Wednesday 20 February 2013

Box Hill and moon shots

Since I own that 2x barlow lens, it opened up so many details mainly about Jupiter and the Moon.
There is a wonderful place near London called Box Hill, which I visited on Saturday. As the air was clearer and the light pollution wasn't affecting my observation that much, I had the sharpest view of Jupiter.
By the way I took a picture of the Moon. I think the 20mm eyepiece was used for the top photo and the bottom one is with 12mm. The quality is terrible as it has been taken by my Galaxy Note held against eyepiece (very unprofessional I have to admit). But already some of the craters, mountains and lowlands can be seen.



Also the nature of using a telescope clearly visible on the top picture. That's your field of view basically, what you are able to see. As the magnification increases ( the number in millimeters on your eyepiece decreases ), the field of view shrinks too. So simply the object moves out from the view quicker.

Just hope that soon I'll be able to photograph more details, properly with my Canon 600D.
Also I realized how important the basic setups are. At the beginning the process was simple, I assembled the equipment, aligned the finder scope and observe. I sort of discovering the advantages of the correct setup. First of all the mount should face to the right direction ( North ). I still had no chance to do the polar alignment, because of the intensive light pollution and the restricted view from my back garden. But already realized, that I do not need to use both of the knobs ( R.A. and Dec. control knobs), because it almost completely correctly follows the object on the sky you are pointing at. So you don't need to correct the aiming position of the scope, only need to use one of those knobs and it will track the object properly. I guess if the polar alignment is correct too, it must be more accurate for sure.

And last but least a photo of the night sky with strong Light pollution. The Orion belt is at the bottom of the picture and still can be seen well

Orion constellation startrailed


Good advise for everyone who starts astronomy, it requires loads of readings. I discovered that after the main attractions ( Jupiter, Moon, Orion Nebula and some bright stars ) I ran out of targets. Simply because I don't know other interesting objects and where they are on the sky. So I keep working on it, because there are so much to learn. And see.......

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