🌚 The Astronomy Thread

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5ofseven
5ofseven Posts: 791 Member
edited March 2021 in Chit-Chat
One of the things I took up during the pandemic is astronomy. The plan is to become proficient at bumping around the night sky for a couple of years, and then transition into my first astrophotography setup.

This is my current viewing only setup, and I've used it to do things like observe the moon, the constellation Orion, and nebulas in that constellation. It's a Celestron Nexstar 8se. Telescopes need eyepieces too, and I've bought several to help me see what I want.

ao6rj2asx5lf.jpg


One of my favorite areas so far has been The Pleiades, an open star cluster with seven main subjects.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleiades

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What are you into? What are your favorite things to see, and what do you use to do it?

Replies

  • ReenieHJ
    ReenieHJ Posts: 9,724 Member
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    Hint: ya gotta open your blinds. :)

    That's pretty cool though. I love the night sky, most beautiful thing to see on a clear dark night. We have a nice Planetarium in our museum and used to go there a lot back in school. If I could remember 1/2 of what I learned. :/ I've been known to park my car on a back wide open country road and just spend some time getting lost in the sky. Back then I'm pretty sure I used vodka to do it. :blush:
  • J_NY_Z
    J_NY_Z Posts: 2,538 Member
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    I purchased a Coulter Odyssey roughly 30 years ago. It sat in the garage for years and the tube rotted. A few years ago I took the optics out and built a quasi-truss tube scope.

    4mmekys2kklh.jpg
  • amorfati601070
    amorfati601070 Posts: 2,862 Member
    edited March 2021
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    Kinda related...I've been in both locations for Aurora Boriealis (Banff, Canada) and Australis (Tasmania) but it never happened. I wanna see it before I die.

    Do u live in an area with low light pollution?
  • 5ofseven
    5ofseven Posts: 791 Member
    edited March 2021
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    I live in Bortle class 4-5 skies (which is not bad seeing for an urban area), but can drive 45 minutes in nearly any direction and get class 2 skies. It gets dark real fast outside of town. And about 3 hours north of me is a designated dark sky site, Massacre Rim (northern nevada). This photo was taken there.

    su4cm4rv2v26.jpg

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