Stellarium

[vinnywright]

call me slow ,,,or just lazy as H**l ,,,,but I just discovered that you can , in ocular view after selecting an object ,,,,,set the oculars and telescope to your hardware giving you an approximate(very close) image of the selection as per your telescope's current configuration ,,,,,,,this program is a must for the amateur or even advanced star gasser IMO

VINNY

[GreyGeek]

Indeed, Vinny!
You can even drive a Telescope that had digital controls, like Mead LX200 that I used to own, and if you attach your laptop to the telescope with an RS232 cable and then move Stellarium to an object or location in the sky that you want to observe and trigger the scope to move there automatically. However, most digitally controlled Telescopes like the LX200 have a hand controller that includes a database of sky objects which you can find pretty easily and having found the item you can hit the "Go To" button and the scope will slew to that object very quickly and track it with almost perfect precision.

I got tired of staying up till early morning or getting up early in the morning to so observations. In the winter is was too cold and in the summer it was too hot and too many mosquitoes. Only the spring and fall were good times. Then, one had to travel to a location that was far enough away from city lights that the street lamp glow didn't obscure the sky.

Here in Nebraska the best place to observe the sky is in the opposite corner of the state, at Merritt Reservoir.

I was thinking about adding a CCD to my telescope so that I could take multiple images and digitally add them to create an artifical aperture much greater than 10", but then the WWW came along and I could control remotely telescopes with a much greater aperture than my 10" LX200 I contributed my scope to Prairie Valley Astronomy Club and did my observations on the web. Then Hubble was launched. After that the Pioneer launches, Cassini, and now Juno.

Another technique I was thinking about using is Hydrogen soaked 35mm color film. Attach the camera containing the film to the telescope and using the precision tracking capability do a 5 to 30 minute time lapsed exposure of the sky. Develop the negative and then use a 500 power MICROSCOPE to study the negative. It's the same as using a 500X telescope, but you don't have to stand outside in the heat, cold or the mosquitoes.

[vinnywright]

Indeed, Vinny!
You can even drive a Telescope that had digital controls, like Mead LX200 that I used to own, and if you attach your laptop to the telescope with an RS232 cable and then move Stellarium to an object or location in the sky that you want to observe and trigger the scope to move there automatically. However, most digitally controlled Telescopes like the LX200 have a hand controller that includes a database of sky objects which you can find pretty easily and having found the item you can hit the "Go To" button and the scope will slew to that object very quickly and track it with almost perfect precision.

I got tired of staying up till early morning or getting up early in the morning to so observations. In the winter is was too cold and in the summer it was too hot and too many mosquitoes. Only the spring and fall were good times. Then, one had to travel to a location that was far enough away from city lights that the street lamp glow didn't obscure the sky.

Here in Nebraska the best place to observe the sky is in the opposite corner of the state, at Merritt Reservoir.

I was thinking about adding a CCD to my telescope so that I could take multiple images and digitally add them to create an artifical aperture much greater than 10", but then the WWW came along and I could control remotely telescopes with a much greater aperture than my 10" LX200 I contributed my scope to Prairie Valley Astronomy Club and did my observations on the web. Then Hubble was launched. After that the Pioneer launches, Cassini, and now Juno.

Another technique I was thinking about using is Hydrogen soaked 35mm color film. Attach the camera containing the film to the telescope and using the precision tracking capability do a 5 to 30 minute time lapsed exposure of the sky. Develop the negative and then use a 500 power MICROSCOPE to study the negative. It's the same as using a 500X telescope, but you don't have to stand outside in the heat, cold or the mosquitoes.

Awesome ,,GG sounds like you'r pretty advanced in this area .

I have a beginner set ,,,a mead ETX series with 3 oculars 9.7mm 18mm and 26mm , a 2x telenegative ,,,,moon filter and nebula filter

adapter for a Canon camera and a Image Erecting Prism that attaches to the rear(where the camera mount goes) to flip the image back right to left insed of left to right for ground based observation ,,,birds animals

VINNY

[GreyGeek]

Awesome ,,GG sounds like you'r pretty advanced in this area .

I have a beginner set ,,,a mead ETX series with 3 oculars 9.7mm 18mm and 26mm , a 2x telenegative ,,,,moon filter and nebula filter

adapter for a Canon camera and a Image Erecting Prism that attaches to the rear(where the camera mount goes) to flip the image back right to left insed of left to right for ground based observation ,,,birds animals

VINNY

Both the 4 and the 5" EXT models are good apertures. Which one is yours? How does the EXT level? I had to use a bubble level to level the scope and then move to the North Star, or some other easy to find object, and adjust the settings to match the object, then lock the settings down. Even at 500 power I had no trouble finding an object in the hand held catalog and hitting the Go To button and have the scope move to an object and have the object appear in the center of the field of view. With a Barlow lens the settings had to be well done if you expected a target to appear in the field of vision. Sometimes I could see a glare off to one side and I'd use the fine adjustment knobs to bring the object into the field of view and center it. Atmospheric distortion at high magnifications was always a problem. I had very few nights of clear seeing but the best were when I went to the old Atlas missile site 20 miles south of Lincoln, away from city lights and heat waves. The LX200 weighed 70 lbs and in its carrying case it was a pain to move. It barely squeezed through the back door of my Saturn LS2 sedan. IIRC, a 9 volt battery powers the two slewing motors and a coin battery kept the hand controller powered up. The object catalog was in a read only PROM.

[vinnywright]

mines 4" ,,,,,,and yes a bubble level to level it .

it dose have motorized tracking once set properly ,,,but no go to cataloged finding of objects ,,,,,hence Stellarium is quite useful for getting coordinates.

however I have yet to set it up properly ,,,so far it's been just point and look using the fine tuning knob's to track ,,,,,LOL and Stellarium to get an eye to sky location of what to point at

VINNY

[GreyGeek]

I just watched the eclipse using Stellarium!
The clouds are so thick above Lincoln that Stellarium is probably the only way I'll get to see the eclipse. But, it will still get dark for 1 min and 48 seconds.

[vinnywright]

I just watched the eclipse using Stellarium!
The clouds are so thick above Lincoln that Stellarium is probably the only way I'll get to see the eclipse. But, it will still get dark for 1 min and 48 seconds.

we just got done watching the hole thing outside with welding glass and helmets ,,,,,,,it was nice , a family gathering

hear in Lexington NC it started at approximately 1:13 and reached it's totality (still a sliver of the sun) at approximately 2:43 ,,,,,,,,it was nice...I took the day of work for it .

VINNY

[GreyGeek]

My wife and I set out on the driveway on recliners and watched the whole thing. 1 min 48 seconds of total eclipse. First one I've ever viewed live. Didn't get as dark as I thought it would. Similar to after sunset and about 5-10 minutes before darkness. Wind started blowing and then still. Birds flew around crazily and started to roost in the trees. Temp dropped 5-10F. It just beat storm clouds coming in from the SouthEast. Ten minutes after the eclipse was over the clouds cleared. But, the clouds really didn't interfere with the spectacle. Totality was awesome! The Diamond was awesome. Even the solar corona during totality cast enough light to wash out the sun+moon using my iPhone to take pics and movies.

[oshunluvr]

Took my daughter to Columbia SC yesterday - here's what I saw with my naked eye at 2:42pm (cell phone pic) :

[vinnywright]

Took my daughter to Columbia SC yesterday - here's what I saw with my naked eye at 2:42pm (cell phone pic) :[ATTACH=CONFIG]7119[/ATTACH]

Nice ,,,,one of my daughters was at myrtle beech on vacation for a week (she lives in Baltimore MD ) and said it was great their as well .

on a side note ,,,you know the pinhole projection method of casting the event by shadow on a paper or some thing ,,,,,well ,we were sitting under the BIG maple tree in my front yard when not looking through our glass , when it got to the point where the sun was about 1/2 covered all the sun specks on the ground under the tree turned to images of the eclipse and stayed that way until about 1/2 or slightly more uncovered.

a hundred or more eclipse projections made by the leaves , shining at our feet and all around us .

VINNY

[oshunluvr]

Nice ,,,,one of my daughters was at myrtle beech on vacation for a week (she lives in Baltimore MD ) and said it was great their as well .

on a side note ,,,you know the pinhole projection method of casting the event by shadow on a paper or some thing ,,,,,well ,we were sitting under the BIG maple tree in my front yard when not looking through our glass , when it got to the point where the sun was about 1/2 covered all the sun specks on the ground under the tree turned to images of the eclipse and stayed that way until about 1/2 or slightly more uncovered.

a hundred or more eclipse projections made by the leaves , shining at our feet and all around us .

VINNY

Yeah, we saw the same effect. Unexpected and really cool!

[oshunluvr]

My wife and I set out on the driveway on recliners and watched the whole thing. 1 min 48 seconds of total eclipse. First one I've ever viewed live. Didn't get as dark as I thought it would. Similar to after sunset and about 5-10 minutes before darkness. Wind started blowing and then still. Birds flew around crazily and started to roost in the trees. Temp dropped 5-10F. It just beat storm clouds coming in from the SouthEast. Ten minutes after the eclipse was over the clouds cleared. But, the clouds really didn't interfere with the spectacle. Totality was awesome! The Diamond was awesome. Even the solar corona during totality cast enough light to wash out the sun+moon using my iPhone to take pics and movies.

We were in 2+40 minutes of totality. The automatic lights and crickets and cicadas started up about 2 minutes before black out and lasted for about the same after...

[vinnywright]

Aaaaaaa I feel a bit relaxed now ,,,,I just spent a wile watching Saturn drift through the heavens ,,,,in the telescope ,,,a good view of the rings tonight to

VINNY

[vinnywright]

So it was the moon and Saturn tonight ,,,,and this time I took the time to do a polar alignment on the telescope.

the older Meade ETX I have comes with it's own tripod legs ,,,,,,small things around 12" but 1 has numerical markings that you set to the latitude of you location ,,,,thats 35.77 @hear this sets a degree of tilt to it and then you align the scope with it in the default striate up (if the legs wernt on it)position to as close as you can get it to dead north(with a compass) .

with it set like this it has a tracking motor in the base and once you have the object of interest in the Field of view and the tracking motor running ,,,the object stays in the Field of view ,,,go figure

with the moon it's not such a big deal , even without the tripod legs and sitting on it's base you just turn the DEC. and R.A. knobs to re center it and you have a bit before it travels out of the field of view .

but with something like Saturn you will loose it quick .

the first time I looked at Saturn with it I did it the dumb way and it wasn't so fun ,,,,constant turning of the knobs almost and just finding it was a trick .

This time ,,,with the scope polar aligned and Stellarium giving me the RA/DEC (I have Stellarium set to my Coordinates) I just turned it to the corresponding settings on the scope ,,,,and boom I was so close it was a breeze fine tune a little , flip the tracking motor on and ,,,,,,,Aaaaaaa I can just focus and change oculars ,,,,,,,nice

now this is a intermediate beginner set so even with my strongest magnification Saturn is only about the size of the "o" on your keyboard but you can still see the ring ,,,,ya it looks like 1 ring ,,,,the moon however has great detail,,,, and anything terrestrial ,,,,well ,,,,I need to get a canon camera now ,,,,I have the adapter for one

even the wife came out to take a look

VINNY