Any other star gazers here?

The moon is a problem at the moment.

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It’s worth getting up early dawn to checkout a high and southerly Venus.
The moon is over in the west but don’t leave it too long as the two are getting closer together.
The waning moon will be very close on the morning of 9 Nov.

True. But, if clear… I’ll be out with my little dob. Could be a late night :cold_face:

Must be nice to have a covered observatory to look out from :slight_smile:

Poor, but the best shot I got (manually holding mobile to eyepiece), heavily enlarged and processed of course.

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Pretty good, especially given use of phone! What 'scope/eyepiece?

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Thanks. It’s not great but the best I’ve managed to get, so far. A mobile-to-ep handheld ain’t the best!

6" F5 Orion dob. Tele Vue ep - I was using several but I think this was a 16mm Radian. Might have been my TV 8-24 zoom, can’t remember!

Jupiter (almost certain) looking towards Perseus… taken 6/10… 20 sec exposure at 24mm… not processed at all.

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Confirmed it’s Jupiter, the small cluster to the left is Pleiades commonly called The Seven Sisters.

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And Uranus half way between Jupiter and the Pleiades.

Indeed, my Sky tracker app showed that, but I couldn’t really obviously distinguish Uranus in the sky with my eye or the photo without some sort of tracker, but I believe it is midway but set slightly down… but faint compared to Jupiter.

Simon, any idea what the lines are in your pic., an anomily or Starlink satellite train

image

At the moment they are unidentified apparently flying objects…!

Mike, I think high altitude commercial airliners with navigation lights… that is a Sky lane.
But it is interesting when you blow up the image as you have done you can see the smearing of the stars (as opposed to the navigation lights) like a coma effect because of the movement of the earth in the 20 second exposure… hence the need for a star tracker if doing this seriously :grinning:. On the raw image the stars are less blurry and more distinct and the smearing more obvious compared to the jpeg uploaded here.

You made me smile… I had a sneaking suspicion your good self might indeed comment on those.:wink:

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Ahhh !!! Doh !!! Silly old me, I hadn’t spotted the 20 sec exposure!
Plus there are x2 parallel lines …

If they were Starlink lines, they would’ve made a single fully connected unbroken trail, not strobe bursts, and they don’t trail in parallel lines.

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In theory, a 20 second exposure with a 24mm lens is just within the “500 rule” (exposure x length < 500) to minimise star trailing. In my limited experience of untracked astrophotography I use 300 instead of 500.

I bought a star tracker in March but I have only used it once as I got a trapped nerve in my neck the week after it arrived! I’m just about ready to try it again.

Here it is. Visible in binoculars or a finder scope. The green/blue shade gives it away.

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Thanks for confirming - I got it right then :slight_smile:

I must say I’m envious of your dark eastern sky Simon.
Assuming you took the photo close to home, I guess the open country of the Suffolk coastal heaths with small population pockets & the North Sea gives you that.

My east sky problem is although we look toward open country & the very dark Chiltern Hills, beyond that is the home counties & London & they illuminate haze & atmospheric pollution resulting in the low magnitude objects are invisible on all but the clearest of nights.

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Me too. We recently stayed in a lovely barn conversion up in Suffolk. No streetlights or near suburban illumination. Beautiful dark skies to enjoy most nights.

My village has just replaced all the old ‘light up the sky’ street lamps with LED lamps that only illuminate the ground. Massive improvement with light polution.
My back garden is now very dark & star/planet/moon/satellite watching has improved no end. Looking to the northern sky (over the village) from my hill side location I can now see the Andromeda Galaxy unaided & am looking forward to exploring the north sky galaxy fields thru the 'scope.