Amateur Astronomy

[Agafaster]

@JaxAnim

Cool ! I've registered.

don't do a lot of Astronomy these days (a baby, two bigger kids and a full time job dont help !)

but I did some good work in the '89 Mars conjuction through a 60mm (aperture!) Refractor. saw a lot of Jupiter and Saturn through that too.
I also had a Praktika MTL5B and a 200mm Vivitar Telephoto lens.
later, I got my current scope, a BobOptik 600mm Schmidt-Newtonian - aperture of F7.9 or 76mm (a mere 3 incher! :-o )

I did get a good look at Mars this time round though, but the Skies in the middle of the Black Country a dire, unless you are a big fan of Orange Horizons !  :madashell:

oh - I also have a pair of Russian 10x50 bins which have seen a LOT of service !!

I would like a bigger scope, preferably on an equatorial - probably have to wait until after the new car though !

PS: my degree was in Physics with Astrophysics

[Agafaster]

bonza. ZHR ?

[Agafaster]

not quite a Leonid eh!

[Agafaster]

5-5.5 isnt bad, you know ! thats IIRC all the human eye can discern at the best seeing anyway.

I probably get down to about 3 or 4 - though thats a complete and unashamed guess, as I've never really thought about it !

however, last year we had a holiday in Pentewan near Mevagissey,Cornwall - the seeing was absolutely incredible - every clear night, the milky way was absolutely gorgeous !
the camp is right by the beach, so come twilight I took my eldest up there with some binoculars - needless to say she was impressed !

the next clear (hah!) night after we got home, I got so depressed - the orange glow of Wolverhampton to the Northwest, Birmingham to the Southeast, Walsall to the East, and Dudley to the West really p!ssed me off.

[Agafaster]

The chances are that our great great grandchildren will live their lives without ever seeing the Milky Way.

sad but true.

all it takes is the use of a shield on top of street lights to prevent the light escaping upwards - the upshot of this is that a less powerful bulb is required to give the same light levels on the road and path meaning less power is used, and less Carbon is being emitted.

not only is light pollution insidious and ugly, its also very wasteful.

[Agafaster]

Brilliant !

how much do expect to sell it for, and when do you expect to release ? do you need a beta tester (subtle eh!) ?

you dont have to answer the 2nd question in public, given how this public is about slipped deadlines ;-) !

[Agafaster]

coolio!

aside: did anyone observe the total lunar eclipse ?

a good one from where I was. really deep reds - I tried taking some piccies but ... have we covered this in another thread ?!

[Agafaster]

Meega - nice avatar ! transit of Venus in '04 isnit ?
that was the first astro obbo I did after moving into me new house that summer.

pictures - I used to use a Praktika MTL5B, and got some reasonable shots of the '89 (IIRC) eclipse.
I was experimenting with my Kodak DC3400 that night. the results were .... disappointing.
however, my visual only observations through my scope were very nice !

I intend to do the webcam hack at some point (ie: when I get available funds!) maybe even try to get the A1 involved !



@BillE,

yeah, we were all inCREDibly lucky with the weather that night !

[Agafaster]

meega wrote:
@BillE, and anyone else interested, this was quite early in the morning.

Nice !
it was early wasnt it ! 6am start IIRC. I took one or two photos using the old eyepiece projection into an A4 box (we had loads around having just moved ;-)) and an APS camera... I'll have to dig 'em out, and put 'em online if theyre good enough - I also tried that for the '99 partial solar eclipse (well it was here !) but that wasnt awesomely successful...

..scorcher...

same here, though I had to go to work at some point, so I tried to follow it online. I did manage to catch the 1st contact and tear drop effect, so that was ok.

[Agafaster]

looks like you had more luck than I did !
I think our firewall/notwork was playing up that day - can't think why !

-for some reason, our firewall blocks your pics ! gaahh!