[AZ-Observing] Re: Visual vs imaging? (Was New stuff = rain)
- From: Michael McDonald <mikemac@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2016 12:35:10 -0700
On Sep 7, 2016, at 11:08 AM, Greg Schwimer <schwim@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
At some point it became clear to me that star hopping in a light polluted
area was a real pain in the a&%. I decided this after being at a dark site,
where I found it infinitely easier (and more pleasurable) to find and view
objects. The nice part is that I had learned how to find things. The bad part
is that being encumbered by my backyard and life, it was difficult to really
get as much as I could out of it.
I’m just starting after wishing I could do astronomy for a gazillion years. But
I always end up living in a city, currently Chandler. So the amount I can see
with my naked eye thru my unguided 4.5” Newtonian is pretty limited. So I’d
like to get to the point where I can do semi reliable astrophotography.
I recently had just the opposite reaction to dark skies as Greg describes. In
my backyard, Polaris is about 1/2 degree from the street light, making it easy
to find but a pain to align on. Sunday night I went out to Canyon Lake to take
some wide angle images. But there were so many stars out that I wasn’t sure I
could even find Polaris! The star charts weren’t much help as the charts had
too few start making it hard for me to make a match with the sky. In Chandler,
it’s just the opposite problem, not enough real stars to match what’s on the
charts.
So star hopping isn’t working out for me. That’s why I’m starting to dream
about a nice goto equatorial mount for Christmas! (Drool, drool!)
And then a decent BW imager so I can use narrow band filters. (Wishful
thinking!)
Mike
Sunday night’s image:
http://www.mikemac.com/IMG_0679.jpg
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