Night Sky Astronomy

Archive for the ‘Equipment’ Category

I had a brilliant new Nikon D3200 DSLR Camera for my birthday with extra zoom lens so I thought that I would try and take a photo of the Moon with it, to see how good the zoom was.  I was quite pleased with the outcome (below) as the detail of the Moon shows up really well!

The Moon

Finally the skies cleared and I was able to use my new binoculars for the first time.  It also coincided with the moon coming into range outside of our back door, so it was excellent timing.

The view that greeted me was excellent.  The moon was crisp and bright and was magnified enough to almost fill the whole viewing area.  As the binoculars only have a magnification of 10, I wasn’t really expecting much more, but the view was a lot better than what I had with my other pair.

As Jupiter was still shining brightly in the sky, I decided to give looking at it a go as well.  Jupiter is much much farther away,  so I didn’t think for one minute that I would see anything bar a small ball of light in the sky.  And I didn’t.  But to my surprise, I could just about make out two bright dots slightly to the right of the planet, which I assumed to be two of Jupiter’s moons.  So if any one can clarify that the two dots were the moons, please leave a comment on this post, as I would very much like to know. 😉

So all in all, I was very pleased with the new binoculars, and for £15 it was a very good buy.

Time: 19:30 – 19:45, Longitude: 50.435423, Latitude: -4.093217, Viewing: North East

I have bought a new pair of binoculars from Lidl as they were on sale and only £15.  They are made by Rocktrail and have 10x magnification.  I will put a photo of them on the ‘equipment’ page shortly so you can see exactly what they look like.  Ideally, I would have liked some with a better magnification but don’t have the money at the moment, so couldn’t turn down this offer of slightly upgraded binoculars!

Unfortunately, after I bought them the weather turned rubbish so couldn’t use them for looking at the night sky.

Will keep you posted about when I use them properly for the first time!

For my 30th birthday (17th October 2010) my wife gave me a telescope, which was something I have been after for years and years, but never really been able to afford it.  (for more info on the telescope, have a look at the equipment page).  Even my little boy who is 2 years old wanted to get it out straight away, but we waited until the evening.  Luckily, it was a clearish night with the moon being very bright and right over head.

We managed to get it together but, with it being my first ever telescope, I didn’t really know what I was doing. I didn’t really have a clue about the lenses to use as there was a few that came with the telescope.  I obviously new the basics, but didn’t know about the combinations to use.  It was also too late to line up the view finder with the actual telescope, so I had to go by eye. Luckily, the moon was full, large and bright so it was pretty easy to find it.

I looked through the telescope and was amazed to see the clearness of the craters on the moon and how bright it was.  It was really great and whet my appetite for more! My wife and I stared at it for a good hour or so, so I was very pleased with my first attempt.

On each of my posts, I am going to put the date and time of the observation from my back garden, and will also give the longitude and latitude of my house, as a point of reference for any other nearby astonomers. You never know, this may come in handy for someone.

Time: 20:00 – 21:00, Longitude: 50.435423, Latitude: -4.093217, Viewing: North East