack of clouds made for boring skies, but I still snapped a pic on my crappy cell phone camera tho

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The other day was way better as a fog bank rapidly rolled in through a trough in the landscape just about sunset


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I wish I had my view camera with me.
 
Well just a couple more wouldn't hurt right? The one with the house in the background has a campfire glow in the foreground as it is a beautiful (but coolish) night for a campfire.
 

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DPittman said:
Well just a couple more wouldn't hurt right? The one with the house in the background has a campfire glow in the foreground as it is a beautiful (but coolish) night for a campfire.
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While I was happy with my photos I just realized how much mung and greasy goo are on my camera lens. Boy I bet pictures would have been alot sharper if I had been a little bit sharper myself.
 
Last nights aurora caught me totally by surprise. I had the wrong lens on the camera for it. I did a mad rush to change the lens then snap a few images. I took one out the front door to make sure I got something. Then did a few more of the house and barn with the aurora. Had I known it was coming I would have gone down to the ocean and taken some photos there.

Aurora.jpg
 
I was going to set up the telescope in the observatory when I stepped out of the house, I looked up and changed plans. Grabbed camera, tripod and wide angle lens instead!
 
pdentrem said:
I was going to set up the telescope in the observatory when I stepped out of the house, I looked up and changed plans. Grabbed camera, tripod and wide angle lens instead!
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Good plan. You would see nothing in a telescope except background stars.

You have an observatory???

Pictures or it doesn't exist!

I'm jealous! There are a few of us here who like astronomy. My observatory is my shop. I have my big 8 inch setup near the overhead door. I can wrap my arms around the scope on its tripod and carry it out into the open barnyard. I never use it in bad weather.
 
pdentrem said:
It is a SkyShed Pod which Wayne Parker has been producing for a few years now. Inside I have a Sky Watcher 120ED on EQ6 Pro mount sitting on a concrete pier.

I am currently working on making a new structure for my 13' Zambuto mirror.
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Wow!
Now I know I can ask a really ignorant question to somebody that knows a thing or two about telescopes.

My mother-in-law gave the kids a telescope for Christmas a couple of years ago. I suspect it may have cost $200 or less. It's about 3-4ft long and I don't remember the power off hand but I think maybe one of the eye objective lens might be 25x. From my limited playing with it it is far less effective (at least in daylight) than my simple smaller hunting spotting scope. Are these class of telescopes pure garbage? While $200 isn't alot of money to spend on optics, it is alot of money to spend on something that is totally useless garbage.
 
The real problem with the typical dept store scopes is the lack of truth!

They are long f10 or more, which means 10 - whatever times the diameter of the lens. This makes for a very narrow field of view, under 1.5 degrees is typical. The eyepieces are usually Kellner designs, ie Simple 2 lenses and might even be of plastic! Good enough to see the moon and near by Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, but extremely hard to get on target!

Best used at low power but can be improved with better focuser and eyepieces but at a cost.

Collimation of the scope is another issue and not difficult to do but ..... If one looks at a star and slightly defocus to a larger blob, is it round? If not then collimation is required. Depending on the scope it is possible to do so.

The info is available and Cloudynights.com has resources to help.
Pierre
 
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