Well autumn is upon us in the UK, a time of mixed emotions and also mixed weather from wet and windy one day to a mild/warm sunny day the next. The positives are the colours of foliage as it gets ready to drop and also the evening temperatures which, similar to spring, let one sit outside and observe the night sky in relative comfort. When I reached 40, a few years ago, I treated myself to something I'd always wanted but never had the right environment to use, a telescope. I moved to an area where light pollution is relatively low and would be 100% ideal were it not for two caravan parks who like to be lit up like prison camps and also be visible from space. Somehow I don't think extra-terrestial intelligent life would want to land there. Its a sad waste of energy but I can still view about 75% of the sky in enough darkness to easily view the milky way. I may only bring the telescope out 5 or 6 times a year but when I do it always fills me with the wonder of my childhood where I read about the stars and planets in encyclopaedias etc. At certain points in the year particular objects i.e Saturn, Jupiter are easily observable. When I first saw Saturn through my telescope ( an 8-inch Skywatcher Newtonian Reflector ) I was blown away, it was a small image but it was real, not a stunning hubble or cassini view but a real observed view with low cost equipment. Surprisingly although the planets are excellent to view the moon, often taken for granted, is a fantastic object to observe. Its a beautiful object and even using a low magnification provides much to see and learn about with online moon maps etc easily available. One software package that I think represents all thats good in open source is Stellarium. For anyone starting out with an interest in astronomy I wholeheartedly recommend it. Another aspect of using the telescope that interested me was the ability to undertake astrophotography in my own amateur fashion. I'll probably cover this in a separate post but I've added the image below as an example of what I've managed with pretty humble equipment and minimal time. A hobby that could easily become expensive but my cycling interests keep it in check!
Our beautiful moon and easy to observe throughout many clear nights. This was taken using a Samsung GX-10 DSLR body attached to the Skywatcher telescope with an adaptor and barlow lens. The resulting image consists of 3 seperate images ( due to field of view limitations ) stitched together with matched exposures. Its nice to see the shadows cast by some of the isolated mountains considering its 250000mls away you get very sharp definition near the terminator/shadow line.
