Astronomy

[Illiad86]

Me and my boyfriend got an 11" Celestron SCT telescope on a CGEM computerized mount. It tracks the stars and stuff, it's pretty cool...Here's our first attempt at taking pictures with our Rebel XSi hooked directly up to the telescope.

 

We would have got pics of Saturn tonight, but it was a low of -5 with -30 wind chills, so we didn't last too long lol...but we got a beautiful shot of the moon and a reasonable picture of the Orion Nebula at low exposure time...so it's not going to look like a Hubble picture, but wow is it pretty :)

 

We got a few shots of Mars too, but Mars is pretty hard to see even with our biggun :P It was pretty bright in the sky today, you could see it as the brightest "star" in the sky with a reddish haze. Even with binoculars you can make it out pretty well. It's at opposition (closest to Earth, bout 100 million miles haha) now, so get a chance to see it! :D

 

http://i683.photobucket.com/albums/vv200/Illiana86/moon.jpg

 

http://i683.photobucket.com/albums/vv200/Illiana86/orion.jpg

 

Any of you all like astronomy? I'm finding it to be an awesome hobby :D

 

Pics were originally 12.4 MP, edited a little with GIMP (Levels, Sharpness, etc.), and shrank 50%.

[Nexus Set]

That is a beautiful shot of the moon indeed! Would love to see more pics. :)

[MonsterHunterMaster]

Woooooooooooooooow, the picture of the moon looks great...

i still cant imagine that humanity has developed this far.. i mean, you have to imagine, first we didnt have anything and now we can make such beautiful pictures of the moon even though its miles away..

[Illiad86]

ah thankies :) Plenty more pics to come now :D We are going to try and image Saturn sometime, but it's really cold here when the sky is clear. My boyfriend's hands stuck to the scope :( Then it was just too cold for the telescope to even track anything, all the grease in the gears got stiff...so we had to come in.

 

This is our scope

 

http://www.firstlightoptics.com/prodimages/celestron_cgem_1100_sgl.jpg

 

It's pretty heavy haha,tube weighs 30 lbs, those counterweights are 11lbs each, the top part of the mount is about 40lbs...but it comes apart into smaller pieces so it's not too hard to lug around. We have to build a box for the tube and the top part of the mount to make it easier though. We are still using the shipping boxes they came in haha...and they want $200+ just for a case for the tube.

 

We got some decent eyepieces and now we are going to get a Crayford focuser to put on it. The focuser on these style of scopes moves the primary mirror back and forth...so sometimes you get "mirror flop" and the thing you are looking at will shift off the field of view...it stinks when you are trying to take pictures. The Crayford focuser is probably what most of you have seen if you have ever seen a telescope.

[MonsterHunterMaster]

wow, that seems to be huge..and expensive too!

[Illiad86]

yeah, it's pretty big, the tube is the width of a 5 gallon bucket, and 24 inches tall :D Whole thing stands about 6 foot tall without the legs extended :P Yeah, it cost a lot for most folks, but people consider it mid-range...crazy scopes are like 15 grand lol.

[Unavi]

Nice shots! I had the privilage of using a similar telesocope in school. It's awesome to be able to see the moon so clearly!

[myrmaad]

yeah, it's pretty big, the tube is the width of a 5 gallon bucket, and 24 inches tall :D Whole thing stands about 6 foot tall without the legs extended :P Yeah, it cost a lot for most folks, but people consider it mid-range...crazy scopes are like 15 grand lol.

 

Wow, that's awesome, we were looking at these about, gosh 5 years ago, now. We decided to wait until we get our house remodeling project done (which we are slowly doing ourselves), and it looks like the technology has really gotten better since then. Thanks for sharing!

[jaysus]

nice pics :)

amazing stuff!

[CommanderCrazy]

I got a 6 grand telescope.....

The lenses were not great at all....