Space Science and Astronomy thread

i always think those atlas 5 with the massive payload fairly look odd.

if anyone is still up later, another bunch of astronauts will take off from Florida to go to the ISS. The first main scheduled flight using SpaceX’s falcon 9 and dragon 2. The last was officially a demo flight.
 
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I’ve been keeping a wait for this all year.
cook said:
I was given a telescope by a mate who moved away a few months ago, but I've never been able to get it to work, can't seem to get it to focus. I might be doing something stupidly wrong.

Even just aiming at the moon as a starting point is just a large bright blur.

Started to take more of an interest in the planets and night sky in general more in recent years. Think it's just an age thing, and starting to appreciate just how small we are in the grand scheme of things.
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Sorry, I didn’t notice this when you posted. What is the make and model of the scope?
 
cook said:
Celestron 21066-WOS-A
D=60mm F=900mm
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You should get a reasonable view of the moon and planets in that, especially Jupiter and Saturn.

Have you tried it daylight? It can be hard to hit the correct focal point, it feels like you are turning the focus for ages.

It has a removable eyepiece. What I would do is look at the main lens and make sure it looks straight and undamaged. At the other end are a star diagonal and the eyepiece. Take both out and again make sure they are clean and undamaged. A few specs of dust is fine, but a massive spider web is another matter! They should both push into place and be secured by two screws, make sure they are pushed in fully and straight before tightening the screws.

Now dial the focus as far as it will go in one direction and point your scope at something in the distance. A far distant tree from an upstairs window is ideal. Slowly move the focus round and round until you either reach the other end of the range or start to get a crisp focus. If you can’t get a focus at all, then it may be broken, such as something misaligned. A repair shop or local astronomy club might be able to help you. If you do get focus then you have something to work with when going outside. You will be out but not too far. While still focussed on the tree, it is worth seeing if the finderscope is well aligned. They often have two screws to align it.

You get some odd effects when out of focus with the night sky. A planet or the moon is very bright compared to the sky. What sometimes seems to happen when well out of focus is that if you are not on your target, stray light it seems to flood the eyepiece making it look like there is something there as you see loads of white light. As you get closer into focus, this disappears. That is where having your finderscope aligned helps. Start with something big like the middle of the moon. You don’t have a tracking mount by the looks of it, so will see objects drift out of view. A star or planet may drift out of target before you get that first focus.
 
DaveH said:
You should get a reasonable view of the moon and planets in that, especially Jupiter and Saturn.

Have you tried it daylight? It can be hard to hit the correct focal point, it feels like you are turning the focus for ages.

It has a removable eyepiece. What I would do is look at the main lens and make sure it looks straight and undamaged. At the other end are a star diagonal and the eyepiece. Take both out and again make sure they are clean and undamaged. A few specs of dust is fine, but a massive spider web is another matter! They should both push into place and be secured by two screws, make sure they are pushed in fully and straight before tightening the screws.

Now dial the focus as far as it will go in one direction and point your scope at something in the distance. A far distant tree from an upstairs window is ideal. Slowly move the focus round and round until you either reach the other end of the range or start to get a crisp focus. If you can’t get a focus at all, then it may be broken, such as something misaligned. A repair shop or local astronomy club might be able to help you. If you do get focus then you have something to work with when going outside. You will be out but not too far. While still focussed on the tree, it is worth seeing if the finderscope is well aligned. They often have two screws to align it.

You get some odd effects when out of focus with the night sky. A planet or the moon is very bright compared to the sky. What sometimes seems to happen when well out of focus is that if you are not on your target, stray light it seems to flood the eyepiece making it look like there is something there as you see loads of white light. As you get closer into focus, this disappears. That is where having your finderscope aligned helps. Start with something big like the middle of the moon. You don’t have a tracking mount by the looks of it, so will see objects drift out of view. A star or planet may drift out of target before you get that first focus.
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What would you recommend for a first telescope Dave? Been looking at a celestron 130eq but got no idea really.
 
Shusssh said:
What would you recommend for a first telescope Dave? Been looking at a celestron 130eq but got no idea really.
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It depends on what you think you might want to do. There are a few things to consider. The first I would say is portability. If you think you will be taking it out places then not too big. But, big is usually really expensive so that might exclude a first scope.

The next is power. There are two parts to a telescope, the aperture (fat end of the scope) and the eyepiece. The aperture gathers light. The bigger aperture, the dimmer, more distant objects you can find. It is the eyepiece that gives you magnification. Generally go for the biggest aperture you can afford.

However the other thing to think about is the mount. There are two. The first and cheapest is an altz-az mount. These are really easy to use and are great for getting started. Basically they allow the telescope to move left to right and up and down. If you want to look at something in the sky, then move it up, dead easy. However the sky moves, and once you start looking at it through a scope, surprisingly fast. It doesn’t move left to right, it moves round in an arc as the earth spins, so a little harder to control. If you want to look at something for a long time then you want an equatorial or eq mount, like the one you posted. This is also what you want if you think you want to do long exposure astrophotography, for nebula and the like.

If you do want to do astrophotography then a motorised mount is a must. These attempt to keep the target on track. An altz motorised mount can keep on track for about a minute and are great for the moon and planets, but if you want to capture nebula, galaxies and star clusters, an eq mount is better. Most now have a goto function where you put in what you want to see and your scope tracks round and shows you it. Personally I like that, but some say you never get to know the night sky and never learn star hopping.

Celestron and Skywatcher are two of the best makes. If it was me, I’d go for the biggest Celestron motorised Eq mount I could afford, but probably give Skywatcher a very serious consideration. If I couldn’t afford anything decent then look at a motorised altz mount (what I have). But although I bought an altz to get started, my most recent purchase was an eq mount for a small scope and camera. That needed its own sturdy tripod and came to a similar cost to the scope. It has been a learning exercise but if I turned back the clock I’d have spent it on one setup.

Do you have a rough idea of what you want to do, see and what your budget is?
 
DaveH said:
It depends on what you think you might want to do. There are a few things to consider. The first I would say is portability. If you think you will be taking it out places then not too big. But, big is usually really expensive so that might exclude a first scope.

The next is power. There are two parts to a telescope, the aperture (fat end of the scope) and the eyepiece. The aperture gathers light. The bigger aperture, the dimmer, more distant objects you can find. It is the eyepiece that gives you magnification. Generally go for the biggest aperture you can afford.

However the other thing to think about is the mount. There are two. The first and cheapest is an altz-az mount. These are really easy to use and are great for getting started. Basically they allow the telescope to move left to right and up and down. If you want to look at something in the sky, then move it up, dead easy. However the sky moves, and once you start looking at it through a scope, surprisingly fast. It doesn’t move left to right, it moves round in an arc as the earth spins, so a little harder to control. If you want to look at something for a long time then you want an equatorial or eq mount, like the one you posted. This is also what you want if you think you want to do long exposure astrophotography, for nebula and the like.

If you do want to do astrophotography then a motorised mount is a must. These attempt to keep the target on track. An altz motorised mount can keep on track for about a minute and are great for the moon and planets, but if you want to capture nebula, galaxies and star clusters, an eq mount is better. Most now have a goto function where you put in what you want to see and your scope tracks round and shows you it. Personally I like that, but some say you never get to know the night sky and never learn star hopping.

Celestron and Skywatcher are two of the best makes. If it was me, I’d go for the biggest Celestron motorised Eq mount I could afford, but probably give Skywatcher a very serious consideration. If I couldn’t afford anything decent then look at a motorised altz mount (what I have). But although I bought an altz to get started, my most recent purchase was an eq mount for a small scope and camera. That needed its own sturdy tripod and came to a similar cost to the scope. It has been a learning exercise but if I turned back the clock I’d have spent it on one setup.

Do you have a rough idea of what you want to do, see and what your budget is?
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Hi mate, i've been reading advice and just wanted to also jump in if that's ok. I currently use binoculars which I have a stand for, these are Helios Fieldmaster 10 x 50 to be honest I haven't used them too much and when I look at the planets I can see the moons but now want to see more detail.

I would like to have decent views of Andromeda as I think my 5 year old would be amazed at seeing things like this. My budget would be up to £200 but I can see me getting into this in a bigger way and would push the boat out and spend more, maybe up to £300-£400 if that makes a big difference in terms of what I will be able to see.

Any advice would be well appreciated mate.
 
DaveH said:
It depends on what you think you might want to do. There are a few things to consider. The first I would say is portability. If you think you will be taking it out places then not too big. But, big is usually really expensive so that might exclude a first scope.

The next is power. There are two parts to a telescope, the aperture (fat end of the scope) and the eyepiece. The aperture gathers light. The bigger aperture, the dimmer, more distant objects you can find. It is the eyepiece that gives you magnification. Generally go for the biggest aperture you can afford.

However the other thing to think about is the mount. There are two. The first and cheapest is an altz-az mount. These are really easy to use and are great for getting started. Basically they allow the telescope to move left to right and up and down. If you want to look at something in the sky, then move it up, dead easy. However the sky moves, and once you start looking at it through a scope, surprisingly fast. It doesn’t move left to right, it moves round in an arc as the earth spins, so a little harder to control. If you want to look at something for a long time then you want an equatorial or eq mount, like the one you posted. This is also what you want if you think you want to do long exposure astrophotography, for nebula and the like.

If you do want to do astrophotography then a motorised mount is a must. These attempt to keep the target on track. An altz motorised mount can keep on track for about a minute and are great for the moon and planets, but if you want to capture nebula, galaxies and star clusters, an eq mount is better. Most now have a goto function where you put in what you want to see and your scope tracks round and shows you it. Personally I like that, but some say you never get to know the night sky and never learn star hopping.

Celestron and Skywatcher are two of the best makes. If it was me, I’d go for the biggest Celestron motorised Eq mount I could afford, but probably give Skywatcher a very serious consideration. If I couldn’t afford anything decent then look at a motorised altz mount (what I have). But although I bought an altz to get started, my most recent purchase was an eq mount for a small scope and camera. That needed its own sturdy tripod and came to a similar cost to the scope. It has been a learning exercise but if I turned back the clock I’d have spent it on one setup.

Do you have a rough idea of what you want to do, see and what your budget is?
Click to expand...
Thanks for the advice mate, to start with the budget will be around £200 and I’ll upgrade as I learn more and make sure it’s not just a passing fad.
Looking at just viewing the planets and their moons to start with maybe taking a few photos but that’ll probably change as I get more into it.
 
DaveH said:
You should get a reasonable view of the moon and planets in that, especially Jupiter and Saturn.

Have you tried it daylight? It can be hard to hit the correct focal point, it feels like you are turning the focus for ages.

It has a removable eyepiece. What I would do is look at the main lens and make sure it looks straight and undamaged. At the other end are a star diagonal and the eyepiece. Take both out and again make sure they are clean and undamaged. A few specs of dust is fine, but a massive spider web is another matter! They should both push into place and be secured by two screws, make sure they are pushed in fully and straight before tightening the screws.

Now dial the focus as far as it will go in one direction and point your scope at something in the distance. A far distant tree from an upstairs window is ideal. Slowly move the focus round and round until you either reach the other end of the range or start to get a crisp focus. If you can’t get a focus at all, then it may be broken, such as something misaligned. A repair shop or local astronomy club might be able to help you. If you do get focus then you have something to work with when going outside. You will be out but not too far. While still focussed on the tree, it is worth seeing if the finderscope is well aligned. They often have two screws to align it.

You get some odd effects when out of focus with the night sky. A planet or the moon is very bright compared to the sky. What sometimes seems to happen when well out of focus is that if you are not on your target, stray light it seems to flood the eyepiece making it look like there is something there as you see loads of white light. As you get closer into focus, this disappears. That is where having your finderscope aligned helps. Start with something big like the middle of the moon. You don’t have a tracking mount by the looks of it, so will see objects drift out of view. A star or planet may drift out of target before you get that first focus.
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It's got the tripod and a few other bits. Even just getting it working to see the moon would do just so I can show the bairn on a clear night.
 
To the right of the moon, two brights 'stars'. A very bright one, and a more faded effort at the brighter ones ten o'clock. Is the brighter one Jupiter and the one at its ten o'clock Saturn?
 
HellsBells said:
How high up in the sky will this get? Anyone know? I might have to dust the telescope down for it.
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Unfortunately it is going to be quite low. It should be reasonably dark by about 17:15 on the 21st December. At this point they will be just under 7 degrees above the horizon. To estimate this, hold your arm out with your fingers straight together and turn so they look like they are resting on the horizon. 3 fingers is usually accepted as being 5 degrees, so Jupiter and Saturn will be about a 4 finger width from the horizon.
 

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