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I recently decided to get off the couch and venture outside to explore the great unknown by sitting in my backyard with a telescope. Godbear only knows why I suddenly felt this urge to take on such a complex new hobby, but nevertheless I have and I am very slowly acquainting myself with the tools, gang signs and slang terms used by those in the game.
After staring into the void, the voices of a thousand amateur astronomers called out to me and told me that the most cost effective and functional telescope for a beginner to purchase is called the AWB OneSky 130mm Newtonian reflector, as pictured here below:
At a modest 5" in aperture (usually 6"-8" are recommended for beginners not on a budget), its primary mirror is still allegedly capable of catching the light of Jupiter, Mercury, Mars and even many deep space objects including star clusters and messiers. This telescope is a custom creation of the organisation, Astronomers Without Borders, and manufactured by Celestron. I also purchased an accessories kit with extra eyepieces, filters and a 2x Barlow (on the off-chance that I ever upgrade my altazimuth mount for an equatorial mount for to make astrophotos and such, among which).
Admittedly, I struggled with the most basic first step in setting up my telescope: collimation. The included instructions were filled with many big words and satanic symbols, and I didn't really want to juggle a thesaurus, my phone set to Wikipedia and a bunch of telescope parts all at the same time. After a little frustration and some advice from my local astronomy club, however, I did finally manage to get an acceptable alignment between the primary and secondary mirrors, and discovered that my phone camera can actually take photos through the eyepieces, no matter how small the pinhole on the piece.
So last night I decided to bring my scope with me to work. Unfortunately, the entire sky was shrouded in clouds most the night, but around 0330 hours I got a lucky break, and for a good 20 minutes the sky was clear enough for me to drive down a dark service road and set up on the shoulder. I used the Super 10 long eye relief ocular included stock with the telescope and managed to capture a couple neat pictures of the Moon (waxing gibbous):
I also purchased a copy of Terence Dickinson's Nightwatch, which came highly recommended by members of the Cloudy Nights astronomy forum, along with a planisphere and some star charts for my region. It is a delightful read and I'm really glad I got it.
I know it was the most basic thing I could have started with, but it was still really exhilarating spotting the Moon through my telescope. It looked even better than in the pictures! I'm already excited to learn more about my equipment and how to use it properly and read the night sky.
Some things I know I need to do next: I still need to align the laser on the finderscope - it's currently aiming about 10 degrees higher than where the telescope is actually pointing, and I'd also like to build a "light shroud" to cover the hollow half of the scope where it collapses to further minimise the amount of light pollution messing with my secondary mirror (there's a few guides online where other OneSky owners used foam sheets from a craft store to create a tube insert that can collapse naturally with the rest of the scope).
So what about y'all? Any other Kiwis here into astronomy? Got any tips? Post your telescopes, astrophotography setups and other star shit here.
After staring into the void, the voices of a thousand amateur astronomers called out to me and told me that the most cost effective and functional telescope for a beginner to purchase is called the AWB OneSky 130mm Newtonian reflector, as pictured here below:
At a modest 5" in aperture (usually 6"-8" are recommended for beginners not on a budget), its primary mirror is still allegedly capable of catching the light of Jupiter, Mercury, Mars and even many deep space objects including star clusters and messiers. This telescope is a custom creation of the organisation, Astronomers Without Borders, and manufactured by Celestron. I also purchased an accessories kit with extra eyepieces, filters and a 2x Barlow (on the off-chance that I ever upgrade my altazimuth mount for an equatorial mount for to make astrophotos and such, among which).
Admittedly, I struggled with the most basic first step in setting up my telescope: collimation. The included instructions were filled with many big words and satanic symbols, and I didn't really want to juggle a thesaurus, my phone set to Wikipedia and a bunch of telescope parts all at the same time. After a little frustration and some advice from my local astronomy club, however, I did finally manage to get an acceptable alignment between the primary and secondary mirrors, and discovered that my phone camera can actually take photos through the eyepieces, no matter how small the pinhole on the piece.
So last night I decided to bring my scope with me to work. Unfortunately, the entire sky was shrouded in clouds most the night, but around 0330 hours I got a lucky break, and for a good 20 minutes the sky was clear enough for me to drive down a dark service road and set up on the shoulder. I used the Super 10 long eye relief ocular included stock with the telescope and managed to capture a couple neat pictures of the Moon (waxing gibbous):
I also purchased a copy of Terence Dickinson's Nightwatch, which came highly recommended by members of the Cloudy Nights astronomy forum, along with a planisphere and some star charts for my region. It is a delightful read and I'm really glad I got it.
I know it was the most basic thing I could have started with, but it was still really exhilarating spotting the Moon through my telescope. It looked even better than in the pictures! I'm already excited to learn more about my equipment and how to use it properly and read the night sky.
Some things I know I need to do next: I still need to align the laser on the finderscope - it's currently aiming about 10 degrees higher than where the telescope is actually pointing, and I'd also like to build a "light shroud" to cover the hollow half of the scope where it collapses to further minimise the amount of light pollution messing with my secondary mirror (there's a few guides online where other OneSky owners used foam sheets from a craft store to create a tube insert that can collapse naturally with the rest of the scope).
So what about y'all? Any other Kiwis here into astronomy? Got any tips? Post your telescopes, astrophotography setups and other star shit here.
