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Beginning Astronomy?

Posted by Cliff on from the lucy-in-the-sky-with-diamonds dept.

AnalogBoy asks: "I figure, with the diverse backgrounds offered here on Slashdot, at least 1(,000) of you would have an astronomy background, in some way, shape, or form. I've always had a passing interest in all things space, in particular, i've always been captivated by whats 'out there'. I was wondering if any of youse guys had suggestions on books, programs (Windows or Unix), and especially GOOD telescopes (Sub-$500-range). I've looked through Google, etc - but I want a community opinion! "

3 of 55 comments (clear)

  1. Build your own..... by jsimon12 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Personally when I got into star gazing my grandfather gave me a book on grinding and building my own reflector telescope. So for the next few months I did, looking back now it wasn't the greatest telescope, but it meant a lot to me to be seeing Saturns Rings with something I built with my own hands.

    It really isn't that diffucult to do, just takes time, and it is pretty cheap too, least compared to shelling out 500 bucks for a 3.5 inch reflector.

    Here are some links for books and stuff:

    http://www.willbell.com/tm/tm2.htm

    http://www.hickorytech.net/~landsg/

  2. My experience by Gyl · · Score: 2, Insightful
    There is already one great post with most of the info you need. But I feel the need to speak up as well.


    First, telescopes are all well and good, but your own eyes can show you the best of what the sky has to offer, (eclipses, meteor showers) and you need to know the night sky fairly well to know where to point a telescope.

    A telescope will not show you stuff like the pictures you will see in magazines, that was a camera looking at the same thing for a long time, and then putting all those photons together in one image, something your eye can not do.

    Which brings up another important point, in a telescope, magnification is not really improtant. If I get 100000X I get to look inside a crater on the moon, (and get crap resolution) or I can get a reasonable magnification and look at the entire moonscape (which I can say from experience is quite beutiful). What is important is collecting lots of light. More light means better resolution. that means you want a large aperture.

    The other thing you need in a telescope is a mount, a stable one.

    But in the end I have to agree with the the other long post here, you don't need a telescope to enjoy astronomy. The sights I remember most, are a lunar eclipse when I was about 10, a meteor shower while camping, The comets that past by about 4 years ago, and seeing saturns rings. Only one of those involved a telescope.

    but if you really need a telescope, may I suggest Astroscan.

    I hope these thoughts aren't too muddled.

  3. My own take by Internet+Ninja · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'm in the same boat as you but slightly further along. I'd always been bleating to my wife about wanting to get into Astronomy so she went out and got me a telescope as a gift. It's only a 60mm Refractor but it does have a decent equatorial mount and eyepieces although I can always buy others since it came with the standard size.

    After checking out all the abvious ones like the Moon, Jupiter and Saturn (now *there's* a buzz) and generally impressing my family I started doing a bit more reading. As pointed out earlier it's no good looking at stuff close-up if you don't know a little more about the big picture. Kind of a "forest for the trees" thing but it's a pretty damn big forest :). So I got a planisphere and a start chart and sat out and learned where stuff was generally and how to find it. Stuff like using Orion to find Procyon and Canopus or using other markers as guides. Just sitting out under the stars and seeing how the sky fits together is as fun as seeing Saturn for the first time.

    Don't forget you can also look for other things like satellites and Iridium flares which I've just learnt about.

    I've having a look at some of the maths as well. Like how to calculate sunrise/sunset times etc. It's fascinating to see how it all fits together and it's damn cool to plug in a few values and calculate sunset time and then 'Hey presto!' the sun sets at that time. Maths on a real and big scale.

    There's oodles of software. Some of the more esoteric stuff like Iridium flares uses some wacky software but some of the general software is great. I can't attest to the X software but an excellent Windows (/me ducks) product is Starry Night from http://www.starrynight.com/. The backyard version has some cool features and isn't so light that you'll outgrow is quickly.

    Anyway, have a blast and may your skies always be clear.