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So You Wanna Buy a Telescope: Advice for Beginners (2015)

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Re: So You Wanna Buy a Telescope: Advice for Beginners (2015)

#61

Post by exhilaration »

jonathansizz wrote: post #59
starik36 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Were you able to see the rings of Saturn with this telescope? How about the red spot of Jupiter? Any of its moons? And finally, do you observe these objects in a place with a lot of light pollution?

I can see Saturn's rings with my 16x70mm binoculars. Jupiter's Galilean satellites are easy with any decent pair of binoculars. You can track their positions relative to Jupiter from night to night. Binoculars are definitely the way to go for a beginner. Spend 12 months using the naked eye and binoculars to learn the entire night sky that's visible from your location. With the aid of an astronomy book and star charts…

Can you link to a specific pair of binoculars?

Re: So You Wanna Buy a Telescope: Advice for Beginners (2015)

#62

Post by davidy123 »

I wanted to combine several interests and acquire something like the Sony QX or Olympus AIR, which have lens mounts, with a computer based program and display (OLED eventually) for capturing night skies (and general exposure exploration). But I found none of the available systems have much versatility. Is there any affordable system useful for this purpose? I know some SLRs and high end 4/3 cameras have APIs, and hacker oriented devices like the PI's camera have potential.

Re: So You Wanna Buy a Telescope: Advice for Beginners (2015)

#63

Post by lake99 »

geff82 wrote: post #60
lake99 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The advice not to do astrophotography is meant for the beginner. My advice is meant for the beginner as well. All the other things you pointed out, well, you need to learn those things for astrophotography, even if you don't have a telescope. Given how many of us have DSLRs, this is something we can start today . > He essentially advises you not to take part in a tech arms race as a beginner. I did not advice getti…

You see, there are two types of people going to concert nowadays: the first group goes there to listen to the music, enjoying the atmosphere, have a good time. The second group goes there to film everything with their phone, take selfies, post to social media while there. The OP is of the former type: before you go there and photograph, first take time and enjoy the simple, dark sky. There is nothing wrong with buyin…

> The OP is of the former type: before you go there and photograph, first take time and enjoy the simple, dark sky.

Contrast that with what I wrote:

> 1. Install an astronomy app on your mobile phone. Start with free ones, and see where it leads you. I recommend Skeye. This is good for going out by yourself and looking up things you see in the sky.

Please don't make assumptions about me. For the record, my photographs are not for the social media. They are for me. I did not post any of my own here.

With the author's method, one might get to see M31 as a gray fuzz after they acquire a 10" telescope. With my method, they get to see M31 with a fair bit of color, when it is viewable at their location. While it's fine to go the author's route if that's what satisfies them, the reason I have such little regard for the author is his arrogance about a field that he is completely ignorant of. A beginner learning from just his article would walk away with a distorted sense of the field. I'd advice learning from someone who is more well-rounded.

Re: So You Wanna Buy a Telescope: Advice for Beginners (2015)

#64

Post by madaxe_again »

aortega wrote: post #29

I disagree with the astrophotography thing. Even with a telescope your human eyes are limited to planets and the moon, that's it. Forget about seeing galaxies with the naked eye, unless you have a 1-meter diameter telescope. All other objects are basically points of light. Artificial satellites are really fun to see, but also points of light. But a 2006 DSLR (EOS400) that I found in the garbage, connected to a cheap…

There's astrophotography and then there's astrophotography, however - and you get drawn deeper and deeper into it.

I have a few scopes, but mostly use an 8" celestron schmidt-cassegrain - it's a decent all-rounder for astrophotography, particularly as I mostly do deep sky stuff.

I started with a simple T-adapter and a DSLR, and of course, you start as you describe playing with the exposure, the iso - but then you want to see fainter objects, and the noise starts being a problem, so you learn about computational techniques for frame stacking and noise reduction, but those have their limits, and the results you're getting are so-so, so...

You buy a peltier cooled CCD. You upgrade your mount because you aren't satisfied with the level of backlash you're getting. You get a star tracker. You learn several suites of astrophotographic software before settling on three.

Now you're taking images of deep sky objects, but they just don't have that certain something - so you go and buy filters - hydrogen alpha, OIII, RGB, and more, and you start getting some images you're impressed by - but... wouldn't it be great if you could just capture a bit more of that dim halo... maybe I should buy a bigger telescope. Maybe I need a dome to keep conditions more constant. Perhaps I should go on holiday and lug my telescope, counterweights and all, to the other side of the planet, and hang out up a mountain.

No, this is madness. So long as you stick with what you describe and don't go down the slippery slope as I did. With the setup you describe you can still do neat stuff like observing the Galilean moons and plotting their ephemerides, and take stunning photos of the moon and even the sun with a simple solar filter.

Re: So You Wanna Buy a Telescope: Advice for Beginners (2015)

#65

Post by Avshalom »

aortega wrote: post #57
Avshalom wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can see the entire messier catalog, quite well, with a pair of binoculars. 1 meter is a fucking ludicrous diameter.

Sure, if you are in the middle of the chilean desert.

That's not really how telescopes work. If it's light pollution additional aperture does not by itself preferentially distinguish between terrestrial and extra terrestrial light. If it's humidity, radiated heat and particulate matter you'll hit the diffraction limit of your local atmosphere before you hit the resolution of a half meter scope.

N.B. if you have the money to buy a 1 meter scope and motorized mount sufficient for it you have the money to take a lot of trips with pair of binoculars to the Chilean desert.

Re: So You Wanna Buy a Telescope: Advice for Beginners (2015)

#66

Post by jkot »

aortega wrote: post #29

I disagree with the astrophotography thing. Even with a telescope your human eyes are limited to planets and the moon, that's it. Forget about seeing galaxies with the naked eye, unless you have a 1-meter diameter telescope. All other objects are basically points of light. Artificial satellites are really fun to see, but also points of light. But a 2006 DSLR (EOS400) that I found in the garbage, connected to a cheap…

Galaxies are visible with naked eye, $200 dobsonian can see quasars.

Re: So You Wanna Buy a Telescope: Advice for Beginners (2015)

#67

Post by gus_massa »

mnw21cam wrote: post #38
_ph_ wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Astrophotography without a telescope is indeed a good starting point. Get a bright 50mm lens and just with a simple barndoor tracker you can do amazing things. But as this article is about buying a telescope - and astrophotography through a telescope requires more skill than a complete beginner might imagine.

You don't even need a tracker at all. Just take a series of 20-second exposures, align them in hugin, and stack them. I have managed to get some remarkably good results this way, because the fact that the star background moves allows you to cancel out a lot of the noise that the camera and light pollution produces.

If the aligning phase can be automated, this looks like a nice plugin for ImageJ/ImageMagick or even an online version in a web page. (You an monetize it with ads about telescopes or something.)

(Bonus points for a deconvolution filter. (Is it useful here?))

Re: So You Wanna Buy a Telescope: Advice for Beginners (2015)

#68

Post by cosmeen »

aortega wrote: post #29

I disagree with the astrophotography thing. Even with a telescope your human eyes are limited to planets and the moon, that's it. Forget about seeing galaxies with the naked eye, unless you have a 1-meter diameter telescope. All other objects are basically points of light. Artificial satellites are really fun to see, but also points of light. But a 2006 DSLR (EOS400) that I found in the garbage, connected to a cheap…

Do you have any photos uploaded somewhere public?

Re: So You Wanna Buy a Telescope: Advice for Beginners (2015)

#69

Post by vvanders »

aortega wrote: post #29

I disagree with the astrophotography thing. Even with a telescope your human eyes are limited to planets and the moon, that's it. Forget about seeing galaxies with the naked eye, unless you have a 1-meter diameter telescope. All other objects are basically points of light. Artificial satellites are really fun to see, but also points of light. But a 2006 DSLR (EOS400) that I found in the garbage, connected to a cheap…

Not really sure what you're talking about.

I've seen at least 6-7 galaxies/nebulae from my 8" Dobsonian and plan to try and find more this year. You just need to get out to an area with low light pollution. FWIW this is from the deck of my house(one of the benefits of living in a rural area) but totally possible to do.

There's also something surreal about seeing the milky way streaking across the sky with the naked eye. Worth it to get away from the city for that alone.

Re: So You Wanna Buy a Telescope: Advice for Beginners (2015)

#70

Post by vvanders »

madaxe_again wrote: post #64
aortega wrote: post #29

I disagree with the astrophotography thing. Even with a telescope your human eyes are limited to planets and the moon, that's it. Forget about seeing galaxies with the naked eye, unless you have a 1-meter diameter telescope. All other objects are basically points of light. Artificial satellites are really fun to see, but also points of light. But a 2006 DSLR (EOS400) that I found in the garbage, connected to a cheap…

There's astrophotography and then there's astrophotography, however - and you get drawn deeper and deeper into it. I have a few scopes, but mostly use an 8" celestron schmidt-cassegrain - it's a decent all-rounder for astrophotography, particularly as I mostly do deep sky stuff. I started with a simple T-adapter and a DSLR, and of course, you start as you describe playing with the exposure, the iso - but then you wan…

Yup, no idea what GP is talking about, most dobs aren't really great for AP since the focal plane isn't in the right location.

I'm a huge photo-nerd but I took one look at AP and was like "nope!" for the exact above reasons + extremely long capture times. We're talking hours of frames to see some things.

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