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Entry-Level Astronomy?
brobak writes "I'm getting ready to move into a new home on a couple of acres of rural property a significant distance from any large source of light pollution. I've always been interested in astronomy in general, and I would like to put my dark skies to use by picking up decent telescope and learning a bit about the skies over my head. The overall budget for this project is going to be around $1,000. I am particularly interested in astrophotography, but I understand that that may carry me outside the scope of the initial budget. I've already signed up for my local astronomy club's next monthly meeting. I have been doing Web research, but I thought that the Slashdot community would be the perfect place to get opinions on entry-level equipment, websites, and books."
The first thing I'd do would be to install Stellarium. That'd enable you to "tune in" on stars, even in cloudy weather.
What's your Blortle number?
Have a look at http://iceinspace.com.au/ while it's run out of Australia, there are members worldwide.
'Where to start' is a common question there.
... Google Sky.
Militant Agnostic: "I don't know, and damn it, neither do you!"
Now, I know that this probably won't be the kind of answer you're looking for, but here I go anyway...
Personally, if I had the kind of space you had, with no light pollution, and if I had the budget you mentioned: I would buy a high quality digital SLR camera. Obviously, if you're looking to photograph things that you need a telescope to see, this wouldn't be a good use of money for you. But, if you're looking to take shots of constellations and the moon and such, then a high-quality digital SLR with a tripod will work beautifully.
Plus, such a setup would allow you to take great photos of various weather phenomenon (e.g., thunderstorms). While it may not be the case for you, most of the people that I know that enjoy photographing the moon and the night sky also love photographing weather as well.
And, obviously, you'd then have a great camera for travelling and such.
Hang out at astronomy clubs and go to their camp-outs and slowly glean more info before blowing a wad of cash. Maybe subscribe to Astronomy Magazine. However, don't be tempted by the ads to buy the Ultra-Mega-Scope. Work your way up slowly. And, purchase a good star map with all the common nebula's and galaxies marked. Also note that the best viewing targets tend to come out in the winter, so prepare yourself for cold weather.
Table-ized A.I.
Yes, $1000 is a rather small budget where astrophotography is concerned. A good mount alone can cost many times that amount. Please don't skimp on the mount. I assure you, few things in life are more frustrating and miserable than attempting quality astrophotography on a cheap, inadequate mount.
You can get a quality telescope for $1000, especially if you build your own. I grind my own mirrors because the mirror I make myself is quite a bit better than all but a very few of the ones commercially available. It's quite a bit of fun too.
Your best course of action would be to hold off on getting a telescope for now. Get good astronomical binoculars ($200 - $400) and learn the sky. Once you've done that, you'll have a much better idea of exactly the aspects of astronomy that interest you and you'll have some additional time to decide upon the right equipment. You'll also have more time to save some additional money for qualityequipment.
When you go to your astronomy club's meeting, see if they have a group that builds telescopes. Building your own telescope is a great way to save a lot of money, plus you'll learn a lot in the process.
If you're lucky enough to be in the SF bay area, the Chabot Observatory Telescope Maker's Workshop is a great place to learn about telescopes, and also how to build them. They can guide you through the process, and its really not as hard as you might think. http://chabotspace.org/vsc/observatory/telescopemakers/
If you want to hold of on astrophotograpy for a while, I recommend picking up a Dobsonian mount telescope. They're a low cost design, and you can find 10 and 12 inch reflectors for $800. Also, they're easy to build, which goes back to the building your own comment earlier.
Dobsonians are not suitable for photography though. But, they are a cheap way to break into backyard astronomy.
The best advice I got (now in retrospective) when starting out was to buy an telescope that was easy to take out and setup, the best scope is the scope you use often.
http://www.intellipool.se/ - Intellipool Network Monitor
$1000 is not much. I've been doing research quite a long time on what should I buy, to get the best possible view both for planets and deep-sky. You know - usually for deeps skies a newton with huge mirrors is good, while they are not applicable for planets, because newtons cannot produce big magnification with enough detail. While for planet viewing the refractors are the best, because they can produce big magnifications without the distortions of newtonians. But refractors have too small aperture to collect enough light for comfortable deep-sky viewing.
The best balance in this big_mirror/refractor conflict is an apochromatic refractor. Because - apochromatic means that the lens are covered with special layers that give about 96+% of light transmission (so it's better than non-apochromatic refractor, where some light is wasted on the lens and you don't see deep-sky objects clearly), and special layer eliminates light dispersion like in an optical prism (otherwise each color would go on a different path and the resulting picture of something looked more like a rainbow instead of beight sharp). And also as a refractor it's good for planets. But... this APO refractor has to have big aperture, or it won't work for deep-sky anyway.
Refractors have some other advantages - for instance you don't have unnecessary air flow between the lens because they are inside a tube. Newtons are much brighter (good for deep-sky) but air turbulence blurries the view on planets.
Oh, and forget about cassegrains, they are compact, that's true (the only advantage). But the view is terrible.
Well if you have just $1000 you gotta decide: (1) want to see distant galaxies (newton), or (2) view to see planets (refractor). But I suggest to spend a bit more cash and get APO refractor. Should be good for both.
You can look at those reviews I had bookmarked long time ago: http://www.cloudynights.com/item.php?item_id=1260 and http://www.cloudynights.com/item.php?item_id=32&pr=2x6x17
You can consider Takahashi also, althought from my research it looks like TMB make better equipment, but you never know that for sure: http://www.tmboptical.com/itemsGrid.asp?cat_id=4 .
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Seriously, get a good (as in buy them from a proper telescope shop) set of binoculars and a decent camera tripod.
Both are useful outside of astronomy and until you know whether you are really keen it's not worth spending lots of money. They are also great to use as spotters while you are using your real telescope as they have a fantastic field of view.
I started with a pair of Gerber 10x50s which is getting to the limit of what I would consider comfortable to hand hold without a tripod. The tripod itself is a standard camera tripod with a binocular mounting bracket.
Then start out with something simple like: http://www.skymaps.com/downloads.html to see what you should be looking at in the sky and getting familiar with the sky.
Once you are happy that astronomy is right for you just have a go at lots of different telescopes that your local astronomy club members use and see what you like. Astronomy is a very expensive hobby, one that you might not like so just be careful
They are well versed in helping beginners and will be able to give you advice and guidance on this fascinating hobby. They have their own experts who don't necessarily post here.
As a starter, get the book "Turn Left at Orion". Read it. This will set your expectations of what you can really see. If you are still enthusiastic, go ahead and take advice on what equipment to buy. Be aware though that there are as many opposing opinions as there are people willing to offer you advice (including this one). You will still have to choose which ones you want to adopt.
Good luck and clear skies
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
You're not going to have enough budget to pull off any sort of astrophotography that will satisfy you, so I would recommend you start saving up.
:)
For astrophotography you absolutely *must* have an equatorial mount, it is simply impossible to do astrophotography with a stock altitude-azimuth mount, because while it can still track the sky as it moves, the view will rotate as it does so. With an equatorial mount, the view stays properly aligned even while it tracks the sky. German equatorial mount is the preferred mount for astrophotography. Even looking at just the mount you've pretty much blown your budget right there.
Secondly, you're going to want a high quality right-ascension drive motor. It's possible to get by without one, though tedious and limiting, but don't bother with a cheap one. The gearing is insufficient for astrophotography and will cause jerking and backlash resulting in awful pictures.
You'll also need to get a heavy duty mount and tripod, because a normal tripod is only designed for the weight of a telescope, not a telescope with a camera hanging off the end. You also need to make sure you've got a very sturdy, firm mount, because any vibration at all will ruin your pictures. Remember we're talking about huge magnifications and long exposures here, it's extremely easy to blur the pictures. Astrophotography is a challenging enough hobby to begin with. Inferior equipment can make it damn near impossible.
You'll notice I haven't even talked about the actual telescope yet. That's how important the mount and tripod is to astrophotography. So now that I've completely blown your budget, I'll try and be a bit more gentle on the telescope side of things. Probably the most bang for your buck in this case will be a newtonian reflector telescope. They're by far the cheapest type of scope per inch of aperture. Sort of big and unwieldy, and they require very precise and regular maintenance (called collimation). I'd recommend a bare minimum of 5" aperture, but as high as 8" if you can manage it.
Then you have to figure out how to mount your camera to the telescope, which is a black art in and of itself. Duct tape is not recommended. For most SLRs and telescope brands you can find a suitable T-mount adaptor which will allow you to attach your camera in place of the telescope's eyepiece. For non-SLRs, I'm not sure. If you were thinking of getting an actual astronomy CCD camera (such as the popular SBIG brand) well that alone will blow your budget and then a whole lot more. Then you'll want a second one to use it as an autoguider.
Astronomy isn't cheap, but it is rewarding. Good luck and clear skies.
Random and weird software I've written.
I was an amateur astronomer for years before I switched to being just a computer geek (no dark skies where I live now). However, even if my Messier-marathon nights are over, I think I can still give some good advice. So, let us start with equipment. Since you really don't know what you are mostly interested in viewing, I would say get a 6" - 8" Newtonian reflector with a decent equatorial mount (you can find deals for much less than $1000), or if you want to stretch your budjet you could get a more compact Schmidt Cassegrain (again 6"-8" aperture). Go for either Celestron or Meade (with the latter probably being better but more expensive). This type of telescope will provide a rich viewing experience, for both planetary and deep space targets. It is also astrophotography ready (computerized or motor equatorial drives are usually standard). ;)
So, at first I recommend "testing the waters" for astrophotography. Find a cheap, old, mechanican Canon, Minolta etc SLR. Start with that, and if you are still interested you can invest to a CCD camera in the future.
I can't recommend books, since been such a long time, except Stars and Planets by Peterson Field Guides which was a nice reference and gets updated once in a while. I was a fan of the Astronomy magazine for years. Sky & Telescope was also decent, you should certainly pick one of those up.
I have also skipped the part about telescope accessories, but I do have to go to sleep now, so you'll have to do with the included eyepieces for now...
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
Just a clarification, so you can compare what I'm talking about in my other post. A dobson is a newtonian reflector (has a huge mirror, and good brightness) with a dobsonian mount. Dobsonian mount is the cheapest possible. You cannot adjust it to the ecliptic plane, etc. Also such dobson is quite good for deep-sky (big mirror = big brightness), and terrible for planets (blurry view on high magnifications due to airflow turbulences and cannot track planet moevement on the sky due to cheap dosbon mount). Personally I'd advice against dobson, because after the initial enthusisam wears down, you get tired by the unconfortability of working with dobson mount. It's like using debian 4 years ago (eg. woody release) compared with comfort of using kubuntu today ;) So get a better mount if you can. But that's expensive too. Oh well, if you can't spend more than that $1000 you gotta buy just binoculars.
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If so, what would a basic setup generally look like? Any pointers to sites?
I would also recommend Celestia, because in addition to simulating the night sky it lets you "travel" to points of interests -- the planets and nearby stars, so you can view them from different angles. Lively modding community around that one, too.
I went through the same thing. I was fresh to amateur astronomy and didn't know what to do. My first warning: Don't spend to little on a telescope. $180 for a StarBlast is the lowest I'd pay for anything decent (and it is, I drool over it as a quick 'plop down and observe' scope from time to time). Second Warning: Astrophotography is insanely expensive. As in 10+ times your budget. Don't do it. If you really want to do astrophotography take a camera, put it on a tripod, point at the sky, set it as wide as you can and expose for 15 seconds for digital, a few hours for film. The results are quite nice.
Here's what my own experiences have taught me: Get a Dobsonian. With $1000 you can get a 10"-12" Dobsonian and still have tons of room for accessories. A dobsonian is very portable compared to a refractor and with near zero setup and takedown using it is much easier than a refractor too. 10" is a lot of aperture and you won't catch the "aperture fever" for something bigger for a while. The scope I eventually got is an Orion XT10 Intelliscope, but you may not want the computerization with your budget.
I found the people at Cloudy Nights very, very helpful. They have reviews of lots of products as well as their forums and they tend to specialize in getting the most out of your money.
As far as books go, I use Nightwatch by Terence Dickinson every night I observe just for the charts. Star Watch by Philip Harrington goes well with Nightwatch as good place to find new objects for the beginner. A lot of people suggest Turn Left at Orion, but I fount it to be a bit slow and the charts lacking in lower magnitude stars for their size.
http://www.astroimagen.com/
The photos that this guy manages to take are stunning! He gives full details about the process and equipment. The web is in Spanish, I hope it won't be a problem.
First things first... decide if you want the focus of the hobby to be the scopes or the stargazing.
If you're serious about the stargazing, forget the pricey glass. Get a decent set of binoculars and a few good books, and one of those plastic "Star Wheel" sky charts.
For the binocs, a basic pair of 10x70's will set you back a hundred and fifty bucks or so online. For the books, try Astronomy for Dummies and Left Turn at Orion. Also, your library will have back issues of Sky and Telescope - read 'em, and then visit their site. They have star maps you can print out that shows what's worth looking at each month. Try not to be too put out by their over-agressive marketeering.
The learning curve will be steeper than a big-bucks robotic "Goto Scope" that aims and focuses for you, but with a nice lawn chair, some decent binoculars and a rough understanding of what you're pointing them at, a night under the stars won't fail to deliver a few thrills.
Once that gets old, then look into the big-money glass. Telescopes, on their own, are a pretty damn rewarding hobby, especially once you get into making and modding them yourself. But unless you really, really know what you're after, dropping a grand on glass isn't a good idea. It likely won't be anywhere near what you want once you understand what that is.
A decent pair of wide field binoculars and a good sturdy tripod (20x60's weigh like 6 pounds so a tripod is a must). I recently picked up a pair of 20x75 Russian bins for less than £200 (US$400) and a surveyor's tripod for £30 (US$60). If you have an SLR camera with an M42 mount it wouldn't be a stretch to build a ring adapter for one side of the binocular and spot with the other side, you can get some good closeups of the moon and some of the brighter deepsky objects (LMC/SMC/M33/M42, etc.). Being in the middle of a city I found that film was getting a bit expensive particularly with a lot of shots being spoilt by streetlighting bloom, so I started to experiment with CMOS and CCD. I quickly came to the realisation that a supercooled CCD was far more sensitive than any film, and so went for broke and bought a cheap secondhand palmcorder. A freon cooling system later and I'm taking shots of the Pleiades cluster in the middle of a major metropolis!
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
Either a Meade ETX or a small Newtonian on a equatorial mount for the scope. Either one will give you a motor-driven imaging platform that you need for any kind of astrophotography. For a camera suggestion, if you have a notebook computer, an inexpensive webcam ($115 or so), and a free program called Registax will get you into lunar and planetary photography without breaking the bank.
I read in an astronomy magazine that a budding astronomer should first buy a high powered pair of binoculars (10mm x 50mm) and star charts, plus a red LED flashlight.
That way, you get used to pointing out where things are in constellations. You also find out if you can handle the long nights, getting your eyes used to darkness and waiting, waiting, waiting.
It takes about an hour to get used to the darkness. Red LED flashlights also keep your eyes dilated, having little effect on night vision.
If you get good at doing things the "old-fashioned way", then buy from somebody on EBay, who spent the big bucks and found out they weren't as interested as they originally thought.
Worst case, you got a good pair of binoculars and saved about a grand.
Best case, you learned a lot more about astronomy and will be able to find anything by constellation.
Of course, download and use Stellarium. They have a red night vision mode you can take with you on a laptop. (I'd still recommend dimming the display as much as possible and enabling a 1 minute monitor shutdown, to keep your eyes).
Also, go to http://heavens-above.com/ for more information about tracking objects in the sky. (Be sure to synchronize your clock to the atomic clock, since satellites and other objects wait for nobody). Watching satellites pass is a good way to keep yourself interested in astronomy, while you wait, wait, wait.
Heavens-above.com and Stellarium are excellent planning tools, as are your handy star charts.
Do not buy anything, except binoculars and a star finder, before you go it a starry night party and try a few instruments. Good binoculars will cost 20$ to 100$, something like 7x50 to 10x50 will be perfect. You don't need Celestron or Bushnell binoculars; any no-name brand will do as long as you have a 50mm apertume.
My advice - learn the sky first. There's tons to see, and you'll need practice finding it. If you've been interested in astronomy, maybe you already have used binoculars (which is a good start) to scan the sky. If you're in a hurry and want to get your first telescope, I'll give the advice that was given to me -- get a Dobsonian reflector. Dobs are very easy to set up, don't require alignment, and are generally lighter (important if you're planning on carrying your scope). The downside is that you have to manually track what you're looking at, and simply can't do astrophotography. As many people have said, you'll have a hard time getting a good telescope with a good mount with a drive system for under $1000. What you can do is spend ~$500 on something like the Orion SkyQuest XT8 Intelliscope (that's what I have and I love it), use it for a while (maybe a couple years depending on how frequently you take it out) and get to know the night sky, then when you've saved up that $1000 again in your astronomy budget, get a nice equatorial mount for it with a drive system, put some rings on the tube and attach it to the mount instead of the Dobs base. Oh, and order a Barlow lens along with the scope. Also, I really enjoy having a solar filter - why limit your telescope to night use??
The time you spend learning the sky with your Dobs will also help you decide if you want to spend the extra money for the fancy mount, camera, etc.
One thing I'll point out that may be blindingly obvious to some, but comes as a surprise to others... for the most part, images in your telescope appear in black-and-white to the naked eye. There simply isn't enough light for your eye to detect color. Once you get a spiffy camera and that fancy mount, the longer exposure pictures will get you all the color you want.
I'm an amateur astronomer myself and Mike's advice is perfect. Astrophotography is addicitive, but needs planning and patience. As I assume you don't own an telescope yet, my advice is to buy a good binocular. If you still want to buy an telescope, buy a cheap ( not cheapo ) one, around US$ 250, with EQUATORIAL mount, that's VERY important. Get used to it, learn what you like the most to observe ( deep-sky objects, planets, moon, variable stars, nebula ), learn how to align your telescope so it can track the sky movement's. Then borrow from someone an old SLR camera, with film. Yes, that's right, not a digital one. Couple in your telescope ( you'll need an adapter ) and read some FAQs, ask help from your astronomy club and play with the settings, see how they change the result. You can use a webcam for that too, and some software like Registrax to stack the pictures, the result is amazing! After you get to know the dirty details, you'll know what's the best equipment to buy, the best DSLR camera. One tip: it's not about the camera or the telescope. I've seen AMAZING pictures taken with an old SLR with a home-made refractor telescope, mounted on a US$ 500 mount. It's about the MOUNT, spare no expense here. Spend 1000 on a mount and 200 on a telescope, you'll get GREAT pictures. Dark skies for you!
That's all very good advice.
I've take to using my binoculars more than my telescope. While I don't get the aperture with the binoculars, I do get the ease of instant set-up time and a wide field of view so I can see not only the various objects in the sky, but also the star field around them.
The wide field of view helps you learn the sky too. You get the big picture when learning what is what up in the sky, which makes finding things easier down the road with a telescope.
Another little tidbit--don't be so quick to use the "Go To" function all the time. Star-hopping from point to point will help you learn the sky's landmarks, how to use and control your telescope, and you might come across something that you have never seen before (think driving across country and discovering sights that you would miss in an airplane).
Government's idea of a balanced budget: take money from the right pocket to balance...oh who am I kidding?
One of my earliest astronomical memories (aside from the shows at the local planetarium) was standing on a friend's driveway just after dusk. He says to me, pointing at a bright point of light against the rapidly darkening sky, "hey, I bet that's Saturn". He ducks into the garage, and drags out a 8-ish inch reflector telescope his dad had made. He lines it up, adjusts the focus, looks, and then invites me to have a look. Boom, there it is. Just like in all the picture books, only live, in front of my eyes.
So look at the planets through your scope. It should be bright enough to resolve any of the naked-eye visible planets as discs. You should be able to see the phases of Venus.
On my desk I have a picture of Comet Hale-Bopp. I took it with a 35mm film camera, with a 100-200 mm zoom lens set all the way out. Tripod, Kodacolor Gold color film (although there isn't any color in the print.) I thought I would want to take more astro-photographs, but haven't gotten around to it yet.
The other two mentioned are also open source and run on linux. It actually begs the question: Are commercial programs such as these even available?
I'd also like to know if any professionals use these (Celestia, Kstars and Stellarium) or if they have their own fancy-pants versions.
Is whatever scope you get, get a Telrad for it. A Telrad is a zero reflex finder. It lets you point the scope with your eyes open looking through a non-magnified view with a projected set of concentric circles on your target. Even with a Goto mount, the Telrad is what I would call a necessity.
My experience went from a few seasons of frustration, to actually being able to easily find deep space objects and planets in the scope, the moment I got a Telrad.
Also, concerning software, Cartes du Ciel is a freeware astronomy program that is very robust and probably the most common outside of Stary Night.
My advice for a purchase it perhaps an Orion ED 80 on a Sirus goto mount. You'll crack just over a grand, but it's a quality set up the price. It's not a Tak sitting on a Losmandy, but it'll work.
Another option, especially for the photography part, would be to try and find a Meade SN-8 OTA used. You can't get the OTA alone brand new. And still get the Sirus mount.
The Atlas EQ-G mount is perhaps the best bang for the buck in astronomy, but that's about $1,500 by itself. The Sirus is it's little brother.
For best results you're also going to need to guide your scope taking the pictures. So you'll need to mount a second guide scope, or use what they call an off-axis guider. The first option is preferred. And it gives you the option of manual guiding, or getting a second imager, and autoguding.
My last little bit of advice. Typically, dedicated CCD imagers work better then dSLRs for astrophotography. I use a a couple of different Canon dSLR's and you can get the job done with them. Though you're not going to be able to get some targets well unless you get them modified to remove the IR filters they come with. The Meade DSI Pro can be found right now for about $100. And at that price is a super bargian.
Be warned, it's an expensive hobby. As I've said before, astronomy is a hobby where free software abounds, yet a simple 2" long piece piece of 2" machined tubing will cost you $100. The tech side of it is free. Everything from planetarium software, to focusing software, to control software can be found free. But the
True, but that's not the typical advice given. The advice typically given is binoculars, with no mention of a tripod and binocular mount.
Plus, a nice 10 inch dob gives bright images, it's a quality instrument, you can get fancy electronic setting circles, and they don't cost much at all.
Besides, when a kid says he wants a telescope, he wants a telescope! Not binoculars, but something that looks like a telescope.
At the end of the day, M-43 in binoculars is NOTHING compared to M-43 in a 10 inch Dobsonian scope with a quality eyepiece. Images and experiences like that are what make astronomers out of wide-eyed kids. Binoculars are for the birds (watchers).
No weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men.-Ronald Reagan
I just downloaded the PDF user manual. It isn't clear on one point.
I use Astroplanner for all of my observing and planning. It will draw the stars as they appear in the eyepieces of you telescope, so you can compare and make sure you are looking at what you think you are looking.
It mentions pointing and clicking an item in the manual and then clicking Go to drive your mount to the object. This drive to an object, is it then tracking the object, or is it a one shot to there while waiting the next Go as the star drifts out of view?
Can you answer this? Are you using it with a motorized mount?
The truth shall set you free!