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  1. #41
    Who's driving? Oh my God Bear is driving! How can that be??
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    My bad there are two 114eqs you have the astro master and not the power seeker. So yea 50x and 100x.

  2. #42
    Who's driving? Oh my God Bear is driving! How can that be??
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    Quote Originally Posted by Xno Kappa View Post
    The wifey recently bought me an Orion StarBlast 4.5 Equatorial Reflector Telescope. Haven't had a chance to take it out yet though and I'm completely ignorant of telescopes in general. Any comments or advice for this kind of telescope and what will I be able to see?
    You will be able to get an up close view of craters on the moon, view all planets with Uranus and Neptune being pale dots, and some deep space objects. One that comes to mind is M42 - The Orion Nebula. But you will have to wait until late fall/early winter for the constellation to be visible again.

  3. #43
    RNGesus
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    Btw since the thing I posted earlier said small and medium focal ratios can do deep space am I gonna be able to see any of that with mine? Just wondering because I'm dying sitting at my computer doing work when I'd rather be checking out the telescope >_<

  4. #44

    I pulled the trigger on the Orion yesterday, tracking info says it should be here tomorrow. And of course the clouds just rolled in this week lol.

  5. #45
    RNGesus
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    Got it put togther tonight at least. I think i did it right...

    Spoiler: show


    Gonna take the manual to work to read and learn how to use it tomorrow and hopefully get to play around with it in the evening. So excite.

  6. #46
    Who's driving? Oh my God Bear is driving! How can that be??
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tyrath View Post
    Btw since the thing I posted earlier said small and medium focal ratios can do deep space am I gonna be able to see any of that with mine? Just wondering because I'm dying sitting at my computer doing work when I'd rather be checking out the telescope >_<
    Deep space objects are categorized as anything that isn't something in our solar system or a single star. With that in mind there are deep space objects that you will be able to see. There are a lot of open clusters, some nebulas, double/mulitple star systems, and a few nebulas that you should be able to see.

    Also, light pollution can be a pain the ass if you in an area that is pretty bright. There is this scale called the Bortle Scale that is loosely used as a ranking system to determine how dark your area is.

    Here is the color coding scale:
    http://www.bigskyastroclub.org/lp_bortle.html

    And here is a map showing the skyglow/light pollution overlay.
    http://www.jshine.net/astronomy/dark_sky/

    I live in an area that is Class 6/7 but I can still view the Orion Nebula and other deep space objects. There is a way to get around a bit of the light pollution though.

    Since most streetlamps that have the yellow/orange tint emit High Pressure Sodium Vapor, you can get a light pollution filter that block out the light emissions from those areas of the spectrum

    spoilered for size
    Spoiler: show

    http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...p_Spectrum.jpg

    Basically the light pollution filter will have dips where the peaks are in the wavelengths blocking out those emission lines allowing for darker viewing.

  7. #47
    RNGesus
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    Thats really helpful, thanks. Where I live is a 7 I will look into the light filter thing in the future, for tonight I'm gonna focus on getting the telescope outside and learning how to use it. I figure its gonna take a bit for me to be able to find an object and then learn to focus on it properly.

  8. #48
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tyrath View Post
    Got it put togther tonight at least. I think i did it right...

    Spoiler: show


    Gonna take the manual to work to read and learn how to use it tomorrow and hopefully get to play around with it in the evening. So excite.
    WANT.

  9. #49

    Quote Originally Posted by TummieGaruda View Post
    Deep space objects are categorized as anything that isn't something in our solar system or a single star. With that in mind there are deep space objects that you will be able to see. There are a lot of open clusters, some nebulas, double/mulitple star systems, and a few nebulas that you should be able to see.

    Also, light pollution can be a pain the ass if you in an area that is pretty bright. There is this scale called the Bortle Scale that is loosely used as a ranking system to determine how dark your area is.

    Here is the color coding scale:
    http://www.bigskyastroclub.org/lp_bortle.html

    And here is a map showing the skyglow/light pollution overlay.
    http://www.jshine.net/astronomy/dark_sky/

    I live in an area that is Class 6/7 but I can still view the Orion Nebula and other deep space objects. There is a way to get around a bit of the light pollution though.

    Since most streetlamps that have the yellow/orange tint emit High Pressure Sodium Vapor, you can get a light pollution filter that block out the light emissions from those areas of the spectrum

    spoilered for size
    Spoiler: show

    http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...p_Spectrum.jpg

    Basically the light pollution filter will have dips where the peaks are in the wavelengths blocking out those emission lines allowing for darker viewing.
    According to this map, I live right on the border of 7-8. If I zoom in enough to see my street, it's pink. That's sad, I figured a Utah city wouldn't be as bad as some others, but we're right up there. At least I have mountains nearby that I can escape to. A little surprised that they're a 2-3 and not a 1, but but I can't complain too much.

    My telescope is on the truck for delivery today. Can't wait to get home, put it together, and be sad that there's not an inch of clear sky right now.

  10. #50
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    Quote Originally Posted by Obiron View Post
    According to this map, I live right on the border of 7-8. If I zoom in enough to see my street, it's pink. That's sad, I figured a Utah city wouldn't be as bad as some others, but we're right up there. At least I have mountains nearby that I can escape to. A little surprised that they're a 2-3 and not a 1, but but I can't complain too much.

    My telescope is on the truck for delivery today. Can't wait to get home, put it together, and be sad that there's not an inch of clear sky right now.
    When it comes to that site if its in the grey it's usually a 1-3. Also that sucks about the weather. It seems to be a natural occurrence that when you buy a telescope, the day it shows up it's cloudy.

  11. #51
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    Was a pain in the butt trying to get even Jupiter in view last night, got it for a min before it dipped into the tree line. Local park is the darkest area for me with out driving anywhere on work nights. Contacts didn't help when trying to focus it ><. Seems like Im gonna need a lower mm eye piece then 10mm to get anymore detail on it.

  12. #52
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lenus View Post
    Was a pain in the butt trying to get even Jupiter in view last night, got it for a min before it dipped into the tree line. Local park is the darkest area for me with out driving anywhere on work nights. Contacts didn't help when trying to focus it ><. Seems like Im gonna need a lower mm eye piece then 10mm to get anymore detail on it.
    To save time, take the telescope out in the day and get the finderscope aligned. Find a far off object and try to get it so that the center crosshairs align with what the scope sees. Then when you are out doing viewing you can use the finderscope to get the scope in the general area. Start off with a 20-25mm eyepiece to get it in the field of view and then swap over to the 10mm. Under higher power eyepieces objects will move very quickly so you will have to keep your hands on the controls.

  13. #53
    RNGesus
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    Moar questions.

    So I figured out how to locate the celestial north pole with my telescope by adjusting the latitude. Now trying to figure out the declination and R.A system. Not really sure how to have a reference point for both of them so that I can use the given Dec. and R.A. coordinates of an object to find it D:

    Am I better off just using Altitude and Azimuth coordinates?

    Basically a little bit of this right now



    I mean I could forgo all this and just point my phone with google sky maps at the sky to tell me the general location of things, but I'd like to learn the basics x.x

  14. #54
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tyrath View Post
    Moar questions.

    So I figured out how to locate the celestial north pole with my telescope by adjusting the latitude. Now trying to figure out the declination and R.A system. Not really sure how to have a reference point for both of them so that I can use the given Dec. and R.A. coordinates of an object to find it D:

    Am I better off just using Altitude and Azimuth coordinates?
    If you get a chance look into a program called Stellarium (I highly recommend this software). It has a ton of features that you may end up using later, but more importantly it gives you exact RA/Dec values for stars. Since you already have the latitude setup all you have to do is get it polar aligned (point to the north star) and then you will need to move your R.A. and Dec circle dials so that the arrow points to what the north star is. Based on Stellarium the North Star is R.A. 2 hours 49 minutes and 16 seconds and a Dec of +89 degrees 19minutes 31 seconds. So you would move each of the circles to those markers and after doing that the scope is aligned. At this point if you wanted to find something on a star chart, all you would have to do is look up the coordinates, and then move the telescopes RA and DEC controls until the marker points to the corresponding coordinates and it should put you in the neighborhood of the object.

  15. #55
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    Ah I see. The telescope came with a SkyX Light edition program that also gives me the coordinates, I'll check out Stellarium see if its any better.

    First stint out tonight was able to get the moon into focus and check it out for a while. Good detail on the craters and what not. Gotta get a better handle on the movements so I can pinpoint things better.

    Since my telescopes highest useful magnification was listed as 269x and my smallest eyepiece is 10mm which gives 100x would it be worth it for me to invest in smaller eyepieces for more magnification?

  16. #56

    Ready for some clear skies!
    Spoiler: show





    Quote Originally Posted by Tyrath View Post
    Since my telescopes highest useful magnification was listed as 269x and my smallest eyepiece is 10mm which gives 100x would it be worth it for me to invest in smaller eyepieces for more magnification?
    One of the recommendations I've been reading is a 2X Barlow. It will double your magnification without getting too small on the eye piece. Not speaking from experience here, since I just finished putting mine together. Mine came with 15mm and 6mm eye pieces, so I'll see how those look before I order one.

  17. #57
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    Yeah Barlows are the way to go to get the extra magnification. They come in 2x and 3x, but usually 2x will get the job done depending on your eyepiece.

  18. #58

    The clouds cleared enough tonight that I can see the moon. It's amazing the definition you can see at this distance. Next stop, Saturn.

  19. #59
    Shimmy shimmy ya shimmy yam shimmy ya
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    Quote Originally Posted by Obiron View Post
    The clouds cleared enough tonight that I can see the moon. It's amazing the definition you can see at this distance. Next stop, Saturn.
    You got the exact same telescope I do lol.

  20. #60
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    Sucks, tomorrow is a good night for saturn, I'm not gonna be home

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