Astronomy

[Seriously]

With almost no setup or practice, you can take pics like this:
Attachment 21112

I braved the cold a couple of months back and just stumbled into with my new camera (and a fisheye)and got some exciting results, but I couldn't see a bloody thing when doing the setup , and I was sure anyone looking would think WTF is that weirdo doing !!
Will dig them out later (on my home macbook)

Must get out again and do some more though, I've got a couple of suitable lenses now and two cameras (The fuji should be good because it's super good at low light and the lens for that is a 12mmF2.0)

[popoki nui]

I braved the cold a couple of months back and just stumbled into with my new camera (and a fisheye)and got some exciting results, but I couldn't see a bloody thing when doing the setup , and I was sure anyone looking would think WTF is that weirdo doing !! Will dig them out later (on my home macbook)

LOL! That's happened to me many times. I look forward to your pics!

~Sherry.

[geoffbot]

More pics please Sherry

[Chase]

I'm curious why you can't look through that super cool big ol scope anymore?

[Steppy]

I'm curious why you can't look through that super cool big ol scope anymore?

Me too, was going to ask that myself

[popoki nui]

I'm curious why you can't look through that super cool big ol scope anymore?

Me too, was going to ask that myself

Strictly speaking, you still can. There is an eyepiece tucked way up behind that spectrograph package hanging off the bottom end of the telescope. Way back when, that's all they had for public observing sessions. It took an entire evening for all the visitors to get just one quick look through the eyepiece, and at only the brightest night sky objects.

Today, we have super-sensitive CCD cameras. It's so much more accommodating to our visitors to use these cameras to capture an object (like a galaxy or nebula) and project the image onto the dome wall for all to see at the same time. And we can show much fainter objects, too.

So we can now entertain an entire group of 30-40 people much better in the same amount of time than it used to take for maybe 10 people to snatch a quick peek.

~Sherry.

[Nokie]

Very cool pictures.

[scottjc]

There are no streetlights where I live and visitors are often amazed at the clarity of the stars with just the naked eye when nothing is obscuring them.
I would like to get a telescope at some point but have nowhere suitable indoors to set it up.

[popoki nui]

There are no streetlights where I live and visitors are often amazed at the clarity of the stars with just the naked eye when nothing is obscuring them.
I would like to get a telescope at some point but have nowhere suitable indoors to set it up.

If you get something like a basic Dobsonian, you don't need anywhere to set it up. Just park it in a corner when you're not using it, and take it outside when you want to observe. Great instruments for the money.

http://ca.skywatcher.com/_english/01...il.php?sid=361

[crownpuller]

Nothing doing around here..... Too close to the city, and light 'polution' kills the view up Can just about make out the major constellations.
The best view of the night sky I've experienced (with or without any sort of scope) was from a villa in the Troodos, Cyprus - Mind boggling