Astronomy for Beginners

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Wow. Lots of sites for me to check out there guys. I didn’t expect this kind of attention from a woodwork forum.
Thanks heaps. :2tsup:
It looks like there might be a break in the clouds tonight too. :)

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Combining both interest (astronomy and woodwork) at the moment.
I'm in the middle of making a timber parallelogram mount for my binoculars.
A suitable pair of binoculars (20x80 in my case) are great for astronomy but are near
impossible to hand hold. Much quicker to set up than a telescope too.

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Originally Posted by snowyskiesau

Combining both interest (astronomy and woodwork) at the moment.
I'm in the middle of making a timber parallelogram mount for my binoculars.
A suitable pair of binoculars (20x80 in my case) are great for astronomy but are near
impossible to hand hold. Much quicker to set up than a telescope too.

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I thought ya mighta been making a hall table from a nebula. :doh:

Don't be silly, a nebula is far too big to make a hall table from, you'd need to make something like a dinning room table for that,

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Originally Posted by snowyskiesau

Combining both interest (astronomy and woodwork) at the moment.
I'm in the middle of making a timber parallelogram mount for my binoculars.
A suitable pair of binoculars (20x80 in my case) are great for astronomy but are near
impossible to hand hold. Much quicker to set up than a telescope too.

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I'd be interested in seeing how you make one of those. The little pair (8X32) that I got for Christmas are what got me searching ebay for a scope in the first place. I might be better off just buying a decent pair of nocs.

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Originally Posted by Iain

If you want to look at the moon be aware that it can cause eye damage just like looking at the sun, there is a moon filter but a decent polarizing filter should work as well.

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Well I couldn't resist it and I took a quick peek using the most powerful eyepiece with the Barlow attached, and the detail was incredible. I was blown away by it and it looked like one of those professional photos, but it's incredibly bright, and I can see how it might have sent me blind if I wasn't aware of your advice. Thanx heaps for that tip. :2tsup:
I'll have to get a moon filter.

Anyway, after setting it up I found that it's incredibly difficult to get the thing pointed at a bright star I was aiming for. The finder scope is way out, but it's got three adjustment screws so I suppose I'll have to muck around with them (it's confusing with everything coming in backwards and upside down, but I'll get used to that). I used the lowest magnification eyepiece (with the widest field of view) and moved it around a bit until a star came into view, then I put in the high magnification eyepiece and it was gone. The lenses are probably plastic, and the eyepieces are a bit sloppy in their fittings, but since the thing only cost twenty bucks I suppose I can't complain. I moved it around a bit more using the fine adjustment and finally caught a star (I think it was the same bright one that I was originally aiming for :? ), but it just wouldn't stay still in the wind. I'm sure a good quality scope would be more solid but I'll try again on a calm night.

I'm determined to learn about the night sky so I'll follow up all those links that you guys posted. It would impress the chicks if I could point up in the sky and say "That's Ursa Minor, and if you look through the scope you’ll see ‘Pawnheadus Major’ that I discovered back in eighty five”. :hahaha:

I’ve had APOD as my homepage for the past few months, and I often follow the links to learn a bit more each day.

It’s fascinating. http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y26...ske/starry.gif

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Originally Posted by pawnhead

I'd be interested in seeing how you make one of those. The little pair (8X32) that I got for Christmas are what got me searching ebay for a scope in the first place. I might be better off just buying a decent pair of nocs.Well I couldn't resist it and I took a quick peek using the most powerful eyepiece with the Barlow attached, and the detail was incredible. I was blown away by it and it looked like one of those professional photos, but it's incredibly bright, and I can see how it might have sent me blind if I wasn't aware of your advice. Thanx heaps for that tip. :2tsup:
I'll have to get a moon filter.

Anyway, after setting it up I found that it's incredibly difficult to get the thing pointed at a bright star I was aiming for. The finder scope is way out, but it's got three adjustment screws so I suppose I'll have to muck around with them (it's confusing with everything coming in backwards and upside down, but I'll get used to that). I used the lowest magnification eyepiece (with the widest field of view) and moved it around a bit until a star came into view, then I put in the high magnification eyepiece and it was gone. The lenses are probably plastic, and the eyepieces are a bit sloppy in their fittings, but since the thing only cost twenty bucks I suppose I can't complain. I moved it around a bit more using the fine adjustment and finally caught a star (I think it was the same bright one that I was originally aiming for :? ), but it just wouldn't stay still in the wind. I'm sure a good quality scope would be more solid but I'll try again on a calm night.

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y26...ske/starry.gif

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Good luck with the scope.
Don't worry too much about the moon filter. You will not damage your eyes looking at the moon. What you will do is ruin your night adaption making it harder to see other more dim objects. It is only lit with reflected sunlight the same as a bright image during the day. It can be very bright though when you use a scope and it is more comfortable to look at with a moon filter.
Don't bother too much with the high powered eye pieces. Most cheaper scopes are advertised by their magnification but it is pretty useless. You can make any scope magnify to any amount as the magnification is just the focal length of the scope divided by the focal length of the eyepiece. However there is a maximum resolution to a scope and this is determined by the diameter of the scope. If you magnify the image beyond this resolution all you do is magnify the blur. For your scope I would never bother going beyond 150X and in reality mostly using <60X
As you have found the other problem with the cheaper scopes is the unstable mount that makes it hard to aim and keep it aimed at your target. Try to tighten all of the connection and sling a heavy weight (a sand bag) onto the tripod to reduce this.
This link http://home.inreach.com/starlord/
has some really good info about scopes etc.
Good luck