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What are YOU doing right NOW
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Telescopes are of broadly two types. Long ones give high magnification, short ones give wider but brighter views.
Long focal length telescopes are good at looking at things like planets, details on the moon and te sun (with appropriate filters).
Short focal length are better at looking at wider objects like the Andromeda galaxy (shown as my avatar) and the Orion and other nebulae etc. Because of their light gathering power they are very good at bringing into view faint stars and a huge number of faint objects in the night sky that the eye cannot see.
For the technical my telescope is a Skywatcher Esprit 120mm F7 (reduced to F5.4 with a corrector) and is quite a short focal length. It is coupled with a cooled ASI533MC dedicated astro colour camera, all sitting on a heavy duty iOptron CEM70 tracking mount. Everything is controlled via a ZWO Asiar pro hub wirelessly connected to my laptop. A huge learning curve ahead for me.
The light gathering capacity of this scope and the camera’s ability to take exposures lasting hours potentially allows for images of some of the faintest yet most spectacular night sky objects to be taken.
The Andromeda galaxy in my avatar is a very big object in the sky (three times wider than the moon in fact) yet our eyes can only discern it as an elongated smudge. Looking through the telescope with an eyepiece that smudge does resolve itself into an elongated galaxy looking thing but still not much more than a brighter smudge. To get a good image of the Andromeda galaxy with its colour and detail, a camera needs to take an exposure lasting possibly hours with a widefield light gathering telescope like mine. To use a high magnification telescope the exposure time would need to be doubled or tripled and then probably only with part of the galaxy in view.
The avatar image is not mine but something I hope that I will be able to emulate with my new telescope.
I have taken some images with a smaller 80mm telescope with a digital camera, each only about a minute duration and attached them below. I hope to do much better with the detail, brightness and accuracy with the new set up.
Image 1 is a star cluster 47Toucanae invisible to the naked eye, Image 2 is the Orion nebula visible as a smudge in the sword of Orion. These are standard objects to start with for beginners in the hobby like me. Andromeda is low on the Northern Horizon so difficult to image from my location but hope to be able to get to a better site with wider horizons and darker skies like out in the WA goldfields.
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Fantastic Hawkear! And an informative description. One thing I don't understand is how one can take extended exposures from a spinning earth - does the camera track at rotation speed?
I remember lying under the skies on the Canning track southwest of Billiluna some years ago, awed bt the milky way in a part of Australia with no light pollution.
I remember lying under the skies on the Canning track southwest of Billiluna some years ago, awed bt the milky way in a part of Australia with no light pollution.
Lovely part of camping out isn't it.
Yes camera must be able to track at the earths rotation speed.
Probably the most important (and expensive) part of any astrophotography set up is the mount on which the telescope and camera sits.
Firstly they have to be beefy and powerful enough to bear the weight of some quite heavy outfits. The one I have weighs in at about 13kg for the telescope, camera and other accessories.
Secondly they must be able to move that rig at exactly the same rate (the earths rotation rate) at which the stars appear to move across the sky. As you can imagine keeping a pinpoint sized star aligned with one or two pixels on your camera sensor for extended periods requires exquisite accuracy and that is why they are so expensive.
There are lighter weight and less expensive mounts called Sky Trackers with which one can do quite good astrophotography with just a digital camera and a telephoto lens.
We prospectors spending night times out in the bush are priveliged to see much more in the night sky than our city counterparts. But that is only part of what’s there. Many of the most beautiful objects are quite large but so faint even in the darkest of Outback skies they are invisible to our eyes and can only be seen photographically with long term exposures.
Did you fall over? 
Just taking 5 @Mackka to appreciate how beautiful our country is!Did you fall over?
Dave's Office
Have Detector Will Travel
Beautiful mate. Mackka
Dave's Office
Have Detector Will Travel
Just finished having a shower after setting up camp at Balladonia, won't be long and it'll be time for a beer. I stayed at Eucla last night. I've lost count of the number of times I've crossed the Nullabore, I love the drive, there's so much to see and the country is constantly changing, sometimes just a suttle change and sometimes a drastic change in the blink of an eye.
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What type of tyre do you use and type of ute?
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Holden Colorado 4wd & Bridgestone Dueller A/T's by the looks of it.
I thought it was Colorado but couldn't read it clearly and i had a set of duelers once.
Dave, how does it go with wind resistence?
Moneybox
Philip & Sandra Box
I just got off the phone again after half an hour discussing the non-delivery of my new laptop ordered on 28th February. Yesterday I entered a case with PayPal and then last night at 11:45pm I got an email from LG confirming the delivery and registration of my computer.
Last week DHL told me it was lost, after their transfer to Startrack, and they were going to request a new item be sent. LG claim to have not received any response from DHL. LG are the most difficult company to get any reply from, they promise phone calls and emails nut never deliver.
Last week DHL told me it was lost, after their transfer to Startrack, and they were going to request a new item be sent. LG claim to have not received any response from DHL. LG are the most difficult company to get any reply from, they promise phone calls and emails nut never deliver.
Doesn't that confirm it was stolen (and probably immediately resold via Gumtree as an "unwanted gift")? It's turning into a police matter - surely LG can't hide the identity of the owner of stolen property if the police want to know.
Hi Moneybox.
Did any of the companies involved in the transport offer a tracking number. If there was there should be a tracking history still available which could shed some light on the disappearance. If the history shows delivered it should indicate the last carrier and what time it was delivered.
Most companies also require a signature from the recipient or photograph of the delivery location. These could also be available.
Was waiting for an important telescope part to come back from the US after repair and checking its tracking via the USPS and AP tracking service saw that it had been sitting at a Melbourne airport facility for nearly a week without moving. An enquiry lodged with AP saw the package start moving within an hour of my lodging the enquiry and it arrived two days later.
Tracking is a terrific thing and I always insist on getting a tracking number now unless it is going letter rates.
Did any of the companies involved in the transport offer a tracking number. If there was there should be a tracking history still available which could shed some light on the disappearance. If the history shows delivered it should indicate the last carrier and what time it was delivered.
Most companies also require a signature from the recipient or photograph of the delivery location. These could also be available.
Was waiting for an important telescope part to come back from the US after repair and checking its tracking via the USPS and AP tracking service saw that it had been sitting at a Melbourne airport facility for nearly a week without moving. An enquiry lodged with AP saw the package start moving within an hour of my lodging the enquiry and it arrived two days later.
Tracking is a terrific thing and I always insist on getting a tracking number now unless it is going letter rates.
Moneybox
Philip & Sandra Box
The warranty and serial number are listed in my LG account.
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