Are software like Celestia and Stellarium accurate

reply to post by JennaDarling


It never even occured to me to join an astronomy club. Feel ridiculous for not tihnking of it sooner. Ii've heard a lot of good things about binocs and i guess they aremuch more portable than a telescope.

I can see the Royal Observatory from my livingroom window; a constant reminder. Thanks for the advice man, really appreciate it. GOnna go price up some binocs

reply to post by Phage


And that, folks, is how you pull out an ephemeris file. The only difference between this and giving birth is, with this, the contractions come every RA 0.0036098922, DEC 0.0018359375.

If it's that easy to get Nibiru to appear in Stellarium, just imagine how easy it would be for aliens to build a real one and hurl it our way.

Originally posted by Thundersmurf
reply to post by JennaDarling

 

It never even occured to me to join an astronomy club. Feel ridiculous for not tihnking of it sooner. Ii've heard a lot of good things about binocs and i guess they aremuch more portable than a telescope.

I can see the Royal Observatory from my livingroom window; a constant reminder. Thanks for the advice man, really appreciate it. GOnna go price up some binocs

Binocs are about 400 Euros, weight 4.5kg for 25x100s, tripod, about 80 euros for a decent one, get a spring loaded shoe, perhaps 2 if you want to use the same tripod for the DSLR and bonics, saves unscrewing the shoe.

The 1100D I got specifically for astrophotography, google has lots of reviews on the noise tests, I had a link somewhere but cannot find it now.

The Bonics have a 100mm aperture, and 25x zoom, the ones I use. You will get some chromatic aberation on them at that price though so dont expect them to act like a pair of 3000 Euro Vixens

You want fully broadband coated and nitrogen purged at the least. Celstrons are not fully broadband coated, and I heard their aberation was bad, google reviews and forums before you buy.

I use helios Quantum 4's and a First Horizon 8115 tripod.

You wont see the man on the moon with them or the lunar rover lol at only 25x zoom but 100mm aperture is decent light gathering.

Spotting scopes are another possibility, with a 45 degree eyepiece that can maybe be changed to get more zoom, they do 25-75 zoom usually but u would want again to look at aperture for light gathering, I just love the 3d effect of looking through binos though lol.

reply to post by JennaDarling


Just to add to Jenna's post (hope you don't mind).

Even a bog standard relatively cheap pair of binocs will introduce you to a cosmos I can promise you have never seen. Look into an empty patch of clear sky with your eyes, then introduce a pair of binocs and that empty sky isn't as empty as you think.

reply to post by PW229


That's an F100 jet engine test in your avatar isn't it? Pratt and Whitney.

Originally posted by Illustronic
reply to post by PW229

 

That's an F100 jet engine test in your avatar isn't it? Pratt and Whitney.

Well spotted. Although I have the "229" nomenclature as my nick the image is not actually a 229 but yes, it is a member of the F100 family. The engine in the avatar is a 220E. At some point I will put up a personal picture, just haven't got round to it yet.

Just as a giggle I got hold of the original Celestia add-on for 'Planet-X'. I see that it was created just over 3 years ago. I attach (I hope) a view from far above the plane of the ecliptic of the orbits of various items.

The red orbit is Sedna - so you can see that extreme eccentricity is not impossible. The orbit going out at 7 o'clock is the mythical Planet-X. Look carefully, and you will see in the inner circles the orbit of Pluto.

The period in the add-on was set to 3600 years.

Regards,
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/efa2eb5f8fa6.jpg[/atsimg]

Originally posted by PW229
I use Stellarium to help set-up my Meade 10" LX200 and it hasn't failed me yet. Anyone that has tried to set up a Meade using the Autostar alignment will tell you it requires a lot of patience and some reliable alternative method for identifying the stars you're using for alignment.

Looking forward to delivery (delayed yet again) of a LS-8SC, no more silly alignment

Let us know how well the LS works. I've heard some vicious bug reports about it. I hope yours works well out of the box.
To OP:
Stellarium and Celestia are both great programs, and they're both quite safe to run. As mentioned, you can add objects to either program using a simple notepad editor. They do have their limitations, but you probably won't find yourself running into them anytime soon.

Originally posted by ngchunter
Let us know how well the LS works. I've heard some vicious bug reports about it. I hope yours works well out of the box.

Funnily enough got an email this morning from the supplier saying it will be with me on Thursday Apparently it wasn't the telescope causing the delay, it was the deep sky imager (mark II). Wish they'd told me that a few weeks ago, I would have told them to split the delivery and get me my damn scope!

I was one of about 30 people invited to a private unboxing and viewing a few months back and we were all shocked at the ease of use. Straight out of the box (with Meade sealing tape intact so I know they didn't fiddle with it before-hand) it was powered up and allowed to sit outside for a while to equalise the optic temperature then the switch flipped and 10 minutes later it was up and running beautifully. Compare that to the 90 minutes minimum it takes me to get the LX200 set-up properly and I was instantly sold. The dealer told me when I placed my order that night that pretty much all of us invited ordered one! Because we were "valued" customers (in other words, "money to burn") they threw in the LCD video monitor gratis.

If you're interested I'll shoot a video of me getting it set-up and using it one night and send the link via U2U?

Originally posted by PW229
reply to post by JennaDarling

 

Just to add to Jenna's post (hope you don't mind).

Even a bog standard relatively cheap pair of binocs will introduce you to a cosmos I can promise you have never seen. Look into an empty patch of clear sky with your eyes, then introduce a pair of binocs and that empty sky isn't as empty as you think.

Nope, I don't mind.

I don't know everything lol I am an amateur astronomer / photogprapher myself.

Ofcourse even smaller binoculars will help and are even cheaper, I just went for the best I could afford lol.

While aperture is kind in astronomy, I have read at times smaller apertures (in telescopes) are good for seeing clear moon anomolies due to the aptmospheres effect on larger apertures ( and dome heating causing thermal differentials along the telescope tube ).

And yes once your eyes adjust to the darkness, it just lights up. Shooting stars, milky way, satellites whizzing by, star clusters.

You probably want to take a blanket hot water bottle and some thermos flasks for water for tea, because once you start you coudlnt be dragged away from the night sky.

Even when it is not completely dark, it is amazing to see the very bright magnatude stars while it is dusk.

Originally posted by PW229
Straight out of the box (with Meade sealing tape intact so I know they didn't fiddle with it before-hand) it was powered up and allowed to sit outside for a while to equalise the optic temperature then the switch flipped and 10 minutes later it was up and running beautifully. Compare that to the 90 minutes minimum it takes me to get the LX200 set-up properly and I was instantly sold.

Takes me about an hour to set up my 8" classic LX200 in alt-az. That includes the cameras, laptop, and just basic physical setup though. Is it the autostar computer that's holding you up? An LX200 shouldn't take that long, but I'm less experienced with the autostar variety. Magellan is easy and fast if you know some of the tricks and what stars are which.

If you're interested I'll shoot a video of me getting it set-up and using it one night and send the link via U2U?

I'd love to see that!

reply to post by ngchunter


Autostar has given me nothing but problems from the first time I used it. Occasionally it would behave and get me pointed in the right direction but largely it would insist it knew better and just point wherever it damn well wanted, usually at the Moon. One evening I thought I had it set up perfectly for some observation of Saturn (we all love those rings) so you can imagine my surprise when all I see feeding from the LPI is a bunch of white, the damn Moon again!