Walross

I have a good solar filter for my 'scope. One of the coolest things I ever saw was during a partial solar eclipse a few years ago - while watching the disk of the moon pass over the sun, I noticed that the edges of it weren't perfect. To my amazement, I was actually looking at the silouettes of lunar mountains! I love astronomy. Unfortunately I am often too lazy to pull the telescope out

Walross

RealityCheck

A better way to observe the sun is indirectly. The first time I ever watched a partial eclipse the telescope was set up to project on to a piece of cardboard. You may have to remove the eyepiece. Then move the cardboard or paper closer or farther away to focus the image. Also use the focus adjust if needed. The image is much bigger than looking through the telescope, and no danger to your eyes. Personally, I would never recommend looking at the sun through any magnifying device, even with smoked glass.

Boro Nut

You want to see Neptune and Pluto. They are much much cooler.

Paul2

This thread kinda makes me want to get into astronomy.

Puck

Thanks Shadowy Man! I had to pick up a pair of binoculars quick today to spot some Sandhill Cranes in town, and stopped by a pawn shop to see what they had, and I bought the same pair listed first on that page for $20!

So, now Puck has her first pair of binoculars for sky watching. It's cloudy today, but first crisp night I am so out there with my sky book.

AbbyNormal

I have an 8" reflector (Orion Skyview Deluxe EQ) and think that pretty much anything I find in it is amazing (especially the other night when I had it pointed at my neighbor's window.....sure she was upside down and backwards but.....um, never mind)

I think all the above are good suggestions. Might I add my own: M81 and M82. I just recently found these and...WOW! On low magnification you should be able to get both in your field of view. One is an edge-on spiral, the other is face-on. They're a little tricky to find (in the neighborhood of Ursa Major, just over his "shoulder") but it is well worth the search. To date, this has been my favorite view.

Clear skies!

--AbbyNormal

Gringo

I finally got to take my new telescope, an 8 inch SkyQuest, out tonight for the first time. Actually, it was the second time, but the last time the temp. was 4 F, so I didn't stay out there hardly long enough to put the eyepiece in.

I used a 24 X eyepiece to start off with. One thing I noticed is that upon finding Jupiter, there was a black dot and crosshair in it, this was not just when it was centered in the eypiece, but for the whole time. When I focused it, it became clear, much smaller, but the black dot and crosshair disappeared. I figure the black dot and cross hair is that contraption that holds the secondary mirror on. I figured a planet might be blurry out of focus, but would you be able to see the black do and cross-hair in it? Is that normal when it's out of focus?

I could see Jupiter and four of its moons at 24 X. Not much color for Jupiter there, just a greenish gray (I'm green-red color blind, so I'm not totally for sure what color it actually was). Then I used my 120 X eyepeiece to view it, and then attached my Shorty 2 X Barlow. At 120 X I could see a darker color band above and below the equator. They looked dark green to me. At 240 X, the detail looked pretty much the same, only slighly larger. I still could see four moons. Before I had taken my telescope out, I checked the collimation with the eyepiece with a hole in it that Orion had sent me, and it appears to be collimated. I have a laser collimator, but I don't want to try to fix anything if it aint broke.

I saw an extremely blue star or someting southwards. It was beautiful-- very bright. I would have tried to find Saturn, but the Heavens Above website was down today and I couldn't get a sky chart. There were too many clouds moving fast across the sky as it was. After about an hour of fun, the clouds finally took over, and I had to turn in. Future weather forecast, dismal for some time to come.

Orion sent me some various filters. Would using these filters help me see more color bands of Jupiter or should I be seeing more with out them? And again, is seeing that black dot and cross-hair in the middle of objects normal when things are out of focus or is that s sign something is not right?

Clear skies for the rest of you,

Gringo

UntamedSeductress

I too do not dare call myself an amateur astronomer but I do have some idea whats up there. I know what I see but not how I do it.

My father has been into astronomy for at least 20 years and I was reluctantly persuaded into the whole kit but I have to say I love it. I have bored more than my share of people with recounts on what I have seen, having them sit there going "what? ey? whats a cluster? other moons? etc etc" The poor dears don't release their lack of knowledge only encourages me to dribble on a bit more.



I can relate to the enthusiasm and sheer high from viewing Jupiter for the first time. Only last night I was having a look again. Just recently my father up'd the technology on his telescope. Building a remote controlled tracker and mounting it to the telescope, fitting the lens with a CV (?) chip that is fitted to a custom built computer.

Now we hone in on Jupiter, the moon etc and the image is projected directly through the computer onto the screen. We then sit back and with the remote control move the telescope around to track Jupiter as opposed to frantically trying to shift the whole thing when the magnification is so high we lose the planet in a couple of seconds.

We have seen Neptune. Very small..
Was the first time my dad had seen it in a very long time, we always went after Uranus, also very small so not really much to look at.

The moon is still by far my favourite. Over the past year we have had the telescope out at every opportunity in the afternoon sun late into the night. I can easily look down the lens and find craters, valleys, seas and know them by name and know what I'm looking at. My fav at the moment is the Messiar twins.
My dad will spot something and go take a look, and I can find it all on my own - I'm so proud.

The telescope isn't the fancier thing around but we have found craters 0.5km wide - very small from that distance. There are two we are quite fond of - Piton A and B - very small and from our viewpoint, just off to the bottom right of the small peak that is Piton.

I must say its very frustrating when my poor bf comes over and we are out the back once again, I'm like check this out, he's like I have no idea what I'm looking at - that goes on for 10 mins while we try to explain where it is and what it is until we all give up. I think I need more patience..

I think my point was - last week while checking Jupiter out, we managed to find it with a moon directly in front. Looked strange at first - this big black dot on the surface of the planet. We went in search for answers and found that we had caught it at the time one of its moons was passing directly across - we couldnt see the moon because of its position to the sun, but the shadow was fantastic and we tracked it until it passed right across and popped out the other side again.

Anyways, congrats on the sighting. Its fascinating looking up at the night sky and lots of fun.

Shadowy Man

Yes, it sounds like you were just looking at the out of focus image. If it looks the same way when you point it at a star that is definitely what you were seeing.

Now, before you go and think that you never want to look at things out of focus, it is interesting to note that you can see the color of stars much better in the out of focus image than in the focused point-like spot. Try it sometime.

I am also red-green colorblind, so I can sympathize with you. Colors in astronomical objects are difficult for me.



Probably Sirius - in the constellation of Canus Majoris. It's an A star, so it should be blueish. Rigel in Orion is also blue (a B8 star).


Some filters would probably help. You want to exclude blue light, i.e. the scattered light from the sky - and probably yellow as well, as a lot of street lights are yellow.


Hope you're having fun!!! There's a lot to see in the sky with a decent telescope and a dark site. Even with a good pair of binoculars, you can see a lot!

Walross

Just a tip. Everyone here probably knows this but just in case anyone doesn't... One useful tool for visual astronomy is the use of "averted vision". Basically, it's looking at the object (say, for instance, Jupiter) out of the corner of your eye, rather than staring at it directly. It may surprise you to find that you will see much greater detail this way. It has to do with the way the rods and cones of the eye deal with night vision. Give it a try if you haven't already. Regards,

Walross