{"id":54,"date":"2020-11-25T21:51:46","date_gmt":"2020-11-25T21:51:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tedstable.com\/?p=54"},"modified":"2021-03-08T18:10:33","modified_gmt":"2021-03-08T18:10:33","slug":"getting-back-into-astronomy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tedstable.com\/index.php\/2020\/11\/25\/getting-back-into-astronomy\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting back into Astronomy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I’m sure I’m not alone in being given a telescope as a Christmas present when I was younger. It was a fantastic present and got me reading a lot about astronomy and probably led to me studying Physics with Astronomy. I devoured books but probably didn’t do much practical observing apart from looking at the moon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The books were fascinating and did contain all the information I needed to get started, yet somehow the hobby never completely took off for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was in the days when the internet was accessed by a modem screeching down the telephone line and taking forever to download websites with anything more than formatted text.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, assisted by YouTube and busy forums filled with helpful and experienced people, I’ve managed to set up my old telescope correctly, identified some real rookie errors I was making as a teenager and actually managed an observing session last night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the moment there are a lot of planets visible. Mars is high in the sky and has been for some time. Jupiter and Saturn are almost in conjunction this November which I believe is quite a rare event (once every 20 years according to one blog).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given my previous experience (or lack thereof), I didn’t expect much from the telescope but aimed it at Jupiter nonetheless. Unbelievably I could not only see Jupiter as a slightly orange ball but also four dots of light around it – the Galilean moons! The view is incredible and if you have a telescope is well worth braving the cold evenings to look at.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
A very blurred image taken with my phone looking through the eyepiece. To the naked eye the moons were perfectly sharp. I’m hoping to be able to improve my astrophotography somewhat – it can only get better from here!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Here are a few brilliant resources which I’ve found really useful:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Telescope Stats Explained<\/a> (SkyAtNight Magazine)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Telescope Basics<\/a> (Eyes On The Sky \/ YouTube)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Top 20 Telescope Tips<\/a> (Astronomy and Nature TV \/ YouTube)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For next steps, I’m hoping to repair the telescope mount to make it a little more stable and also “collimate” it to improve the image quality. I’ve also ordered some better quality Plossl eyepieces<\/a> and a Barlow lens<\/a> to replace the ageing low quality Huygens eyepieces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One bonus of the Barlow lens is that I should be able to connect my DSLR to the telescope and take some photos to share. Stay tuned!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m sure I’m not alone in being given a telescope as a Christmas present when I was younger. It was a fantastic present and got me reading a lot about astronomy and probably led to me studying Physics with Astronomy. I devoured books but probably didn’t do much practical observing apart from looking at the… Continue reading Getting back into Astronomy<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":56,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/tedstable.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/First-view-Galilean-moons-scaled.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tedstable.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tedstable.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tedstable.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tedstable.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tedstable.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/tedstable.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58,"href":"https:\/\/tedstable.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54\/revisions\/58"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tedstable.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tedstable.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tedstable.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tedstable.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}