JamesR

I've taken a few pictures of the Moon. It's a different skill set compared to the deep sky stuff I usually image. I'm much better at the deep sky stuff than the moon, but here's a few shots I've taken: This was taken with a 115mm refracting telescope: This shot was taken with a smaller, 65mm telescope. The reddish dot on the lower left is Mars. I have tried using my 8" scope on the moon but bigger telescopes are more sensitive to seeing conditions (atmospheric stability) and I'm not using a camera that is ideal for close up moon shots, so most of my are a bit soft on details. Here's an example:

Thanks everyone

Here's a rather large image of a super nova remnant. This is known as the Cygnus Loop. This shot is a 2 panel mosaic. **Due to this image file size, it may take a moment to load. If it looks blurry, give it a little more time to load.

It's been awhile since I shared any images. Here's a few shots from this year: A close up shot of M42, The Orion nebula Here's a shot of M16, aka the Eagle nebula. The columns in the center were made famous by the Hubble shot titled "The Pillars for Creation". I shoot this target each summer. This years is probably my best shot of it to date. A collection of Galaxies. As a group they are known as the "Deerlick group".

These two issues, the Parachute, and then the flammable tape.. seem like boneheaded errors. UGH!

Dr Becky put up a video a few months ago that describes in more detail what the issues are. Her channel is very good. https://youtu.be/hps-HfpL1vc **Just re watched the video and reread the article. Looks like the article is the answer to the unanswered question in the video. The article doesn't explain exactly what research was done.. but I'm guessing it confirmed the hubble data, that the method of using super nova to measure distances to galaxies (via Cepheid variable stars) was accurate (not bight biased). Very interesting.

Care to explain the context of this?

This article is over a year old. The opinion in this article is out-dated. It was written at a time when most "experts" in the west figured Ukraine would be over run in short order.

Thanks! It's not super important to be level (assuming its not so far off that it could tip over). Once its properly aligned, it shouldn't matter. That said.. it could impact the first couple of slews when aligning, meaning you'd have to adjust more than normal to get the next reference star centered in the eyepiece. If that is causing you to calibrate on the wrong star.. then that could be a big deal.

You're welcome. It'll be satisfying once you get it dialed in. I do have a youtube channel.. although it's mostly focused on processing the images I capture so it wouldn't be much help for you at this stage. You may still find it interesting though: https://www.youtube.com/c/DSOImager Good Luck!

Yes.. use the 25mm first. Once you have it centered, put the barlow in there. You will need to refocus with the barlow.

You should definitely see color on Jupiter. You should also see color on bright stars (Betelgeuse for example). To get a good view of Jupter you'd need an eye piece that gives you a tighter view. a 2x barlow would help a lot to. You should be able to make out the different bands pretty easily. On distant objects like Galaxies and Nebula, those would be black and white. The colored like is so weak our eye's can't pick them up.

Can you see individual stars? If you are not seeing anything, maybe you are out of focus. Are you able to see craters on the moon?

Here's a couple images I completed during the holidays: IC410, The Tadpoles. This is a star forming region. 34 hours of exposure in this: IC 443, The Jellyfish nebula. This is a supernova remnant. 29.5 hours of exposure in this one.

These are interesting Devices. Stelina was their first product. The Vespera is a smaller package with basically the same software driving it. Their intended use is casual imaging and stargazing. I can see the appeal it has for some. The ease of use.. pretty much one button. Very light, easy to transport. When it comes to deepsky astrophotography.. the kind that I do.. this is limited: In order to keep the price down the optics and sensors are basic. Because it uses an alt/az style mount, the object your imaging will rotate in the field. It gets around this by cropping the final image, but that makes an already small fov even smaller. I believe there are limitations on how long each exposure can be. You wont be spending 20+ hours exposure on a single target with this. They did introduce an advanced mode that would export raw files, which is better if you want to process them. So with that said.. I'm not the target demographic. I can see this working for some people.. and if it helps increase interest in the night sky.. that would be good. :)