Site BLOG PAGE🔎 SEARCH  Ξ INDEX  MAIN MENU  UP ONE LEVEL
 OJB's Web Site. Version 2.1. Blog Page.You are here: entry740 blog owen2 
Blog

Add a Comment   Up to OJB's Blog List

We Do It at Night

Entry 740, on 2008-04-11 at 14:01:49 (Rating 1, Activities)

Last night was a fairly clear night and the temperature was quite pleasant (this is Dunedin so what do you expect) so I dragged the old 'scope out and had a bit of a look around the sky. My telescope is a Celestron C8 on a Polaris equatorial mount which is a good compromise between optical power and portability, and it only takes a few minutes to get my "observatory" (which consists of the 'scope and mount, a power supply, my Canon digital SLR camera, my Mac laptop connected through wireless, and a few miscellaneous pieces of furniture) up and running.

Unfortunately I still don't have everything aligned properly so astrophotography is a bit limited, but I have included a picture with this blog entry. I concentrated on the area of the sky around Orion, Canis Major, Carina, and Puppis and located a few nice open clusters and nebulae, including the rather bizarrely named "Mexican Jumping Star" which is actually a cluster in Canis Major with a brighter central star. Nothing was jumping but it was a nice little cluster anyway.

Living in a city doesn't allow the best possible views of the sky because of light pollution from street lights, but its still possible to see thousands of objects with a decent telescope. When I visit a remote location with a genuinely dark sky I find it just stunning how good the sky looks. That's why I bought a smaller telescope which was fairly easy to transport (even the "smaller" C8 cost over $3000 second-hand).

It can be difficult to get motivated enough to set up the equipment and spend an hour or two outside - especially on the colder winter nights (and winter is the best time because it never gets really dark in summer) but if I strike some good seeing conditions (with clear, still skies) its all worth it. After all, as the old bumper sticker I used to have said, astronomers do it at night!


Comment 1 (1394) by Andy on 2008-04-11 at 14:16:12:

You need to get your tracking working a bit better because your stars don't look very round in this photo!

Comment 2 (1402) by OJB on 2008-04-14 at 10:18:57:

Ah yes, I had noticed that. That's why I said "I still don't have everything aligned properly so astrophotography is a bit limited".


You can leave comments about this entry using this form.

Enter your name (optional):
Enter your email address (optional):
Enter the number shown here:number
Enter the comment:

To add a comment: enter a name and email (optional), type the number shown, enter a comment, click Add.
Note that you can leave the name blank if you want to remain anonymous.
Enter your email address to receive notifications of replies and updates to this entry.
The comment should appear immediately because the authorisation system is currently inactive.

I do podcasts too!. You can listen to my latest podcast, here: OJB's Podcast 2024-08-22 Stirring Up Trouble: Let's just get every view out there and fairly debate them..
 Site ©2024 by OJBWeb ServerWhy Macs are BestMade & Served on Mac 
Site Features: Blog RSS Feeds Podcasts Feedback Log04 Nov 2024. Hits: 49,618,856
Description: Blog PageKeywords: BlogLoad Timer: 13ms