Thetownend.com

Just started a new hobby to go alongside car modifications.
Bought myself a dobsonian telescope with an 8 inch aperture, already have a dslr camera I can attach for astrophotography. There's a lot to learn, so if any of you have experience then please pass it on  :)

Here's the beast....

Fuzzy is yer man.

I've only got as far as the DSLR camera stage, but that looks like a serious piece of kit.
Enjoy!

Someone's sitting there mate...

A Dobsonian is a great starting scope- your get more bang for your buck (where bang = the size of the hole at the front of the scope). The bigger the hole (objective) the more light it gathers so the more you can see and higer you can magnify.

Magnification is done with the eyepiece. A rough guied to the magnification is to divide the focal legth of the telescope (marked in mm on the black sticker you can see) by the focal length of the eyepiece so, if yours is a 200mm/ 8" Dob, the focal length will be around 1200mm. If you have a 25mm eyepiece, the magnification will be 1200/ 25 = 48X.
A 10mm eypiece will give 12X magnification.

Be careful with magnification however. Shorter focal length eypiece reduce the brightness/ contrast of the image and also image quality falls off with higher magnification.

With using a Dobsonian for astrophotography, be aware of star trailing. With a mount like the Dobsonian, you move in altitude (pointing the scope higher or lower in the sky) and azimuth (rotating the scope from left to right and back again), known as an alt/az mount. The sky doesn't "move" in quite that fashion. It doesnt move in a parallel semi circle in relation to the horizon. It arcs from a point in the east, over your head and down to a point in the west. This means that if you have the shutter open too long, the image will trail or blur.

Maximum shutter speed for alt/ az mounts (or undriven equatorial mounts) can be worked out with another bit of arithmatic- 500/ focal length so, 500/1200 gives a shtter speed of just under half a second. Ramp up the ISO and give it a go on stars etc. For the moon, half a second will be too long. get out therer and play- though I have a feelingt that the recent cloud cover must be your fault for buying a new scope.....  :D

Lots of good advice etc. on here- https://stargazerslounge.com/

Cheers fuzzy. Yes, it's a 1200mm focal length. Just ordered a moon filter and the Turn left at Orion book.
I know what you mean about the movement, I focused on Saturn with a 25mm wide angle, went in to get the missus to take a look, and it had gone  :D
The finderscope doesn't seem to be aligned so I need to look at that. I have ordered a laser collimator as I think the primary/secondary alignment is slightly out.

I have 6mm, 10mm, 15mm, 20mm and 25mm lenses. Plus a 3x Barlow.

Finder alignment should be as easy as-

Best to do it in daylight if you can see something far enough away from your garden/ observing site.

Point the sope at a tree/ church spire/ tv ariel in the distance, then tweak the little screws on mount barrel until the croshairs of the finder are centred on the same thing.

A moon filter makes a tremendous difference for viewing comfort- reducing the light through the eypiece to tolerable levels. If you need to stop it down more, some scope dust caps have a small removeable cap that opens up a little hole in the cap- this is to stop down the amount of light coming through when lunar observing- the little cap fits over the moulding next to it for safe keeping.

Something I could get into but don’t know where to start.

Gotta start somewhere Aud. I just started watching YouTube videos, Astro Biscuit is quite good to watch, he seems a character.
I have a skywatcher 200p, seems to get approval as a very good starter scope.

Where did you purchase from and how much did it cost🤔

You my wife?  :D

Bought 2nd hand for 200 notes, including extra lenses. About 500 new.

She did ask me to probe a little😀

Space probe?  :yay:

Was that probing Uranus?

 :clap: :clap:

Space Cadet 4D, welcome to the ranks.  :)

I'm a Virgo, what does that mean?

It means pot as many balls as you can.

So Fuzzy, can 4D not purchase some software that locks on to certain deep sky objects and autotracks it?  Or is that Dobo not compatible for that type of stuff?

I know folk who do that for stacking their images of say Saturn for example via a combo of PIPP and Autostakkert

Was just about to quote Big Break myself  :D

Always in my blood, from this......

https://youtu.be/4SpX8bVEmJo

A Dobsonian mount is not driven and does not allow for the rotation of the targets as they transit the sky. Because the axis of the earth is tilted by around 23 degrees, so the things you look at don't follow a straight line thorough the sky.

Imagine watching a car cross a hump back bridge- as it goes on the the bridge, the front of the car points at the sky. As it drives off the bridge, the front points at the ground. Astronmical targets do the same thing- the leading edge angle changes as it transits so, without accounting for that motion, you can't effectively track.

Driven mounts tend to be Equatorial mounts where one rotating axis of the mount is set up to point at the celestial pole (the bit of the sky that the earth rotates around) which, for us in the northern hemisphere, is as close to Polaris (Pole Star) as makes no difference for visual observing.

Some scopes are sold with driven alt/ az mounts and GOTO software to help locate and follow targets but, they tend to be much shorter tubes than 4D's dob. You can get Push To adapters and apps that help get to targets with a big dob but following tends to be manual.

I aligned the finder on an aerial down the road, easy enough. Need to order a T ring for my camera.

This is what happens when you get into astronomy- you lust after new kit and spend hours sitting in the dark trying to see things or image them.

I recently acquired a new (to me) refractor telescope (lenses as opposed to mirrors) to try and improve my astrophotography.

The following images are the first run of captures using it. Very messy as I only took the detail images, not the flats to remove dust motes etc. Both are of targets I have tried before and both have resulted in much more detail than I have previously managed. Each is 30X 30 second exposures on my Sony a6300 at ISO3200, mounted to the scope using and adapter so the scope was the lens. I then used stacking and processing software to show the detail.
The first is M31 Andromeda Galaxy and the second is M82/ M82- Bodes galaxy and the Cigar Galaxy.

(https://i.imgur.com/dXRl45il.jpg)

(https://i.imgur.com/Ux6d8qXl.jpg)

That looks good fuzzy, sounds a bit technical to me. I was hoping to point and click  :)
Looks like I'll have to watch some more YouTube videos.

Point and click is doable, certainly for lunar and planetary. Deep Sky stuff (galaxies, nebula etc) tends to need longer and multiple exposures which can prove challenging on a medium sized Dobsonian due to the tracking issues.

You should get some great images of the moon via your scope and Jupiter, Saturn, Mars and Venus should give some pleasing results.

After Wrexham, Mrs F and I spent a few nights on Anglesey, staying on the north West coast near Almwch.

Knowing the area had some pretty dark skies, I took the camera, tripod and my Omegon clockwork tracking mount.

Night two, I we popped out of the hotel and drove a short distance to a viewing platform overlooking the coast.

Not perfectly dark as there was an LED street light about 50 yards away but, I set the kit up, pointed it in the general direction of the Milky Way and ran off a handful of 30 second exposures. This is the result of some of them.

Sony a6300 through stock lens at 16mm f4.5, ISO3200. 6 X 30 second exposures, stacked in Deep Sky Stacker and then tweaked in SIRIL and GIMP.

(https://i.imgur.com/wDUZ1eul.jpg)

Fantastic.

Got my nikon d3100 adapter, just need to read up on how to use.

Waiting patiently for some photos  :pint:

From the James Webb Telescope

The scale of that image never fails to amaze me.

The left most of the 'Pillars Of Creation' is around 4 light years from base to tip, or 23.5 trillion miles.

If the earth rolled down the pillar like a marble at the same speed it orbits the sun- 58408892.07 miles per year, we would take 402,336 years to go from top to bottom.

Mind boggling

You saw me standing alone....I bet it's fucking cloudy  :no:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-66657541

Once in a blue moon opportunity 🌙

Clouded out here 😠

Clear skies here but all my camera equip is packed away so couldn't get a bit arty.

Although it's not very blue^, was very cheesy in colour - like double gloucester and quite hazy with it. Lots of moisture in the air but it looked a beauty.

Would have been nice to get some decent depth of field type shots of it off my trusty Siggy but hey to the ho. Hope some of you got some decent shots.


^I know it's not blue, just called as such for a month where more than one full moon occurs - I think  :)

Got this by holding my phone over the eyepiece

That's a good bit of patience there FourDee  :)

Would be good popping the phone on a tripod and aligning it too. You'll get an even sharper image - obviously dependent on the lens on your Dobbo as well  :)

Nice one 4D. I don’t use my phone for imaging as I can never get the alignment right. Apprentice Crumbly tremors I suppose.

Managed a short Nino tour late on last night but there was far too much high level haze for imaging.

Good effort and should set you up for those clear frosty winters evenings!

Look at the moon now  :toocool:

Took these....

Nice.

If you find yourself taking multiple images to cover the whole moon, Microsoft Image Composite Editor is a good bit of software for stitching them together into one.

Here is the new scope set up in use last night- a bit of lunar and planetary.

(https://i.imgur.com/e21gNe0l.jpg)

Here is a 2 pane stitch of the moon from last night using the above kit. Not sure why the blue grey caste but pleased with the detail.

(https://i.imgur.com/uaCDNdwl.jpg)

Just bought my third scope  :Ride On Fatbury's Lovestick:
So now I have my 200mm dobsonian, and I've added a small heritage dobsonian and a meade refractor scope with tripod.

If you aren't careful, your astronomy equipment will soon vastly outgrow your capacity to store it.....

This reminds me of a friend, who always stated that the correct number of bikes you should have, is the number you currently have +1

Aye- N+1 where N is the current crop.

Alternatively S-1 where S is the number you can get away with before divorce.........

I’m a physics geek. Absolutely love everything to do with astronomy, theoretical physics etc. but I’ve never been able to afford to get into the bread and butter of actually buying equipment to observe what some of you guys are able to directly.

I can afford it now. Where would be the best place to start and what kind of set up would you itk recommend to get me started?

A lot will depend on your circumstances- where you will be viewing from, where to store your scope, physical ability (some rigs can be quite weighty)

A good starting scope is a Dobsonian (reflecting telescope on a simple turntable mount) as you get more aperture for your money (aperture relates to the light gathering capability of a scope).

A good place to shop is First Light Optics an internet based retailer.

Stargazers Lounge is a great forum for advice and used equipment opportunities and also consider your local Astronomical Society- great places for advice and chances to try out scope types

I bought a dobsonian 8 inch. It's great, but it's big. See post no.1  :D

Took this last night, pretty cloudy and me holding my mobile phone over the lens (got a mount ordered for that problem). Notice at 4 o'clock the crater within a crater  :)

Nice one.

Nice one 4D. Having a phone mount will make things a lot easier.

Taken from Voyager 1 as it was leaving our solar system.

Insignificant little dot aren’t we

I love that image.

It is worth seeking out Carl Sagan’s quote about it- puts everything into perspective.

https://www.planetary.org/worlds/pale-blue-dot

Here's a stat for you Aud.
Voyager 1 is travelling at 11 miles per second.
To cross our solar system which is 2 light years across will take it nearly 35,000 years.
The Milky Way is 100,000 light years across. Voyager 1 would take 3.5M years to cross it :crazyeyes:

Tin pot Voyager!

gonna need a warp drive to bend space

I like the quote about one of the far off galaxies, it would take longer to get to than the existence of the universe, and if you did reach it, it would no longer exist  :pint:

Another stat I like...

If you drove a car at 60mph non stop between earth and Saturn, leaving in 503AD, it would just be arriving about now  :)

Jupiter and three of the Galilean moons from 24th November.
Best 20% of 2000 frames through my 6" Celestron SCT.
Colour isn't perfect but the detail is pleasing.

(https://i.imgur.com/eSolsNWh.png)

Fair play, that's fucking brilliant

Nice one fuzzy, I can see that through my scope  just can't capture it. I get light reflection, so it looks like a big star.
Here's Jupiter and it's 4 main moons...

Got my phone mount sorted, here's the moon again...

Thanks Ginginho.
4D, nice one of the moon👍
With Jupiter, for still images, try reducing exposure length. Being a bright target, it needs less time.

u have four moons there ey?
look bottom left

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-67488931

That’s cunting awesome. Great capture.

That is why I need a telescope- my eyes are fucked!

Thanks Qunk!

Bloody love this thread, my thanks to the content creators.

Incredible picture fuzz

Quick question fuzzy, when using your camera do you remove the lenses when attaching to the telescope? Basically use just the camera body?

Yes, I mount the camera after removing the lens.
You need to add an adapter to the camera in place of the lens like https://www.firstlightoptics.com/adapters/skywatcher-dslr-m48-ring-adapter.html
You then screw it onto the eyepiece mount.
Occasionally an extension tube is needed to give sufficient distance of back focus to allow focus to be achieved

Hmmm, interesting. Be even more so if I understood what they were talking about  :)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-68028464

A pulsar is a rotating neutron star that emits electromagnetic radiation from its poles- these are detected as 'radio waves' hence radio pulsar- basically a dead/ dying massive star that has collapsed but not formed a black hole. A pulsar/ bl;ack hole binary is a system containing each object orbiting each other. A bitm of the universe with two objects with massive gravitatinal pull.

Imagine the earth and moon (as standalone objects- not part of a solar system) where the earth is a black hole and the moon is a pulsar- that is what thje binary system would look like.

One day, these objects will probably merge and create either a bigger neutron star or bvigger black hole. Either way, it would be a big bang.

Been really suffering for my hobby over the last few nights.

I have a 'GoTo' mount permanantly set up on a pier in my garden and, when imaging, run the mount through a lap top.

The idea is that you sync the mount to a computer based sky atlas, click on a target and tell you mount to go get it.

My preferred atlas is Stellarium (  https://stellarium.org/  ) but I couldn't get it to tie into my mount with the control software I had (Green Swamp Server) so I had to use another one (Cartes du Ciel https://www.ap-i.net/skychart/en/start ) which does work with GSS.

I cast around for some tutorials for Stellarium and telescope control and found a couple so, I downloaded the relevant software  and tutorials so I could run them away from the home wireless and set out a couple of nights ago to give it a try.

For two nights on the trot, I tried following the tutorials and it wouldn't work. I even deleted and re downloaded the software but no joy apart form frostbite.

Last night I thought I would give it one more go so i set up and started installing and configuring again. Computer/ mount both said no!

I left the gear outside and went in for a sulk and a warm. Mrs Fuzzy asked what was wrong and I explained. Apparently a few days ago, No.1 Son (our resident tech geek) had sorted out a problem for her by telling her that not all USB work the same. I went outside and swapped the lead to a different port......

The scope and kit was covered in ice by the time I got a result and my feet are still chuffing cold!

Your not the guy from Perrott's Brook are you fuzzy? If not he posts into the Ciren group on FB.

He posts some great captures, the amount of light you can get from the sky is amazing = but seems like a real labour of love as your last post proves. Even when it goes right!

No, I'm from several miles east on the M4 (J8/9).

The more time you can give to a target, the better the image.

I regularly see images posted or published where the imager has spent days, weeks, months capturing data (sometimes revisiting a target a couple of years apart). They use processes such as mono imaging where data is captured using 4-5 filters to capture different light wavelengths and then stacking and colouring the results. Details talk of such sessions 300 x 300 second exposures in OII, OIII, Ha wavelengths plus other filters such as luminance, then flats to remove blemishes and darks to remove hot/ dead pixels and you end up with 40 hours of exposure data followed by days or weeks or months of post processing. These guys and girls are artists and I envy their skills and patience.

Maybe when I retire....

Or can afford to subscribe to a remote scope somewhere in the Spanish mountains or Chilean desert where you buy scope time and dictate what you want captured then own the data.

Yeah it's amazing the effort, but the results are too.
Graham Healey is the guy I was thinking of. Happened to see a picture from him today.

The Orion nebula

Bloody amazing.

The sort of image I would love to produce

Always find people with different interests and passions both interesting and fascinating.
Very good to have alternate interests other than football and in our case Swindon to lift the gloom.

Achieved something twice this week in different places that I’ve always wanted to do.
I have had two Robins eating out of my hand.

That’s nothing Duke. Clem has has 6,000.

Now that was an excellent delivery.
Superb :)

One tries 😉

The moon from last night. Captured on my new astro camera. best 10% of 1000 frames stacked.
(https://i.imgur.com/LARR0iPl.jpg)

M42 Orion nebula captured on 26th January 2024
20 x 120 second exposures with 5 x 120 second darks to subtract hot pixels etc. and 10 x 0.5 second flats to subtract dust motes etc.
RVO Horizon 72ED scope with ZWO ASI533MC Pro cooled one shot colour astro camera.
(https://i.imgur.com/67Fery7l.jpg)

Fantastic, I'm never gonna capture that with my basic set up  ;D

Fantastic photo Fuzzy…it looks like you’ve captured an alien😁