Saturday 9 March 2013

Milky Way.


Had another attempt at photographing the Milky Way on Friday after work.
I used a Nikon D200 to take the photos and stacked them in Deep Sky Stacker.

ISO 1600 - Exposure: 9 mins 30 seconds (19 frames)

Heres the result.

Milky Way.

I'm pretty pleased with this image although the gradient (I think its caused by light pollution) is a wee bit of a downer.
Still, The Milky Way its self came out pretty good.

Stardome.

I wen't up to Stardome on Thursday to volunteer as a telescope operator.
I figured it would be a good way to meet some new people who were into astronomy and learn a few things as well as get to look through some other telescopes and compare the quality.

Was a pretty good night. There were 3 telescopes set up. 2 meade (a 10" and an 8" I think) and a tracking Celestron.

All I had to do was point the telescopes at an object and let people take a look.
There was really only Jupiter and the Orion Nebula to look at so it was all pretty simple.


As a bonus the ISS (international space station) just happened to be flying by that night and I managed to see it in the sky.
A couple of people tried to track it by hand in the telescopes and one person even managed to get a glimpse of it.

Pretty sure I'll be heading up there again soon.

Sunday 3 March 2013

Saturn Video.

I decided to take another shot at capturing Saturn on video tonight. After about 30-40 minutes of trying to track it down I finally got it cantered in the view finder. Not an easy task when you're using a standard camera tripod.

Heres the results of the video.


I'm really pleased with this video but as you can probably see, there are some artifacts around Saturn due to the compression used so I'm going to have another go with no compression and possibly using a 2x barlow as well.

Saturday 2 March 2013

Saturn

Last night the sky was pretty clear so I decided to pop out and give my new Galileoscope a real test.

Saturn.

It took me a while to find where I was meant to be looking. Once I figured it out, aiming the telescope was a right pain in the ass with the tripod I am using but once everything was set up I was amazed by the views. Sharp and bright.

I tried to use my web cam to capture an image but I had no luck. Not sure why. Maybe it wasn't bright enough for the camera to pick up or maybe the aim was off and I just couldn't find it while the camera was attached.
What ever the reason, I'm going to have another go at capturing an image next time I am out.

The type of view I was getting from my Galileoscope.
Not my image.
I also took out the Celestron Firstscope out for comparison.
Finding Saturn was pretty simple but once again the ghosting (or blur) caused problems.
I could make out the rings but the image I was getting just want very good. Kind of disappointing after the views I was getting from the Galileoscope.

Friday 1 March 2013

Galileoscope.

While I was browsing TradeMe one night I came across an auction for a Galileoscope for $30. Without putting much though into it I added it to my watch list and carried on about my business.

Why bother writing about this you may ask? Well the Galileoscope was the other recommended cheap telescope for someone on a very tight budget.
But not only is it VERY affordable but it comes as a kit set so you actually assemble the telescope yourself before you use it.

At the end of the auction, no one had bid on the Galileoscope so with about an hour to go I placed a bid and crossed my fingers... And I won.
A new Galileoscope for $30.


Once it arrived I quickly assembled it and attached it to a basic camera tripod and waited for it to get dark.
Assembly was really simple and I was pretty surprised to find out how basic a telescope actually is.

For $30 this telescope is AMAZING.
Now I'll admit that the only other thing I can compare it to is the Celestron First Scope but wow.
The Moon was extremply sharp and detailed, I got a really good view of Jupiter and its cloud bands and I even managed to track down Saturn and clearly see its rings.
Aiming with the camera tripod was a little difficult but not frustrating.

Apart from the Moon, the views of the planets were vastly superior than what I was getting from the Celestron First Scope.
Deep Space Objects were a different story though. Nebulae and clusters were rather disappointing after seeing them through the FirstScope.

This is probably because the Galileoscope only has a 50mm aperture where as the First Scope has a 76mm.

Still, for $30 I can't really complain.
Theres also a bunch of activities and educational information over on http://galileoscope.org to check out which is a bonus.
I'll have to go have a decent look at it at some point.