What is your favourite constellation?

[crazyclimber]

You must have one heck of a scope to see the Nebula like that, i can't resolve the nebula to that degree with my 12" scope .

Haha - for pictures like the above you need:

1 96" reflector
1 Space agency willing to research, design, build and operate it
1 Rocket capable of lifting 11,000 kg (give or take) into LEO

Stir for a decade, knead regularly, and it's yours for the princely sum of $5.5-6 billion.

HST is one hell of a thing

To put that picture up I downloaded the original - 18MB in JPEG format, and reduced its size in Photoshop. First though I zoomed in... and zoomed in... and zoomed in. Was quite incredible!
What scope do you have?
While at school I had access to their 12 Meade Schmidt-cassegrain - was stunning with some of the Messier objects. I miss it... struggling to carry it outside, waiting for it to cool down, layered up like a Michelin man to shop me shivering and moving it on clear December nights... those were the days

 

[Kepis]

he he, wait until the new James Webb scope gets up and going, will be amazing, as far as scopes go, i currently have

90mm Meade Refractor

12" Meade LX200 SMT GPS the dogs danglies

Meade ETX125PE, auto everything, tell it what you want to look at, press goto, and as if by magic, there it is in the centre of the EP.

5" Celestron Reflector, old but still servicable, no gps function though, have to find things the old fashioned way with this one

Must admit i use the ETX more than anything, nice and portable (if a scope can be), gives great results for a 5" scope, can see the ice caps on Mars, the Cassini division (just) on Saturn, the moon and planets are amazing with it, the LX is just too big for me, it's currently for sale if anyone wants it, only £2500.00 - bargain

 

[Kepis]

And for you Orion fans, here's a pic i took earlier this year of Orions belt.

and M45, the blue is the nebulosity around the cluster, i like to think of M45 as Diamonds on Black Velvet

 

[JonnyP]

Is that comet still out there Mark..??

 

[Kepis]

Certainly is Jon, although it's not a naked eye object any longer, well not that i can see, you might get a glimpse of it through bin's, but i think a scope is what's needed to view it now.

 

[Spindrift]

Cygnus is one of my favourites and Draco though difficult to pick out at times.
Favourite stars include Castor and Pollux and the "garnet star" in Cepheus.

 

[crazyclimber]

You lucky lucky bugger! lol!
Unfortunately £2500 is a bit more than I can afford!!
I've always wanted something with autofind / track too... I have a motor on the 8" reflector I have atm, but it takes a while to get it set up right. Haven't even attempted photos through it yet.
Great pics! I'm jealous!

 

[JonnyP]

You lucky lucky bugger! lol!
Unfortunately £2500 is a bit more than I can afford!!
I've always wanted something with autofind / track too... I have a motor on the 8" reflector I have atm, but it takes a while to get it set up right. Haven't even attempted photos through it yet.
Great pics! I'm jealous!

Nah, they are rubbish pics...All he did was to get a bit of black card and stick some pin holes in and put a torch underneath...Anyone can do that...

 

[Kepis]

Nah, they are rubbish pics...All he did was to get a bit of black card and stick some pin holes in and put a torch underneath...Anyone can do that...

Bugger, i've been found out

 

[Kepis]

You lucky lucky bugger! lol!
Unfortunately £2500 is a bit more than I can afford!!
I've always wanted something with autofind / track too... I have a motor on the 8" reflector I have atm, but it takes a while to get it set up right. Haven't even attempted photos through it yet.
Great pics! I'm jealous!

Have you tried using a webcam for imaging, it's amazingly simple to do and the results can be quite stunning:

Not one of my best shots of Saturn, but it was taken with a Philips webcam through my 5" scope, the other way of course is to pick something like the moon, put a 20mm EP in the scope and simply hold your point & shoot digi camera to the EP, to get stuff like this, albeit this was with a 40mm wide angle EP, but it was still taken with a cheap 5MP camera

 

[robin wood]

Can any of you Orion fns tell me which the bright planet up high above his left shoulder at the moment is? i thought Mars was a ringer for Betelgeux but this is brighter and whiter, surely too high for Venus? Who is it?
Cheers

 

[PJMCBear]

I thought it was Mars too.

 

[Kepis]

Can any of you Orion fns tell me which the bright planet up high above his left shoulder at the moment is? i thought Mars was a ringer for Betelgeux but this is brighter and whiter, surely too high for Venus? Who is it?
Cheers

This might help

 

[ganstey]

Two old friends that always make me feel at home are Ursa Major and Orion.

U.M. has always been recognisable to me, and shows me where I am. I study and teach T'ai Chi, and in Chinese Mythology it is said that when a Sage dies, his soul is transported on the back of a white crane up to the Seven Stars (U.M.). So its where I look to for inspiration in times of personal doubt.

Orion is more like a village squire to me - someone to acknowledge with a nod, knowing that he's looking down on you making sure nothing too bad happens. When I was down in Australia in 2002 I was looking at the night sky and was puzzled and confused. I felt that I recognised part of the sky, but couldn't work out why. It was only several months after I got back that I realised I'd been looking at Orion standing on his head

But the one that brings a smile to my face is Dolphinius. This is because its a relatively tiny constellation and (for me) is hard to find. I'd spent a long time searching for it without success, until one evening I was sat by the camp fire down in my wood, sipping a bottle of beer, staring at the stars, when I suddenly realised I was transfixed by a portion of the sky and there she was! Remembering that moment still fills me with a warm glow.

G

 

[crazyclimber]

Have you tried using a webcam for imaging, it's amazingly simple to do and the results can be quite stunning:

Not one of my best shots of Saturn, but it was taken with a Philips webcam through my 5" scope, the other way of course is to pick something like the moon, put a 20mm EP in the scope and simply hold your point & shoot digi camera to the EP, to get stuff like this, albeit this was with a 40mm wide angle EP, but it was still taken with a cheap 5MP camera

Right you know what I'm going to be doing next time I have a night off on a clear night! I never would have thought that saturn shot was with a webcam

I've just been googling actualy to find out how to stack frames and the like; came across http://www.ort.cuhk.edu.hk/ericng/webcam/ ... some nice pictures on there too

Ganstey, nice story
Beer must be the answer!!

 

[rancid badger]

*I'm almost lost for words!
I pinched the nebula photo and used it for my desktop background, I thought it was stunning but then you go and post that picture of the moon!
Thats a "goose bumper"! :You_Rock_
really brilliant, as are all the replies.
I'm really lucky in that I only live a mile from Chopwell wood and it's a doddle to get away from street lighting, simply by either walking into the middle of the wood (960 hectares) or driving over the hill away from the village. They used to have "star watching" events at the Forest Classroom but they've stopped due to one of the residents complaining about disturbance. The alternative is to drive up to Kielder but your talking a canny hike there and back. I used to assist the ranger with the set up and parking and so on and so got to "have a go" for free!
Anyway thank you all again
Kind regards
R.B.

 

[Kepis]

Right you know what I'm going to be doing next time I have a night off on a clear night! I never would have thought that saturn shot was with a webcam

I've just been googling actualy to find out how to stack frames and the like; came across http://www.ort.cuhk.edu.hk/ericng/webcam/ ... some nice pictures on there too

Ganstey, nice story
Beer must be the answer!!

If you want a good program for stacking images, google "Registax" it's free and very good at pulling detail from otherwise mediocre images.

 

[Kepis]

*I'm almost lost for words!
I pinched the nebula photo and used it for my desktop background, I thought it was stunning but then you go and post that picture of the moon!
Thats a "goose bumper"! :.

I have much better ones than that

Right im off outside with the ol' scope now to gaze at Mars.

 

[crazyclimber]

it's downloading as we speak; thanks for the heads up!
Rancid badger (what a name btw! ), if you're ever stuck for desktop backgrounds NASA have a lifetimes worth. Just beware that some of them are rather large files!